American History: A Survey (Brinkley), 13th Edition

Chapter 28: THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY

Study Questions

1
What factors caused the low unemployment rate and the great growth in GNP from 1945 to 1960? How widespread was the prosperity?
2
What unique factors combined to stimulate the rapid population expansion and economic growth that characterized the American West, and especially the Los Angeles area, in the post-World War II era?
3
How did the labor union movement change in the 1950s? What problems surfaced?
4
Describe how the prewar groundwork in antibiotics and immunization flowered after 1945. What major diseases were virtually eliminated in the U.S.?
5
How had the use of computers expanded by the mid-1950s? What company dominated the computer market in these years?
6
Describe the process by which the U.S. developed reliable ICBMs. Why was this military effort so critical to the space program?
7
What impact did the Soviet launching of Sputnik have on U.S. education and the space effort?
8
After the U.S. won the race to the moon, what direction did the American space program take?
9
Explain the expanded role of advertising and consumer credit. Why can it be said that the prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s was substantially consumer-driven?
10
What was the appeal of Levittown and similar suburban developments? How did typical suburbs transform family life and shape women's attitudes? What role did race play in suburbanization?
11
Describe how commercial television drew on the concepts and corporate structure of the radio era. How did the medium simultaneously unify and alienate Americans?
12
Why did vacation travel, especially to national parks, expand in the 1950s?
13
Describe the ideas of the several writers of the 1950s who explored the growing tensions between organized, bureaucratic society and the tradition of individualism. What was The Organization Man?
14
Why did rock 'n' roll, and especially Elvis Presley, become so popular in the 1950s? What was the role of radio and, later, TV?
15
How did black music influence the development of rock music? To what extent was the audience multiracial?
16
What was the extent of hard core poverty in the otherwise prosperous nation? What groups predominated in this "hard core"?
17
Why was so much of rural America still mired in poverty as late as 1960?
18
Describe the process that led to large pockets of poverty-stricken minorities in cities, especially in the North and Southwest. Why did so many of these people remain poor at a time of growing national affluence?
19
Describe the response of the political power structure of the Deep South to the Brown v. Board of Education and Brown II rulings. How did the Little Rock episode illustrate the conflict?
20
What was the importance of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott?
21
What philosophy shaped Martin Luther King, Jr.'s approach to civil rights protest? How did he become the principal leader and symbol of the movement?
22
What were the key factors that converged in the postwar period to ignite the civil rights movement?
23
How had the economic attitudes of many corporate leaders changed by the time of the Eisenhower administration?
24
What sort of individuals dominated Eisenhower's cabinet?
25
Contrast Eisenhower's attitude toward new social legislation with his approach to existing programs. What act of his presidency led to the largest public works project in American history?
26
What led to the demise of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the end of the Red Scare?
27
Why did John Foster Dulles move the United States toward the policy of massive retaliation?
28
How did the Korean War end?
29
How did the U.S. react to the establishment of Israel? How did Israel's neighbors react?
30
Why was the United States so committed to stability in the Middle East? How was this approach implemented in Iran?
31
What led to the Suez crisis of 1956? What position did the United States take?
32
What led to increasing animosity toward the United States on the part of many Latin Americans? What did the Guatemalan incident reveal about American intentions?
33
What led to Fidel Castro's rise in Cuba? How did the United States deal with his new regime?
34
What did the Hungarian Revolution and the U-2 incident illustrate about the nature of the United States-Soviet relationship in the late 1950s and into 1960?
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