Transcript RAHH Day 10 `08 agenda 50s culture changes

RAH Day 10 Agenda
Goal – to understand that US social and economic culture following
WWII changed and adapted to the post-war world and has many
similarities to today
1. Questions from homework
2. Complete Unit 2 Packet page 2 car culture and teens– Review
3. Analyze Cartoon about Suburbs and answer related questions Packet
page 3
4. Complete chart analysis of the Baby boom - Packet page 4-5
5. Reading Comprehension Packet page 6 – The Organization Man answer
questions 1-3
6. Discuss criticisms of the 50s culture bottom of page 2
7. Identify the paradox inherent in life in the 50s, including paradoxes of the
criticisms
8. How does this chapter reflect your lives today?
Rise of Suburbs
We Don't Want Another Agnew
• With Election Day only eight weeks away, Sarah Palin is the least
vetted member of a presidential ticket in recent history. The
McCain team, of course, wants to keep it that way -- since the
image they’re created of Palin as the reincarnation of Ronald
Reagan and Betty Crocker seems to be a winner.
• The press can’t let that happen.
• We fell for that trick once before, and America hasn’t
experienced a similar political nightmare since 1973. Lest
we forget, another Republican presidential nominee pulled the
same stunt that John McCain is trying to perform this year.
Cultural social and economic changes in the 50s
Causes
Description
effects
Returning soldiers
Positive view of future
Social pressures to get
married & have kids
Delayed marriage due to
depression and war while
younger people got
married
Medical advances
Economic prosperity
Baby boom
Large number of children
born from 1946 to 1964.
Largest generation in
terms of birth rate and
number of children born
(the current generation is
bigger by number, but
smaller by birth rate
Changes in baby and
childcare (Spock)
Housing and school
crunch leads to boom in
building each
New industries to cater
to the new generation ie
toys, games
Late fifties teen culture
Advertising, suburbia,
economic growth leading
to widespread prosperity,
social pressures to beat
the Joneses, easy credit
Rise of consumerism
People buying lots of
stuff that make life easier
and more enjoyable
Economic boom, 2
income households
building malls, consumer
society equates stuff w/
class, minority feelings of
relative deprivation, debt
Cultural social and economic changes in the 50s
Causes
Description
effects
Levittowns and other
developments made low
cost housing for middle
class, GI Bill, FHA loans,
changes in the tax code,
returning soldiers having
babies, TV &
entertainment defined
the American Dream
Rise of suburbs
Large #’s of people
moving to areas outside
cities to larger plots of
land, newer schools,
safer neighborhoods,
privacy
Decline of cities and their
tax base, services
moving out to suburbs,
weakened public
transport, malls,
suburban sprawl,
pollution, 85% of new
homes after ’48 built in
suburbs, commuting to
cities
Prosperity
Access to capital
Defense industries
Better educated workers
global trade begins
Rise of Corp. Am.
Consolidation vertically &
horizontally of the means
of production in to the
hands of a few – 53% of
income earned by 600
firms
Increased productivity by
using technology and
economy of scale,
concentration of wealth
& income, homogenized
of jobs & products,
increased investment and
political power of
defense contractors
Cultural social and economic changes in the 50s
Causes
Description
effects
Prosperity and economic
growth, GI Bill education,
automation &
technology, consumer
demand and product
diversification
Changes in labor
Fewer blue-collar jobs,
more white-collar jobs,
more specialized skills
needed, more service
jobs
Decline in blue-unions,
small increase in whiteunion members, more
low-paying white collar,
good relations b/t
business & labor begat
better health & pension
benefits, origin of union
decline,
Television, fear of
communism, reaction to
consumerism, promotion
of American values &
reassurances in a time of
fear of communism &
loss of security due to
rapid changes
Religion
Large increase in church
attendance and
membership, TV
preachers, growth in
bible sales, public
displays of religiosity,
“Under God” ’54 & “In
“God We Trust” ‘55
Religious movies,
televangelists having
social and political
influence, but not
necessarily an increase in
a deep commitment to
faith commensurate with
the large increase in
public religiosity
Cultural social and economic changes in the 50s
Causes
Description
effects
Rise of suburbia
Advertising
Consumer society of
status awareness
Innovations
prosperity
Car Culture
Cars become the center
of transportation and a
symbol of prosperity
Interstate Highway Act,
malls, drive-ins, travel,
mobility of families,
homogenization,
competition, jobs,
weakening of cities,
pollution, decline of
public transportation
Baby boom
Prosperity
TV
Growth of compulsory
high school education
Consumerism and
marketing
Teen Culture
Generational separation
of music, arts, cinema,
fashion and attitudinal
values of young people
from older people
Desegregation of music,
popularity of rock’n’roll,
concern about juvenile
delinquency, promotion
of post-materialist
values, greater sexual
“freedom”
The Baby Boom
1. Births dropped from 1943 to 1944 and from 1944 to 1945
2. Returning soldiers, changing attitudes about sex, marriage, and the
future, economic prosperity.
3. a) 4.3 = millions of births
b) 4.6 = millions of total new people in population (births and
immigration)
c) 1.66 = millions of deaths
d) (4.6m new people – 1.66 m deaths = 2.94 million person increase in
population in 1959.
4. Births dropped more than immigration rose, resulting in a net decease in
the number of total new people.
5. 1st year number of births dropped below 1946 levels was in 1972, but
1964 was the last year before significant drop in births, as well as last
year before # of births dropped below 4 million and the birth rate
dropped below 20/1000
6. Death rose consistently slowly. births rose steeply, then dropped big
The Organization Man
1. A. O-man works in a hierarchical organization
where he is not at the top, but hopes to be able to
move up.
B. He lives in the suburbs in middle class
neighborhoods
C. works in a collective for the betterment of the
organization but loathes the word collective
D. Has given himself to the org. giving up
individuality, family and spirit
E. Extols the idea of individuality while not having
any
F. Is aware of the lack of control in his life but is
delusional about his relationship between the
reality of the collective and individuality
2. The protestant work ethic of the individual for individual gain does not jive
with the demands and facts of the organization collective
The Organization Man
The conflict between the American value of
individualism and the fact of organization
life is that:
 individualism is not workable in a
hierarchical organizational environment
like corporate America or big bureaucracy
government, university or research work.
The organization environment is a collective, similar to the
collectivism of communist USSR.
Since the two cannot work together, the organization man deluded
himself into thinking that he was an individual, that he was not part of a
collective – which of course was really not correct.
Criticisms of the ’50s culture
Religious leaders – thought that the culture was getting away from
traditional American values because there was the promotion of sex,
gender role changes, the evil of greed, covetousness through
advertising and consumerism and increased violence in media.
Writers/artists – thought that the culture was too conformist and
stifling, too homogenized, lacking in creativity and individuality – too
bland.
Sociologists – thought there was too much peer pressure, too inner
directed with individualized goals rather than social communal and
outer-directed goals. They believed there was a loss of individual
personality due the need to work within an organization system
Paradoxes
Critics complained of homogenization, which occurred simultaneously to
greater choices of books, magazines movies and artistic activities;
and simultaneously to the angst about an invasion of communist
ideology that would make people be the same.
The affluence promoted on television belied the 25% poverty rate and
while promoting homogenization and conformity, also promoted
dissatisfaction leading less to consensus but to racial and gender
and class and generational conflict
While celebrating universal values of freedom, god, prosperity, equality,
suburbia and the expectation of progress, the reality was that many
were kept from all of these things and that behind the scenes and
behind closed doors people behaved differently.