HIST 1312 1st Edition Lecture 14 Outline of Last Lecture I The Cold War Begins a Truman and the Soviets b The Division of Europe c A Global Presence II The Korean War a The UN Responds to Communist Aggression b Seeking to Liberate North Korea c Truman and Liberalism d The 1948 Election III Cold War Politics a Election b The Second Red Scare Outline of Current Lecture I The Best of Times a Suburban and Consumer Culture b Family Culture c Another View of Suburbia II Politics of Consensus These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute a The Middle Path III Seeking Civil Rights a The Brown Decision b The Montgomery Bus Boycot c Ike and Civil Rights d The Soviets and Cold World Politics Current Lecture Quest for Consensus 1952 1960 I The Best of Times a Suburban and Consumer Culture People wanted to live in the suburbs and all levels of government made it possible o The Federal Highway Act of 1956 provided 32 billion over thirteen years to build a national highway system o Shopping centers lured stores and businesses away to areas where parking was not a problem o As Americans sought the pleasant life in suburbia the urban core deteriorated at an accelerating rate The suburban market was a result of expanding purchasing power made possible by higher wages and readily expanding credit o The Diner s Club credit card made its debut and American Express soon followed o Credit purchases leaped from 8 4 billion in 1946 to over 44 billion in 1958 o To enjoy the good life Americans were buying not only necessities but luxury items such as record players records and recreational equipment o Many of these nonessential items and even some of the basic goods incorporated a new dimension of marketing planned obsolescence in which a product is designed to be discarded and replaced by a newer model within a short period of time b Family Culture With or without Madison Avenue Mall ads many Americans were sure that they were living in the best of all possible times o At the center of those feelings lay the economy the home the family and the church o Religion with an emphasis on family life enjoyed a new popularity in the 1950s reflecting Eisenhower s view that everybody should have a religious faith After the disruptions of depression and war family took on a renewed importance the divorce rate slowed and the number of marriages and births climbed as the baby boom continued o The home was the center of togetherness and was reinforced by the portrayal of happy families in popular television shows o Reality however rarely matched television s images c Another View of Suburbia Unlike the wives shown on television more and more women were working many even though they had young children o Some desired careers but the majority worked to ensure their families existing standard of living Not all homemakers were happy and men also showed signs of being less than satisfied with the popular role of suburban dad II Politics of Consensus a The Middle Path Eisenhower called himself a modern Republican and labeled his approach dynamic conservatism conservative when it comes to money and liberal when it comes to human beings By July 1953 Eisenhower s atomic diplomacy had worked in ending the Korean conflict and left the Asian nation divided by a demilitarized zone DMZ This allowed the president to cut the military budget This middle path produced budget cuts and reduced federal involvement Following the launching of the Soviet space satellite Sputnik I 1957 Eisenhower quoted national security needs to support spending more federal money on education III Seeking Civil Rights a The Brown Decision In 1954 the Supreme Court accepted NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall s argument that separate but equal was inherently unequal in Brown v Board of Education Topeka Kansas o He stressed that segregated educational facilities even if physically similar could never yield equal products o This decision raised a loud cry of protest from white southerners who vowed to resist segregation by using all means possible including violence While both political parties were carefully dancing around civil rights blacks made it increasingly difficult for politicians to avoid the issue o Eisenhower was forced to face the issue in the effort to integrate Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas o Ike nationalized the Arkansas National Guard and dispatched one thousand troops to uphold the law and restore order But in many communities meaningful integration was still years away as many white students fled the integrated public schools to attend private ones that were beyond the reach of federal courts b The Montgomery Bus Boycot In 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus so that a white man could sit and was arrested o African American community leaders including Martin Luther King Jr called for a boycot of the buses to begin on the day of her court appearance The boycot was 90 percent effective and stretched into days weeks and months o Even in the face of personal atack and growing white hostility King remained calm reminding supporters to avoid violence and maintain the boycot o A patern of nonviolent resistance had been initiated and a new civil rights organization the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formed c Ike and Civil Rights Personally Eisenhower believed that the government especially the executive branch had litle role in integration The Civil Rights Act of 1957 provided for the formation of a Civil Rights Commission and opened the possibility of using federal suits to ensure voter rights o In 1960 Congress passed a voting rights act that mandated the use of the courts to guarantee enforcement d The Soviets and Cold War Politics Eisenhower feared and opposed the spread of Communist influence throughout the world but realized that deterrence was only one tactic to limit Soviet power and avoid nuclear confrontation o A second way to improve Soviet American relations was to reduce the expanding arms race and limit points of conflict After the Soviet takeover of Hungary in 1956 however the spirit of cooperation between the two superpowers faded On May 1 1960 an American U 2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union and its pilot was captured o Eisenhower took full responsibility but refused to apologize o Khrushchev withdrew from the Five Power Summit and Eisenhower canceled his trip to the Soviet