As the introduction makes clear, the automobile and the culture of the highway became in many ways the ties that bound Americans to one another during the 1950s. Automobiles reflected the increasing abundance of the era, with newly designed models presented yearly, many of them adorned by ever-more-upswept tail fins. The fears of many Americans during the Depression era—that differences of class might lead to social conflict—now gave way to concern that the rise of a consensus among Americans, in support of anticommunism and middle-of-the-road suburban values—might breed a suffocating conformity.

The Rise of the Suburbs

Two social factors accelerated suburban growth during the postwar era: the baby boom and prosperity. More children created a need for more housing, as well as for other goods and services. Rapid economic growth and government policies such as the GI Bill made home ownership practical for many more people. Developers such as William Levitt used mass production techniques to build housing rapidly at affordable prices.

Levittown, begun in 1947, typified the new auto-dependent suburbs. The interstate highway system begun during the period symbolized a continuation of moderate New Deal-style involvement in the economy, in the guise of Eisenhower's "modern Republicanism." The new highways also encouraged suburban growth as the most popular form of housing. As highways facilitated the exodus to suburbs, cities began to decline and consequently became unable to provide recent African American migrants from the South and Hispanics in the Southwest the opportunities that earlier immigrants had found.

The Culture of Suburbia

The new suburbs blurred class and ethnic distinctions and celebrated the single-family dwelling, where family rooms and live-in kitchens afforded more space for baby-boom families. The notion of "civil religion"—that civic-minded Americans ought to hold some core of religious belief, regardless of the particular creed—gained popularity, although that concept masked the considerable religious divisions that continued to exist in American suburbia. Public leaders proclaimed religion a weapon in the cold-war struggle against Communism.

At the center of this idealized world stood the mother and father of the family. Father, the organization man, increasingly worked in more bureaucratic settings, often for large conglomerate firms. Furthermore, although more women than ever worked outside the home, the public image of the ideal mother promoted the notion that housework and family provided sufficient outlet for female talents. Though women more often worked and received increased education, the social patterns of the decade segregated them more strictly than in earlier eras.

Emphasis on exclusive gender roles reflected a larger concern with sexuality. The research of Alfred Kinsey challenged a number of conceptions and taboos about normal sexual behavior. New sexual attitudes also resulted from an increase in leisure time. For many Americans, though, more free time meant additional opportunities to gather in front of the television, the new medium that became the center of family entertainment.

The Politics of Calm

Former General Eisenhower brought a gift for organization and political maneuvering to the White House. Reflecting the politics of the era, he resisted the demands of conservative Republicans to dismantle New Deal programs; instead, he preferred his own brand of modern Republicanism. While initiating a number of modest social welfare programs, he rejected more far-reaching proposals by liberal Democrats to provide large-scale federal housing aid or a universal health care system.

In the face of Democratic demands for government activism, Eisenhower maintained a pragmatic approach that led him to support programs such as the Interstate Highway Act and the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, neither of which took any funds from general revenues. Nonetheless, partisan politics flourished as questions about corruption and issues regarding the president's health dogged the administration. Recessions hurt the Republican candidates during the congressional elections of 1954 and 1958. Eisenhower's personal popularity remained so high, however, that even after a serious heart attack he easily defeated Adlai Stevenson in the 1956 election.

The recessions constituted mere temporary downturns in a generally expanding economy. Large multinational and conglomerate firms managed much of the private sector of the economy. New technologies such as computers made this management of complex corporate empires easier.

Nationalism in the Age of Superpowers

The prosperity of the 1950s at home depended on maintaining a stable international system of markets and resources. Eisenhower shared responsibility for foreign policy with his experienced but somewhat belligerent secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. Under Dulles, U.S. anti-Soviet rhetoric became more confrontational, with an expressed willingness to push toward the "brink" of nuclear war in order to counteract Soviet influence. As many nations worldwide clamored for independence and an end to the colonial remnants of imperialism, both superpowers competed for the allegiance of former colonies and nonaligned nations. Although the Korean War ended in 1953, regional conflicts in Vietnam, Quemoy and Matsu, Hungary, Guatemala, Iran, and the Middle East all demonstrated how the cold war struggle inflamed international tensions. Eisenhower and Dulles often supported covert action, as in Iran and Guatemala, when they wanted to topple popular governments that seemed to have a pro-Communist tilt.

The death of Stalin eased some cold war tensions. Yet while Eisenhower made moves toward conciliation, other incidents (the U-2 incident, the race into space, Castro's Cuban revolution) intensified the rivalry. Nationalism, especially in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, posed special problems. A brief war between Egypt and Israel, France, and Britain closed the Suez Canal. A simultaneous uprising in Hungary found the U.S. unprepared to act. To discourage Soviet gains in the Middle East, the administration won approval for the Eisenhower Doctrine and briefly sent troops to Lebanon. In the midst of this sequence of crises, the launching of the Soviet space satellite Sputnik in 1957 made Americans fear they had lost their edge in defense technology. In his farewell address, Eisenhower warned not to allow such unrealistic fears to lead to over-spending on the military-industrial complex.

The Cold War along a New Frontier

The presidential election of 1960 ushered in a new generation of leaders; John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon were the first major candidates born in the twentieth century. Kennedy opened the new era with his call to "get the nation moving again." As a Catholic and the playboy son of the wealthy Joseph Kennedy, Kennedy seemed an unlikely presidential candidate. Yet he displayed superb organizational skills, lay to rest the religious issue, and defeated Richard Nixon in a series of televised debates. For all these successes, Kennedy won the election by an unprecedentedly narrow margin.

As president, Kennedy was not instinctively a liberal. Still, he brought to the White House a crew of pragmatic liberals convinced they could reach "new frontiers." That meant practical reforms at home and a more dynamic policy to contain Communism abroad. Kennedy shared with his advisers the belief that they could use power when and where necessary to get optimal results.

Kennedy's Cold War

The new administration turned its attention abroad to the instabilities of the Third World, hoping to counter them with programs such as the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps, and "special forces" military advisers. Almost immediately, the aborted invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs raised doubts about Kennedy's judgment. So, too, did his confrontation with Khrushchev in Vienna and the Soviet decision to build a wall in Berlin. Kennedy countered by increasing aid to South Vietnam.

When intelligence sources discovered in October 1962 that the Soviets had placed offensive missiles in Cuba, the president faced the worst crisis of the nuclear age. Using restraint, he rejected air strikes in favor of a blockade. Privately he offered Soviet Premier Khrushchev a face-saving way out of the crisis. The next year Kennedy negotiated a nuclear test ban treaty, which slightly eased the heated-up cold war.