The Affluent Fifties: Suburbia, Consumerism, and the LiberalConsensusI. Welcome to Levittown…a. Built ini. New Yorkii. New Jerseyiii. Philadelphiab. Assembly-line neighborhoodsi. Houses equipped with the latest appliancesc. 800,000 people bought housesII. Economic Growth in the 1950s and beyonda. GNP doublesb. Growth: the backdrop for US history 1950-70sc. What made all this growth happen?i. Cold War military spending1. the creation of “military-industrial complex”a. 10-15% of entire economy2. the Interstate Highway Systema. Federal Highway Act of 1956ii. Deliberate government policy1. the continuing influence of the New Deal idea of “activist government,’a. i.e. “liberalism”2. 1950s = “corporate liberalism”: anti-communist, corporate-friendly3. The “Liberal Consensus” = the bipartisan popularity of moderate, corporate liberalism in the 1950s and 60sa. Example: Dwight Eisenhower, John F. KennedyIII. 1950s Corporate Liberalism in Actiona. Highway construction and Federally-backed mortgagesi. Goal=stimulate housing industry, automobile industry, and thus much of the economy, resulting in better wages and more consumer spendingii. Mortgages and racial discrimination1. Federal Housing Authority (FHA)2. Suburbs almost all white3. Restrictive covenant kept people from selling their houses to African AmericansIV. “Hyperconsumerism”a. Credit cards and TV commercialsb. Consumerism as “Freedom”i. The “Kitchen Debate” (Moscow; 1959)1. Showing the soviets a modern American kitchen2. Nixon and Khrushchev have a debate about the usefulness of the appliancesV. Cultural Critics of Corporations, Consumerism and Suburbiaa. Sloan Wilson, Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (1955)b. C. Wright Mill, White Collar (1951)c. David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (1951)d. William Whyte, The Organization Man (1956)e. Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
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