Also known as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, this was passed by Congress in 1944. This bill gave benefits to returning veterans. These benefits included unemployment payments while searching for work, low rate mortgages so they could buy homes, low interest rates to start businesses, and money to allow them to attend college and work towards a higher education.
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American home ownership increased drastically after World War II. William Levitt built Levittown, New York, which was the first mass-produced housing development. In Levittown, homes were built with the same design, white fencing, green lawns, refrigerators, washing machines, and other basic provisions. The homes were built quickly and at a low cost. The G.I. Bill allowed veterans to purchase Levittown homes for extremely cheap. Levittown expanded into more neighborhoods thus creating the growth of suburbs. Suburbs were neighborhoods located on the outskirts of cities where middle-income families began to move. This, in turn, led to a decline of business and activity in city's downtown areas because businesses left downtown to go to the suburbs as well.
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To conform means to act in ways that are socially accepted and promoted. Essentially it means to act like everyone else and act in compliance with society's standards, rules, and norms. How was conformity promoted in post war America?
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Every generation has its counterculture. For the 1950s, it was the Beatniks. Beatniks were urban literary intellectuals who wrote and performed in acts of spontaneous creativity--accompanying their spoken word with music. They encouraged people to freely express individual beliefs and desires. These beliefs often led to anti-conformist tendencies.
The Beat generation left a lasting impression on American arts and literature. Some historians credit the Beat generation with laying the foundation for the future "flower power" hippie generation/counterculture of the 1960s. |
Beatniks & anti-conformity |
Rock'n'Roll music took off from a record store in Cleveland, Ohio in 1951. A radio DJ noticed some white teenagers buying African-American rhythm and blues records and dancing to the music in the store. The DJ, Alan Freed, persuaded his radio station manager to play the music on the air. Listeners loved it causing white artists to make music that stemmed from African-American sounds. A new form of music was thus created--rock'n'roll.
Famous rock'n'roll artists include Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, and Billy Haley & the Comets. 1956 brought American teenagers their first rock'n'roll hero, Elvis Presley. Older generations questioned the appropriateness of rock'n'roll music. For example, popular tv host, Ed Sullivan, at first did not invite Elvis to perform on his show because he insisted that rock'n'roll music was not fit for family viewing. Presley became so popular with his moves and his music. He would swing his hips and dance during performances in ways that shocked many people. Adults condemned rock'n'roll as loud, mindless, and dangerous. San, Antonio, Texas even banned it from playing. This new music helped to create what became known as the generation gap--the cultural separation between children and their parents. |
African-American entertainers struggled to find acceptance. Television tended to shut them out. In 1956, NBC gave Nat King Cole a 15-minute musical show but NBC couldn't find a national sponsor for the show and so they cancelled it 2 years later. African American rock'n'roll singers didn't have it as tough as other African-American entertainers. Some of the most famous of this time include Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Ray Charles.
Despite advances in music and the economic boom of the 1950s, not all Americans were apart of the new prosperous society. For many minorities, the "American Dream" was well out of reach. |
The words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and the phrase "In God we trust" on the back of a dollar bill haven't been there as long as most Americans might think. Those phrases were added in the 1950s during the Eisenhower administration. Author Kevin Kruse who wrote One Nation Under God describes this phenomenon as follows-
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