Main Idea Questions
1. Why did the Cold War develop between the U.S. and the Soviet Union after WWII?
2. How did the Red Scare impact American society?
3. What events and how, occurred in the 1950s to jump start the Civil Rights Movement?
4. What factors contributed to post WWII prosperity?
5. What caused the Korean War?
2. How did the Red Scare impact American society?
3. What events and how, occurred in the 1950s to jump start the Civil Rights Movement?
4. What factors contributed to post WWII prosperity?
5. What caused the Korean War?
Terms
1. iron curtain
2. spheres of influence
3. Containment
4. Truman Doctrine
5. Marshall Plan
6. Mao Zedong
7. NSC-68
8. Korean War
9. Red Scare
10. McCarthyism
11. Dwight D. Eisenhower
12. Federal Aid Highway Act
13. Consumer Culture
14. GI Bill of Rights
15. Suburbia
16. Ranch House
17. Brown v. Board of Education
18. Montgomery Bus Boycott
19. Southern Christian Leadership Conference
20. Central Intelligence Agency
21. Dien Bien Phu
22. Sputnik
2. spheres of influence
3. Containment
4. Truman Doctrine
5. Marshall Plan
6. Mao Zedong
7. NSC-68
8. Korean War
9. Red Scare
10. McCarthyism
11. Dwight D. Eisenhower
12. Federal Aid Highway Act
13. Consumer Culture
14. GI Bill of Rights
15. Suburbia
16. Ranch House
17. Brown v. Board of Education
18. Montgomery Bus Boycott
19. Southern Christian Leadership Conference
20. Central Intelligence Agency
21. Dien Bien Phu
22. Sputnik
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Iron Curtain - This was a political, military, and ideological barrier erected by the Soviet Union after to WWII to keep itself sealed away from Western (capitalist) influence. This became a common metaphor used by the US after Prime Minister Winston Churchill made a speech in Fulton, Missouri on March 5, 1946, "an iron curtain has descended across the Continent." Joseph Stalin emphasized the iron curtain, the idea fell away a little after his death in 1953, but was then resurrected in 1961 with the building of the Berlin Wall.
Spheres of Influence - Larger nations influenced smaller nations, in this case communism and eastern Europe along with China and certain areas in the Pacific. Truman Doctrine - Proposed in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman, said that US should support countries threatened by Soviet forces. The Soviets saw it as a declaration of hostility in the Cold War. |
Joseph Stalin, Soviet Union
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Marshall Plan - US plan to rebuild western Europe and Southern Europe after WWII. The idea was that if these nations saw the effort made by the US to help them, they would voluntarily want to accept the US as trade partners. Began in April 1948 and ended in 1951, replaced by the Mutual Security Act. Designed by Secretary of State George Marshall. Russians saw the plan as a threat because it meant US domination in rebuilding most of Europe.
Mao Zedong - Known also as Chairman Mao, Chinese communist revolutionary which controlled the Chinese Communist Party. Established the Peoples Republic of China in 1949. Led Chinese communist forces during the Chinese Civil War which really heated up after the surrender of Japan. Mao defeated the Nationalist (pro USA) government in 1949, the nationalists withdrew to Taiwan in 1949. Mao instituted many communist programs in China including the Great Leap Forward which was to transform China from an agrarian society to an industrial one, this led to the deadliest famine in history and killed from 15-55 million people between 1958 and 1962. |
President Harry S. Truman, Missouri's only president.
Chairman Mao Zedong
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NSC - 68 (National Security Council Document #68) - "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security" - Top secret document presented to Harry S. Truman by the Department of Defense on April 7, 1950, became one of the most important documents of US policy of the Cold War. Provided the blueprint for militarizing the Cold War from 1950 until the collapse of the Soviet Union. It massively expanded the military budget, developed a hydrogen bomb, and increased military aid to allies of the US. It made containment of Communism a priority.
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The Korean War - 1950 - 1953 - Began in June 1950 when communist North Korea invaded democratic South Korea. North Korea was supported by the Chinese and Russians while the South was supported by the United Nations and the US. The US was taken by surprise when the North invaded the South. This put NSC-68 to the test - the US decided to help the South keep North Korea from taking over. President Truman sent General Douglas MacArthur to command US troops in South Korea. By July, the North Koreans had pushed the South Koreans almost into the ocean except for a battle line known as the Pusan Perimeter. The US Army battled it out on the Pusan Perimeter until September 1950 when MacArthur landed US troops behind the Chinese battle lines at Incheon. Here US troops fought and pushed the North Koreans back north to the DMZ or Demilitarized zone, the line that separated North and South Koreas.
MacArthur didn't stop at the DMZ as President Truman ordered, instead he continued to push the North Koreans back in and through North Korea until he came near the Yalu River which separates North Korea and China. At this point, feeling threatened, China committed Chinese Red Army troops to defending North Korea. With the help of Chinese men and tanks, the North Koreans again pushed the US Army back to the DMZ where both sides dug in. In 1952, the US elected Dwight D. Eisenhower as president and he wanted to end the war. In the Soviet Union, Stalin died which created a lot of in fighting there, making Korea not very important to the Soviets. On July 27, 1953, a peace agreement was made and the DMZ was created, North Korea would remain north of the DMZ and South Korea would remain south of it. 3 million Korean civilians were killed during the war. The US lost 33,686 deaths in battle. |
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The Red Scare
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The Red Scare (actually it was the second Red Scare, the first one coming after WWI) began after WWII and was also known as McCarthyism, named after Senator Joseph McCarthy who pushed it. It was an increased fear of the widespread increase in Communist espionage during the Cold War, especially in the U.S. McCarthy claimed that Soviet spies had infiltrated the US government and US society. FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover kept list of people believed to be communist party members and had them illegally under surveillance. In 1950 McCarthy made an address in front of the senate stating that he knew of 81 communist spies, but provided little proof of his claim. People became fearful they would be wrongly accused of being a communist or even worse, a Soviet spy. This is where the term "witch hunt" was first used to describe those accused of being a Soviet spy, regardless of the lack of evidence. Congress passed the Communist Control Act of 1954 which prohibited Communist party members of holding office in labor unions. By 1954, Congress and the American people began questioning McCarthy and those preaching McCarthyism and held a series of hearing in which McCarthy was interviewed and required to provide proof of his outlandish accusations, this led to the end of the Red Scare by 1959. McCarthy was silenced in the Senate, no longer allowed to speak as a senator.
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Senator Joseph McCarthy
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Culture of the 1950s
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Dwight D. Eisenhower - Elected as President in November 1952, served from 1953 until 1961 (Republican). First Republican president since Herbert Hoover in the 1920s. Eisenhower supported many of the programs originally created by Truman such as the support of Taiwan and containment. He believed in using a strong show of force with the US military as a deterrent of future wars. After the Russians became the first nation to send a vessel into outer space with Sputnik, in 1957 he launched NASA which led to the space race. He supported sending aid to the French who were trying to keep the communists under control in Vietnam.
He expanded Social Security, opposed Joseph McCarthy, and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent US troops to make sure that the high school in Little Rock was peacefully integrated after the Supreme Court's decision of Brown v. Board of Education. One June 29, 1956, he signed legislation that funded the construction of the U.S. Interstate Highway System (Federal Aid Highway Act). Missouri became the first state to begin the interstate highway system when it built the first interstate highway section outside of St. Charles, Missouri. Eisenhower got the idea for the interstate highway system when he saw the importance of Germany's interstate highway, the Autobahn. Miles of interstate concrete roads could double as emergency landing strips for military aircraft, army posts were built near interstates to promote quick movement of military men and material (his way of saying the Interstate highway system could support the US's fight against communism). Eisenhower served during what is considered the most prosperous time in the U.S. in history. Because of the Cold War threat of war, factories sprang up that made war materials and provided Americans with good paying jobs which they then used the money from to create a booming economy. More Americans owned automobiles and owned their homes more than ever before. This rapid development of factories led to the creation of suburbs or neighborhoods built outside of large cities in which workers commuted from their home in the 'burbs to factory jobs in the cities. |
German Autobahn
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
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Suburbia became a subculture of American culture. When suburbs sprang up, Americans could choose from one of several house designs, but most were similar in construction. Most of these suburban homes were of an architectural style known as the ranch house. The ranch house was built with the American housewife in mind. They were one story (no one wants to carry laundry up and down stairs), had big windows so that stay at home moms could see their children playing in the front or back yard from any room in the house. The floor plans were open so that a mom dusting the front room could either look out a large window in the front or straight through the dining room to a sliding glass door in the back to keep an eye on her kids.
These homes were equipped with the newest available appliances to make the job of the housewife easier each day. Because their husbands had good paying jobs, they could afford appliances newly created such as microwaves, washing machines, dish washers etc. The economic boom of the 1950s created what economists call a consumer culture, or a society built around buying personal appliances and items heavily marketed to them via mass advertising made possible by the affordable television. Housewives could watch television and see commercials throughout the day of items that promoted products related to the domestic sphere (the home). It was marketed in a way that said "everyone needs a..." which led to "keeping up with the Jones'" or the creation that in order to be considered "middle class" Americans needed two cars, a garage, a washing machine, a television, etc. |
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Even everyday culture in 1950s exhibited a distrust and hatred for communism. Religion was one way to show that your family was truly "American," communists generally do not support large scale religion, thus by going to church you showed your neighbors you weren't communists. Many things considered out of the ordinary for a family to experience became a reflection of the family itself, for instance, outwardly being homosexual was almost unheard of, but if a person was suspected of it, it was proof that maybe communism had "corrupted" them. If children acted out in public or became delinquents as teenagers, it was because they weren't being "raised right," and thus easily susceptible to communist ideas. The family structure became a vision of "Americaness." Another major "thing" that developed out of the 1950s was the baby boom. Former WWII and Korean War veterans returned home to good paying jobs and cheap home loans that allowed them to not only have a higher standard of living, but it encouraged them to have more children, thus America saw the largest increase in child births in its history from 1946 to 1960.
The GI Bill of Rights also contributed to the post war economic boom. Men and women who served in WWII were allowed allowances for such things as college and votech education, low interest home loans, and free healthcare through the newly created veterans administration or VA. Men and women who enlist in the military today, still benefit from the GI Bill.
Civil Rights in the 1950s
The Civil Rights of African Americans saw the largest jump in involvement ever, after WWII. Many African-Americans who served overseas in WWII and Korea developed a new sense of independence. This idea was dashed when they returned home and saw that nothing had changed. While they had been overseas fighting repressive regimes under the Nazis and Communists, they were still treated as second class citizens at home, many began to protest and organize to fight the injustices.
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July 26, 1948 - President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981 which ended segregation in the Armed service.
May 17, 1954 - Brown v. Board of Education - 5 Supreme Court Cases wrapped into one over school segregation. The court ended segregation in schools, but failed to provide a forced time limit on when schools would be desegregated. Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas was desegregated by nine black students under protection of the U.S. Army. Most schools were not fully desegregated until the mid and late 1960s. August 28, 1955 - the murder of 14 year old Emmett Till in Money, MS. Till was accused of "whistling" at a white woman in a rural store in Money, MS. The husband of the woman and his friends took Till from his home and beat and shot him, tied him to heavy fan blade and dumped him in the river. When his body was found days later, his mother decided to have an open casket service to "show the world what they'd done to my baby boy." The images from that funeral helped to transform and ignite the Civil Rights Movement. December 1, 1955 - Rosa Parks refused to give up seat on a Montgomery bus to a white man, her defiance ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott lasted a year and caused a financial strain on the public transit system in Montgomery, it also propelled a relatively unknown local preacher named Dr. Martin Luther King, into the national spotlight. Eventually the buses were desegregated giving the Civil Rights Movement its first victory. |
Little Rock Nine being escorted to class in Little Rock.
Rosa Parks - Montgomery Bus Boycott
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Southern Christian Leadership Conference - organized after the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, Martin Luther King, and others. Mostly made up of ministers, met at Ebenezer Church in Atlanta. Formed to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems in the South. Used peaceful teachings based on religion to protest injustice. One of the first Civil Rights organizations.
The Central Intelligence Agency
Formed on September 18, 1947 under President Harry S. Truman. Many believed it was formed because of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor as a way for government intelligence to be able to be coordinated. The CIA would gather intelligence using open as well as covert methods of gathering information. The CIA would operate in order to gather secret intelligence and be used to influence foreign elections, influence foreign public opinion, and eventually it evolved to orchestrate foreign takeovers. It was used to spy on Soviet activities overseas and in the U.S. It helped put people friendly to the U.S. in power in foreign countries such as Vietnam and Iran.
Vietnam Before US Involvement
After WWII Vietnam (called French Indochina then) wanted to be independent. Forces that wanted an independent Indochina free of French rule, were called Viet Minh and led by Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi tried to get support from the US after the war, but we refused to listen. Finding no other alternative, Ho Chi turned to communist China for help. The French had controlled Indochina for decades having rubber plantations producing large amounts of tires used around the world. The French did not treat the people of Indochina very well and they began to raise up and fight the French in 1952. Fearing a communist victory, the US sent support to the French in the form of bombers and material to help fight the Viet Minh, they even sent the CIA to help with gathering intelligence.
By March 1954, the French were becoming desperate to defeat the Viet Minh who were quickly wearing down the French forces. In an effort to draw the elusive Viet Minh into a pitched battle, the French dropped paratroopers in the middle of Viet Minh controlled Dien Bien Phu. The French believed they could defeat the Viet Minh in open warfare with assistance from US bombers promised by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. From March until May, French soldiers were surrounded at Dien Bien Phu, when the French asked for the promised bombers from the US Eisenhower decided not to send them which resulted in the capture of the French army. After their defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French left Indochina, which allowed communist forces to control the northern half of the country which became North Vietnam. This power vacuum resulted in the US having to step in with a more physical presence in Vietnam and eventually led to committing US troops there in the 1960s.
By March 1954, the French were becoming desperate to defeat the Viet Minh who were quickly wearing down the French forces. In an effort to draw the elusive Viet Minh into a pitched battle, the French dropped paratroopers in the middle of Viet Minh controlled Dien Bien Phu. The French believed they could defeat the Viet Minh in open warfare with assistance from US bombers promised by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. From March until May, French soldiers were surrounded at Dien Bien Phu, when the French asked for the promised bombers from the US Eisenhower decided not to send them which resulted in the capture of the French army. After their defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French left Indochina, which allowed communist forces to control the northern half of the country which became North Vietnam. This power vacuum resulted in the US having to step in with a more physical presence in Vietnam and eventually led to committing US troops there in the 1960s.