• Discretionary Income - Money that people spend on items they want but do not need

•

GI Bill - legislation increased the amount of people in college and helped

people buy homes•

• The Fair Deal attempted to continue many New Deal policies

William J. Levitt contributed to the growth of suburbs by mass-producing

houses

The vast majority of new homes in the 1950s were built in the suburbs

People criticized the suburban lifestyle for

the sameness of the homes,

lack of privacy, decline of individuality

•Some

•

• Service Sector - Jobs such as insurance agents and financial advisors

• (not manufacturing a product)

• Automobiles were extremely important to the development of suburbs

Reasons people moved to the suburbs

• to escape the crime of cities

• to be nearer parks and woods• wanting larger lots

• To oppose Truman’s support of Civil Rights, some politicians formed the Dixiecrat Party

• Taft-Hartley Act- Overturned many rights won by unions during the New Deal

Baby Boom-

Causes of the baby boom– reunions of husbands & wives at the

end of WWII

– a decreasing marriage age & a strong desire for large families

– advances in medicine

Affect of the Baby Boom

–helped the economy

• Television was criticized in the 1950s for being too violent.

Dr. Benjamin Spock

• Encouraged-– Women staying at

home and raising kids

– Families having meetings so children could express themselves

– Government paying mothers to stay home

• Discouraged– Parents spanking

children

•

• American society in the 1950s expected women to manage the household

Dwight Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson for the presidency in 1952

President Dwight Eisenhower initiated the Interstate Highway System in 1956

• One lasting-effect of the major highway-building projects of the 1950s was less reliance on public transportation

• Richard Nixon made the Checkers Speech to make Americans realize that he was not involved a scandal in 1952.

In the 1950s, most Americans were for conformity

• Warminster and Southampton are examples of suburban areas that developed in the 1950s and 1960s.

• The group in the 1950s that opposed the conformity of American society was the Beatniks

• Ethel & Julius Rosenberg - the first espionage case in U.S. history where the guilty were executed

• When writing about “The Other America” Harrington was talking about the parts of American society that did not enjoy prosperity in the 1950s