Transcript The New Frontier and the Great Society

The New Frontier and the
Great Society
1960 Election and Kennedy
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1960 election
• John F. Kennedy vs Richard Nixon
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JFK offered support to Martin Luther King Jr.
• Kennedy wins
• Not a clear mandate
Camelot years
 Jacqueline Kennedy
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New Frontier
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Program to explore space, help civil rights
and to address poverty
• Medical care for the aged
• Rebuild bad areas
• Help education
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Did boost the economy
Increased minimum wage
Peace Corps
Asked Americans to work for freedom and
justice throughout the world
New Frontier Continued
Alliance for
Progress
 NASA
 Poverty remained
a problem- book
The Other America
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Domestic Programs
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Improve the economy
• Took steps to lower inflation and reduce
unemployment
Voluntary price and wage controls
 Steel industry- workers agreed to small
increase in wages, the industry increased
prices
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• FTC investigated US Steel, so they lowered prices
• Tax cut
• Republicans and southern Democrats
fought against the cost of programs
Cold War
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Military policy
• Flexible response
• Green Beret’s
• Cuba
Bay of Pigs
 Fidel Castro
 Started under Eisenhower
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• failure
Berlin
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Berlin Wall- August 31, 1961
• 27 mile barrier
Hot line
 Limited Test Ban Treaty
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Cuban Missile Crisis
Nikita Khrushchev and the Soviet
Union
 Fidel Castro in Cuba
 Robert McNamara
 13 days
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Tragedy
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November 22, 1963 Assassination of
JFK
• Lee Harvey Oswald
• Jack Ruby
• Warren Commission
Lyndon B. Johnson
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Entered politics in 1937 in the House
Supported the New Deal
• FDR aided him
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Received key assignments in Congress
Became Senate Majority leader by playing
politics and became a force to reckon with
• Helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957- the
first piece of civil rights legislation since
Reconstruction
Great Society
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Johnson urged to pass civil rights bills and
tax cuts
• $10 billion tax reduction
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People spent more, federal budget deficit lowered
Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination
based on race, religion, national origin and sex. The
federal government would enforce it.
War on Poverty- to alleviate it
• Economic Opportunity Act- $1 billion for youth
programs, antipoverty measures, small
business loans, and job training
War on Poverty
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Created
• Job Corps Youth Training Program
• Volunteers in Service to America
• Project Head Start
• Community Action Program
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Later because of opportunity cost will
lose money
1964 Election
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Democrats chose LBJ, Republicans
chose Barry Goldwater
• Goldwater believed the federal
government should not help the poor
• Most people believed the government
should help solve problems
• Goldwater also wanted to use nukes on
Cuba and North Vietnam and to
intervene, Johnson did not
• LBJ won by a landslide
Great Society
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“The Great Society is a place where every child
can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to
enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is
a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a
feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a
place where the city of man serves not only the
needs of the body and the demands of commerce
but the desire for beauty and the hunger for
community. It is a place where man can renew
contact with nature. It is a place which honors
creation for its own sake and for what it adds to
the understanding of the race.” The Great
Society May 22, 1964.
Johnson Foreign Policy
Vietnam War
 Sent marines in Dominican Republic
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• Withdrew troops in 1966
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Opposed to communist aggression
Warren Court
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Wave of liberal reform
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Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
Prayer
Loyalty oaths
Censor books and films, free speech
Reapportionment
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Baker v. Carr
Reynolds V. Sims
Mapp v. Ohio
Gideon v. Wainwright
Escobedo v. Illinois
Miranda v. Arizona
Science- Space Race
1959 seven astronauts were selected
to be part of space program
 Alan Shepard Jr.- first American to
enter space Mercury
 John Glenn- first American to orbit
Earth
 Apollo 11- July 20, 1969 Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
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Environment
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Dangers in the environment
Rachel Carson- Silent Spring
• DDT – feared that it would harm humans
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Later found correct
Lawyer Ralph Nader raised concern about
dangers to consumers
• Automobiles and unsafe design
• National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act
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Safety standards for all cars sold in the US
• Also looked at baby food, gas pipelines, land
use and meat industry