Post-War Prosperity and Cold War Fear, 1945–1960

This is Unit Thirteen, part two, on the Red Scare's peak, the suburbs, the new culture, and the two arcs of civil rights. Part one closed with Alger Hiss and a young congressman named Nixon, and pointed to a physicist in a British prison. Carry one habit through this part: set the decade's image beside its record. The suburbs were affordable, and closed by design. Wives were told to stay home, and many went to work. And the civil rights movement did not begin with Rosa Parks; this part lays its two arcs side by side. By the end you will be able to hold the sources' asymmetry on the Rosenbergs. To trace McCarthy's rise and fall. To explain how highways and suburbs built postwar prosperity, and whom Levittown excluded. To compare the decade's image of family and conformity with its numbers. And to explain the two arcs of civil rights and the first breakthroughs before Brown.

Five entries on spies and a senator: a physicist, a couple sent to the electric chair, and McCarthy from Wheeling to censure.

Klaus Fuchs.

USH2 1825 Klaus Fuchs

In nineteen fifty the German-born physicist Klaus Fuchs, a veteran of the Manhattan Project, was imprisoned in Britain for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets, and the information he gave the British implicated a number of American citizens, the anchor notes. The next entry follows where that trail led.

The Rosenbergs.

USH2 1826 The Rosenbergs

In nineteen fifty-one Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, and in June nineteen fifty-three both were executed. The anchor says they were executed despite a lack of evidence against them, and that decades later evidence confirmed that Julius had passed information to the Soviets, and did not confirm it of Ethel. The sources do not fully agree. The Yawp says the case has proven the test of time, citing a co-conspirator's admission in two thousand eight. Digital History judges it likely that Ethel was at most a minor participant. The course holds the anchor's asymmetry: Julius's espionage was later confirmed; Ethel's was not, and she was executed.

Senator McCarthy.

USH2 1827 McCarthy at Wheeling

On February ninth, nineteen fifty, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin claimed in a speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, to hold a list of two hundred five Communists in the State Department, waving a sheet of paper, the Yawp records, as he spoke. Digital History records his later charge that the Truman administration was riddled with subversion.

The hearings that ended his career.

USH2 1828 The Army-McCarthy Hearings

From April to June nineteen fifty-four the Army-McCarthy hearings were televised, and twenty million people watched over thirty-six days, the Yawp records, seeing his intimidation and innuendo firsthand, the anchor says. The army's counsel Joseph Welch asked him, in the Yawp's quotation, have you no sense of decency, sir?

The censure.

USH2 1829 Censure

On December second, nineteen fifty-four, the Senate voted sixty-seven to twenty-two to condemn McCarthy's conduct, ending his prospects for political leadership. CBS's Edward R. Murrow had told viewers, the Yawp records, that McCarthy had given considerable comfort to America's enemies, and that he did not create the fear, but exploited it. That judgement is the subject of this unit's last entry, in part three.

Five entries on Eisenhower's America: a middle ground, the highways, the suburbs, Levittown, and the Sunbelt.

Eisenhower.

USH2 1830 Eisenhower's Middle Ground

Dwight Eisenhower, elected in nineteen fifty-two over Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson, sought a middle ground between liberalism and conservatism, the anchor says, balancing the budget while keeping the New Deal and expanding Social Security, a Republican president extending the programme of unit eleven. Unit eleven's settlement survived a change of party.

The interstate highways.

USH2 1831 The Interstate Highways

In nineteen fifty-six Eisenhower authorised the interstate highway system, forty-six thousand three hundred miles with the federal government paying ninety percent of the cost, which Digital History calls the largest public works project in the history of the world. It adds that the highways slashed through city neighbourhoods and eased white flight to the suburbs.

The suburbs.

USH2 1832 The Suburbs

In the nineteen fifties the suburbs grew by forty-six percent, and homeownership rose from forty-three point six percent in nineteen forty to almost sixty-two in nineteen sixty, with eleven of every thirteen new homes of the decade after nineteen forty-eight built in the suburbs, by Digital History's count. The Federal Housing Administration, the Yawp notes, insured mortgages and eased lending terms.

Levittown.

USH2 1833 Levittown

William Levitt built the first Levittown on Long Island in nineteen forty-six, the Yawp records, buying large tracts, subdividing lots and building at scale to sell affordable homes to veterans and their families. The anchor adds that Levitt wrote clauses into his sales agreements so that only White families could buy. Both halves are true at once. The houses were affordable, and the Federal Housing Administration and the GI Bill made them more so; and the communities were closed to Black veterans by design. In May nineteen forty-eight, Digital History records, the Supreme Court ruled that restrictive covenants barring sales to Black and Jewish buyers could not be enforced in court.

The Sunbelt.

USH2 1834 The Sunbelt

During the war, Digital History records, Washington invested almost nine billion dollars in the South and seventy billion in the western states, raising defence plants, shipyards and refineries, with over half the western money flowing to California, and laying the ground for the Sunbelt. In nineteen fifty, Digital History notes, California was the size of Pennsylvania.

Three entries on families and conformity, where the decade's image and its numbers disagree.

The baby boom.

USH2 1835 The Baby Boom

Between nineteen forty-six and nineteen sixty-four married couples produced the largest generation in American history to that time, the baby boomers, with men marrying first at twenty-three on average, and women at twenty. The Yawp says the cause was more than returning soldiers: prosperity, larger homes, earlier marriage and a culture celebrating the large family.

Women's lives in the decade.

USH2 1836 The Image and the Numbers

The culture of the nineteen fifties urged wives home, yet forty percent of mothers of young children, and half of mothers of older ones, sought at least part-time work, the anchor records. The image and the numbers disagree, and the anchor gives both.

The critics of conformity.

USH2 1837 Critics of Conformity

In his best-selling book The Organization Man, William H. Whyte challenged the belief that conforming was the surest route to success and fulfilment, in a decade of suburban rules on the kinds of clotheslines residents could use and bans on cars parked on the street. The Yawp describes the decade as new liberating lifestyles alongside stifling conformity.

Two entries: the satellite that alarmed the country, and a president's farewell warning.

Sputnik.

USH2 1838 Sputnik

In October nineteen fifty-seven the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first manmade satellite, and federal support for research surged, with the National Defense Education Act of September nineteen fifty-eight putting over seven hundred seventy-five million dollars into education over four years. The anchor ties the new money to research with potential military uses.

Eisenhower's farewell warning.

USH2 1839 The Military-Industrial Complex

In his farewell address of January seventeenth, nineteen sixty-one, Eisenhower warned against the growing influence of a military-industrial complex, in the anchor's definition the network of relationships between Defense Department officials and defence industry executives, all benefiting from increased spending. The warning came from the general who had commanded the Allies in Western Europe, and who had kept defence spending high.

Five entries on what Americans watched and heard: television, its Cold War shows, rock and roll's origins and arrival, and science fiction's fears.

Television.

USH2 1840 Television

In nineteen fifty fewer than four million American households, nine percent, owned a television; five years later over thirty million did, nearly sixty-five percent, the anchor records. The Yawp gives twelve percent of households in nineteen fifty and more than eighty-seven percent by nineteen sixty.

What television showed.

USH2 1841 Television and the Cold War

Television carried family ideals in Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best, and Cold War fears in I Led Three Lives, about an FBI informer, and the Yawp notes that the FBI helped create such propagandistic shows. Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, it adds, compared the Red Scare to the Salem witch trials.

Where rock and roll came from.

USH2 1842 Where Rock and Roll Came From

Rock and roll grew from rhythm and blues, a mainly Black genre, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe is widely credited with its first true performance, with Rocket Eighty-Eight, from Ike Turner's band, another contender for the first record. The Yawp says Black musicians such as Chuck Berry created the music, and performers such as Elvis brought it to White audiences.

Rock and roll's arrival.

USH2 1843 Rock Around the Clock

In nineteen fifty-four Bill Haley and His Comets released Rock Around the Clock, heard the next year in the film Blackboard Jungle, and Elvis Presley appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, the camera avoiding his hips. By nineteen fifty-six, the anchor says, more than sixty-eight percent of the music on the radio was rock and roll, to many parents' dismay.

Cold War films.

USH2 1844 Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which a small town's people fall prey to space aliens, and science fiction films like it played on fears of Communist invasion and nuclear technology, with espionage a timely subject on cinema screens across the country. The anchor reads such films as the decade's fears turned into entertainment.

Three entries on the two arcs of the civil rights movement, and two breakthroughs before Brown.

The two arcs.

USH2 1845 Two Arcs

Unit twelve opened the civil rights movement's legal arc with Thurgood Marshall's fund and Chambers v. Florida in nineteen forty. This unit carries that arc's victories in order, Mendez in nineteen forty-seven, Sweatt in nineteen fifty, Brown and Hernandez in nineteen fifty-four, and Brown two in nineteen fifty-five, and opens the second arc, the mass movement of boycotts and protest, with Emmett Till and Montgomery in nineteen fifty-five. The anchor begins its account with Brown; the course begins earlier and says so. The misreading dates the movement's start to Rosa Parks. The Yawp says decades of African American litigation, local agitation against inequality and liberal justices made Brown possible.

Baseball's color line.

USH2 1846 Breaking the Color Line

On April fifteenth, nineteen forty-seven, Jackie Robinson took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the first African American in the National League, and players from the Negro Leagues, the anchor says, entered the major leagues through the gate he opened. Not every desegregation needed a court, the anchor notes.

Mendez v. Westminster.

USH2 1847 Mendez v. Westminster

In nineteen forty-seven, in Mendez v. Westminster, a federal appeals court ruled that segregating children of Hispanic descent in California's schools was unconstitutional, after Gonzalo Mendez and other parents in Westminster argued that segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause, as the Yawp records. Mendez came seven years before Brown.

Look at what you can now do. You can hold the sources' asymmetry on the Rosenbergs: Julius's espionage later confirmed, Ethel's not, and both executed. You can trace McCarthy from the list at Wheeling to the televised hearings and the Senate's condemnation. You can explain how the interstates, federal mortgages and Levittown built the suburbs, and that Levittown was closed to Black veterans by design. You can compare the image and the numbers: a culture urging wives home, and forty percent of mothers of young children at work. And you can explain the two arcs of civil rights, courtrooms and streets, and name two breakthroughs before Brown: Jackie Robinson and Mendez.