Social, Political and Economic Conditions in the 1950s-1960s - Essay Example

The 1950s Into the 1960s Social, Political and Economic Conditions The post World War II conditions of the 1950s made America ripe for social, political and economic evolution and revolution in the 1960s. In the post World War II environment, America was a country in crisis. There was an immediate post-war need to confront the economic trauma in a post World War II environment – with women losing their war-time factory jobs to men – and from the loss of military income to families, and a housing shortage that existed in America immediately after the war. President Roosevelt addressed these problems with his New Deal legislation, which created programs for employment and housing.1 Harry Truman, who followed Roosevelt’s presidency, continued Roosevelt’s New Deal initiatives with “. . . a full employment bill, a higher minimum wage, national housing legislation, an extension of Social Security, and a new public works program, and the establishment of a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission.”2 Truman introduced to Congress a twenty-one point program, but only two of his proposals passed the conservative Congress.3 However, after the 1948 election, with a liberal Congress in place, “Liberalism was vindicated,”4 Many of Truman’s twenty-one points were passed, and Truman called for Congress to pass an increase in the Federal Income Tax of $4 billion dollars to pay for it.5 By the time the 1950 New Year rolled in, America was experiencing an economic forward plunge. There would perhaps never be better times for Americans than the economic and political abundance of the 1950s. Far From Perfect During the 1950s, there was a housing boom,6 along with a baby boom,7 and America settled into an atmosphere of post-war comfort and focusing on the task of working and raising families. It was, too, during these years where middle class America experienced abundance and growth, that the cultural, political, economic and social disparities between blacks and whites in America began emerging as dark cloud over America. It seemed that Americans were pursuing the American dream, and that all was Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best.8 When Eisenhower was elected president in 1953, there was a loud and clear Black voice speaking up in America, and though it was not strong enough to swing the election in favor of Democrats, Black America had aligned itself with the Democratic platform.9 Seventy-three percent of the Black vote went to the Democratic candidate that voting year.10 Although there would be much unrest in the American south as a result of an emerging Black identity and leadership, it would not be until the 1960s before the movement gained the momentum and leadership it needed to progress, and gain political, social, and economic rights for Black Americans. There was, too, during the 1950s, the Cold War paranoia that gripped the nation. The late 1940s and early 1950s was the era of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, who turned post World War II anti-communism into a national hysteria and paranoia.11 “History identifies McCarthy as the nefarious link to America’s dark side, the personification of the weakness in the American character and in the democratic system itself.”12 In terms of the destruction McCarthy’s anti-communism witch hunts caused in the lives of public personalities and private citizens that might be considered an understatement. By 1950, the McCarthy hearings were being televised on the newest post war technological convenience – television.13 Television drastically altered the lives of Americans, bringing them closer to the political arena that had seemed to many to be far removed from middle America. In the background, there were diversions from the serious business of the Cold War, Civil Rights and television. It was something that sweeping the nation, being driven by young men with names like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly.14 Probably few people at that time suspected the impact that rock-n-roll would have on America. The main changes in America that began manifesting themselves in the 1950s, and which would continue well into the 1960s, and those changes that helped set the stage for what was about to occur in America were communication with the American people via television, the Civil Rights Movement that was only beginning to pick up momentum, and the Cold War and anti-communist sentiment which, like the Civil Rights Movement, would pick up momentum during the 1960s. Also, contributing to that which was about to come to America during the 1960s was something probably few people ever considered would have the drastic effect on America that it did; rock-n-roll. The 1960s By the time the 1960s rolled in, America was in full throttle change. “The decade began with the election of JF Kennedy as the President of the United States. He won by the narrowest margins – some 120,000 votes over his rival Richard Nixon.”15 The birth control pill was introduced, first, in the UK, and then, later, in the States.16 “The pill,” would alter the role of women in America, giving them control over their reproductive choices, and empowering them in a way that they had not previously been empowered. In 1964, the group that would make history in Europe and America was introduced, The Beatles, and while they began as “the fab four,” they, too, would evolve during the 1960s and become icons of an era that came to represent anti-war, protest, and enormous social change in America. President Kennedy responded to the anti-communism sentiment by supporting an attempted coup in Cuba in what became known as the Bay of Pigs incident. It was an incident where, in 1960, the same year Kennedy was elected president, 1500 CIA trained insurgents landed at the Bay of Cochinos, with the goal of overthrowing Cuba’s Communist dictator, Fidel Castro.17 Kennedy accepted full responsibility for the incident, but continued to enjoy strong support by America’s middle class. Later, Kennedy had a more serious face off with the Cuban dictator during what is recognized as the Cuban Missile Crisis; when the Soviet Union staged nuclear missiles in Cuba aimed at the United States.18 It was as close to World War III as the world would come, and it turned into a showdown between Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nakita Khruschev, who relented in return for a promise that America would not attempt further invasion of Cuba.19 It was President Kennedy, too, who took Americans and the American military to Vietnam.20 Unfortunately, the president as assassinated in 1963, in Dallas, Texas.21 The president’s death would leave the country in a state of shock, mourning, and, when Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was inaugurated, the Vietnam “conflict” would escalate and become the cause for a radical youth movement in America that would bring about political change in such a way as the country could never have anticipated. Television brought the Vietnam war into the American living room, inundating Americans with images of death and destruction. Never before, never since, were Americans so divided as they were during the Vietnam war. What began as a strong middle class sentiment and support for the war, quickly deteriorated into a revolution against the war led by America’s young people, children of the World War II veterans.22 The 1960s was a decade of “movements,” the “peace movement,” the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement,23 the avant garde with artists like Andy Warhol,24 writers like Truman Capote, and anti-war activists and philosophers like Abbey Hoffman.25 Not to mention, of course, that dropping acid, the psychedelic experience, was being celebrated by America’s youth, and memorialized by Tom Wolfe, in his book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.26 By the time the 1970s rolled in, and the war in Vietnam was de-escalating, America had changed forever. Those times, some say, are directly responsible for an America without morals today, and some wonder if America will survive.27 Works Cited "1960-1969." The Washington Times 30 Aug. 1999: 10. Questia. 16 Mar. 2007 . Anderson, M. Christine. "Moving the Mountain: The Womens Movement in America since 1960." Michigan Historical Review 26.1 (2000): 153+. Questia. 16 Mar. 2007 . Bennett, William J. "America at Risk: Can We Survive without Moral Values?." USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education) Nov. 1994: 14+. Questia. 16 Mar. 2007 . "THE DECADE - 1960s: 1960-1969." The Birmingham Post (England) 1 Jan. 2000: 36. Questia. 16 Mar. 2007 . Donaldson, Gary A. Abundance and Anxiety: America, 1945-1960. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1997. Questia. 16 Mar. 2007 . Henriksen, M., (2004), Dr. Strangelove’s America: Society/Culture in Atomic Age, University of California Press. Rifkin, Libbie. "Andy Warhol, Poetry and Gossip in the 1960s." Criticism 40.4 (1998): 647. Questia. 16 Mar. 2007 http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001402909>. Wolf, Tom (1968), The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Mandala Books. Read More