The PostWar Boom: Americans as a "People of Plenty"

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The Post-War Boom Americans as a "People of
Plenty"

• History 203
• April 30, 2007

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Accessing the PowerPointsAlternative Method

• Ive posted the presentations for this class in
  html format, which you can view in your browser.
  (Internet Explorer works best.) As I understand
  it, you cant download those files.
• However, if you have Microsoft PowerPoint on your
  computer, you can download the presentations for
  this course. Ive now put each classs
  presentation on the web in PowerPoint form. If
  you go to these URLs, you can open or save the
  file to your computer. Ill continue to post
  these alternative URLs on the syllabus.
• PowerPoint versions Apr. 2 Apr. 4 Apr. 9
  Apr. 11 Apr. 16 Apr. 18 Apr. 23 Apr. 25
  Apr. 30

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Announcements

• Please give your Scopes Trial papers to your
  discussion section leader.
• Hard copies of the midterm exam essay questions
  and instructions are being distributed. Theyre
  online at www.uoregon.edu/dapope/203midtermessays
  --sp07.htm
• 3. Students doing an environmental studies
  project on climate change will administer a short
  survey. Theyll explain what theyre doing at the
  start of todays class.

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Some websites on post-war American Society

• A brief history of shopping centers
• A cultural history of suburban Levittown
• 2002 Walter Cronkite radio documentary on the
  impact of Soviet satellite Sputnik
• A global history of television website
• Three days of audio from the Army-McCarthy
  Hearings of 1954 (from C-Span)
• Large site on history of television sets

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Douglas MacArthur Video Excerpt

• Today Ill show an excerpt from a biographical
  documentary about last Wednesdays biographical
  subject, General Douglas MacArthur. The excerpt
  deals with MacArthurs role in postwar Japan, his
  military strategy during the Korean War, and his
  confrontation with President Harry Truman.

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MacArthur and the Korean War

• Korea from Japanese colony to divided country
• Communist North Korea attacks South Korea, June
  1950
• MacArthur lands at Inchon, pushes N. Korea back,
  near the border with China
• Nov. 1950China enters the war, US and South
  Korea retreat
• Early 1951 Military situation stabilizes
• For a series of Korean war maps, see
  http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/maps/korea.
  html

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MacArthur and Truman

• MacArthur objects to Trumans interest in a
  negotiated truce, wants more aggressive measures
• April 1951 Truman removes MacArthur from his
  command
• MacArthurs speech to Congress Old Soldiers
  Never Die (Audio and text at http//americanrheto
  ric.com/speeches/douglasmacarthurfarewelladdress.h
  tm)

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The Meaning of General MacArthur

• From peacetime army to Military-Industrial
  Complex
• An Asia First strategy for the USA? (MacArthur
  said, The history of the world will be written
  in the Pacific for the next 10000 years.Europe
  is a dying system
• Civilian and Military Relations in a Democracy.
  Was MacArthur a dictator in the making?

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Wartime Anxieties and the Postwar Boom

• Depression Fears
• John Maynard Keynes and the lesson of planned
  deficits
• A Military-industrial complex and Military
  Keynesianism
• National Security Council-68 (NSC-68) (on line
  here)
• This 1950 document called for a rapid build-up
  of political, economic and military strength in
  the free world.
• Baby boom and economic boom

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Faces of the Baby Boom
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(No Transcript)
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Baby Boom in Numbers
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The Post-War Boom Lives Transformed

• Suburbia Utopia, Escape, or Confinement?
• Consumerism
• Higher Education
• Television

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Levittown, New York
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The New Sport and Science of Shopping

• Marketings new weapons of mass distraction
• What makes the consumer tick?
• Shopping Centers The new public square?

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Southdale Mall, Minneapolis, 1956
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Mall of America, Minneapolis
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Education

• Expansion of high school education
• The G.I. Bill, Higher Education and the emergence
  of the Multiversity
• Percentage of 18-24 year olds enrolled in higher
  education
• 194010 195014 196022 197032
• Democracy and elitism in a Learning Society
• The Sputnik Effect

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Clark Kerr on the Role of the Modern University,
1958

• In conclusion, the university over the centuries
  has moved from its role as the guardian of the
  past to that of the explorer of the future and
  in this transition it has become one of the great
  focal points of human endeavor. To create new
  knowledge, to train the men and women who can use
  this new knowledge to make this knowledge
  comprehensible and thus the servant rather than
  the master of men, to help men know the values
  this knowledge should be made to serve--these are
  the great tasks of the university in the
  advancing industrial society that is swooping
  around the world. These are the tasks of the
  University of California in an age when the worth
  of intellect is more apparent than ever
  before--an age of the most fabulous unfolding of
  the human mind in history. This can be a truly
  Golden Age in the life of the University of
  California during what may yet become a Golden
  Age for mankind.
• From Kerrs inaugural address as President of the
  University of California

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Berkeley Campus 1940 and Today
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GI Bill of RightsEducation Benefit for Veterans
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Television

• Television An educator in spite of itself?
• Television a cool medium?
• Television and politics in the 1950s
• Kefauver Committee and Organized Crime, 1951
• The Army-McCarthy Hearings of 1954

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Mobster Joe Adonis watches Testimony of Mobster
Frank Costello Sen. Kefauvers Organized Crime
Hearings, 1951
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Army-McCarthy Hearings, 1954 The Growing Power
of Television
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In later life Zworykin one of TVs inventors
lamented the way television had been abused to
titillate and trivialize subjects rather than for
the educational and cultural enrichment of
audiences. I hate what they've done to my
child... I would never let my own children watch
it.