Key Terms Levittown Consensus cid 127 Montgomery Bus Boycott I Levittown Suburbs A 50 of the global economy is in the US 1 The average American is making 15 more than the average European 2 Very little inflation and very little unemployment B Incredible affluence 1 Residential construction 2 Consumer spending 3 Military spending C Suburbs D Bill Levitt 1 Builds Levittown a WWII ends they have a lot of money and can finally spend it 1 Beginning in 1950s people move out of cities and into suburbs 2 Creates incredibly cheap housing in the middle of nowhere thousands of houses 3 Housing shortage after WWII ends 4 Young people and their young families living out in the suburbs 5 Houses look all the same filled with new appliances and television E Federal Housing Authority 1 Gives people ways to buy homes 2 Helps back private lenders incredibly generous financing terms 3 Tax code allows people to write off on their mortgage payments a Owning rather than renting becomes more desirable bc you can t write off on your monthly rent F Interstate Highway Act of 1956 1 Encourages people to think about buying cars 2 Changes Americas landscape 3 Makes it easier to live in suburbs far away from cities G Suburban ideal 1 Women are housewives take care of children always smiling and happy families 2 Suburbs don t fit reality a Incredibly isolated and lonely in Levittown 3 Number of women mothers working increases in the 1950s a Not working in good jobs most women work in low wage non union jobs b Sales work service industry nurses secretaries elementary school teachers c Weren t admitted to graduate schools to get degrees so they couldn t get better jobs H Suburbs are very white 1 Of the 18 000 people who live in Levittown not a single one is of color 2 Levitt won t sell to anyone who isn t white has restrictive covenants written into buying papers 3 Redlining if you live in a town that is labeled red you won t be lent money to buy a home II 50s are a time of consensus agreement A Both political parties agree on most platforms B A lot of people didn t like this conformity 1 There are so many teenagers because of the baby boom 2 Highest number of people go to high school a Dress differently use slang listen to rock n roll b Trying to break through 50s conformity 3 Rock n roll appears to undermine a lot of American values a Euphemism for sex b Made parents very worried sex becomes very prevalent c Racial implications black music white audiences C Playboy magazine comes out 1 Hefner offers an alternative to men they can imagine a different world male liberation 2 Hedonistic world of enjoyment without making any commitments 3 There is a freer life out there besides suburbia magazine allows them to imagine a different world 4 Removes barriers of sexual expression D Rock N Roll Beatnik movement cid 127 cid 127 1 American teenagers question their parents world III Civil Rights Movement A Conformity allows segregation to continue B African Americans start challenging the rhetoric C Montgomery Bus Boycott 1 Uses Rosa Parks as the face of its movement 3 Media matters in civil rights struggle 2 Blacks decide they re not going to ride the buses until things change huge economic pressure on bus systems
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