As we finish our lecture on the 1950s this week, I'd like you to follow a link to a very interesting website and do some self-directed research then report back on your findings. At the link http://www.ushistory.org/us/53.asp you'll find and introductory page (which everyone should read) and then a series of illustrated lessons (a-f) on successive pages - just click the "next" button at the top or bottom of the page to look them over. Choose a lesson (for example, 53a, "McCarthyism") and read it then evaluate its message in an essay of your own. Just a note - in 53f "Voices Against Conformity" there is an insufficient summary of the "Kinsey Report". We will talk about Kinsey and his misleading research in class.
As before, your essay should be 200 words and you must also respond to the posts of at least two others (at least 150 words). Thank you and let's do a good job - no assignment next week for spring break!
53b The suburban growth:
ReplyDeleteLesson 53b “The suburban growth” is about how the suburban growth changed the American dream because for millions of American the chance appeared to have house on their own land, a car, a dog, and kids. The nation's Great Depression was over and cars were bought and people found the baby room. William Levitt prompted suburban growth a lot. He applied the techniques of mass production to construction. In 1947, he set out to erect the largest planned-living community in the United States on Long Island in New York. The houses had a lot of space with two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, a backyard but no basement. Levitt was building 36 houses per day. Anyways this movement also had its disadvantages because of a lack of uniformity, exclusion of African Americans, irrational need. But although this criticism one whole generation loved the new American dream which would never be the same again.
Lara,
DeleteGreat job on your essay! It was loaded with information and I loved it. I didnt know anything about the hose thing I think it's really interesting to learn about stuff like that, especially when it's something you never woul have known of other wise! Again great job!!
Great job on your essay! It was well written and informative and showed your opinions.
DeleteTill next week,
Lydia
53b:
ReplyDeleteThis week I decide to talk about the "suburban growth". For decades the American Dream was about the consumism and the materialism. For most of the people this was only a dream. In the 50s this dream became true for a lot of people. Infact a lot of people had their own car, house, dog, ect..
The bad times were people were poor couse by the war were finished! Cars came even more in cities so the governament decide to build thousands of miles of high-speed roads to make people move faster. Families that wanted a lot of babies from a lot of years decide to make their family larger and so there was a "baby boom". In this period Ray Kroc bought a single burger joint called McDonald's. From that period the American Dream and the America itself would not be the same anymore!
Hey Marta, as alway you did a good job on your essay. You chose the same topic as I did, the suburban growth, and actually I realized how different two essays about the same topic can be. So I really enjoyed reading it and I liked that you included the fact about McDonald's, haha! Good job!
DeleteMarta,
DeleteWonderful job on your essay. It was very entertaining and it has a lot of good information. I think it's really interesting how you included that little fact about Mc Donalds, that's super cool! Really really good job!
Great job on your essay Marta! It was interesting and informative and cool to know how McDonald's got started.
DeleteTill next week,
Lydia
You did a great job! The first thing I saw the topic I felt like no, this is boring; but after I read your essay, it's that bad. Like you said:"The bad times were people were poor couse by the war were finished!" this is so true!!!! And good!!! Great job!!!
DeleteThe end of World War II led to the collapse of the anti-Hitler coalition, and thus to the confrontation between the two new superpowers, USA and USSR. The ideological conflict between the United States and the USSR led in a bipolar world order.
ReplyDeleteIn the 50 years was in the U.S. the so-called Red Scare. The paranoid idea that communism dominate the whole world, coined the campaign against American Communists. The Communist persecution in the years 1950-1954 is known as McCarthyism. During this era the people of the United States got in mass hysteria: any suspected all that denunciation has flourished. All Americans were afraid of McCarthy and his Senate committee to identify un-American machinations. It was not until 1954, when the army should be involved in investigations, ended McCarthy's carrer culminated. Victims of McCarthyism: McCarthy initially suspected, especially the physicist Robert Oppenheimer, then other intellectuals and members of the Foreign Ministry. People whose names are on "black lists" were discriminated in the labor market. Millions of people were checked by HUAC, CIA, FBI or the Pentagon and put under the physichen, mental or economic pressure.
Hollywood was not unaffected - a number of political and socially critical film artists were dismissed. It begins with finding that Charlie Chaplin entertains sympathy for the Communists. While a group of film artists were unemployed or even arrested, advocated some artists from the film industry.
Hey Kat, your essay is really well written! Especially for me, for that I'm from Germany it was really interesting to know about how the situation at the end of World War II was in America because in Germany we almost study only about the situation in Germany during the World War. Anyways, good job!
DeleteGood job Kat. i thought you did a really good job on your essay. I like the topic you chose and really think you presented the topic well.
DeleteGreat job writing your essay Kat! It was informative and well written. Overall, it was very interesting.
DeleteTill next week,
Lydia
Lara:
ReplyDeleteI like your essay about the suburban growth. You reviewed it really good and I learned a little bit more about America.
I think it was good that Americans had a chance to buy their own house.
Good job, Lara.
Marta:
I like your essay because you made it understandable. I also liked how you wrote this about the dream of the Americans.
good Job.
America Rocks and Rolls
ReplyDeleteRock and Roll was everything and the suburban 1950’s were most definitely not. Parents and older folk were into Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and the Big Bands, the children and teens were moving to a completely different sound. The horror to the older people was crazy watching the young people thrusting, grinding, and twisting to the sounds of rock and roll. The number of children and teens greatly outnumbered the older people or at least in their records. The money that rolled in gave them enough profit to buy records and phonographs. By the end of that decade the genre of rock and roll showed the difference between the young and the older.
Rock and roll sent “shockwaves “ through America. A generation of young teenagers collectively rebelled against the music there parents loved in general the older generation hated rock and roll. Disturbed by the new styles of dance and clothing churches called it satans music! Because rock and roll came from the lower classes and younger people and segregated ethnic groups many middle class white people thought it was tasteless and worthless. Many rock and roll records were banned from many radio stations and even some schools.
Amanda,
DeleteI really liked your essay! Like there was a ton of stuff I had no idea about. It was super interesting as are all of your essays. I find it almost funny that the church was so very opposed to the rock and roll music those days... Can you imagine what their reaction would be to some of the music there is today?!?! They would absolutely flip stupid... But rightfully so. Anyways great job (:
The story about Rock and Roll is so interesting, "The money that rolled in gave them enough profit to buy records and phonographs. By the end of that decade the genre of rock and roll showed the difference between the young and the older. " this is just so interesting to me, I'm glad you did the essay about this. Great job:)
DeleteMarta: i really liked your essay because you turned a complicated subject into something more clear and easy to understand!
ReplyDeleteKat: i really liked your essay because it was very well written and thought out i thought you did a great job explaining it! :)
53c: The Land of television
ReplyDeleteDuring this time there were many popular situation comedies (sitcoms), but by far the most popular was a show called I Love Lucy, staring Lucille Ball and Cuban-American actor Desi Arnaz (this one of the first shows to feature a Cuban –American star). The Show was built around the characters of Lucy and Rickey Ricardo, their son born to them in the second season, and their best friends Fred and Ethel Metz. The show was a huge success and helped to pave the way for other sitcoms that followed.
Another genera of television that was popular during this time was the western genera. Shows like The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, and Bonanza brought the wild, wild west to American families’ own living rooms.
Variety shows were also very popular during the 1950s. Some popular variety shows during this time were The Ed Sullivan Show, known for promoting much early rock n’ roll; Your Show of Shows, and Caesars Hour.
The ‘50s also mark the beginning of T.V. news. Edward R. Murrow’ See It Now and others were popular. And those days reporters actually reported … the news! Not their own personal bias.
Children’s programming was also a major part of television broadcasting. Shows like The Mickey Mouse Club and Howdy Doody.
Hello ☺ I would like to talk about America’s Rock and Roll and the influence of this kind of music in the people of this country. While parents listened to music that was kinda boeing for the ``new generation´´ (which was a one of the first and larger generation of teenagers). The new era was listening to rock and roll that had a new beat and ne dancing movements like twisting, thrusting, bumping, and grinding with the new genre. The first artist got Money to do it because there was a great prosperity so they would make their discs, records, and phonographs. At first in the 1940’s the genre started with piano and saxophone but then they got replaced by guitar, then they started using electric guitar. Also, Rock and Roll was a mixture of African American Blues, Country, Jazz, and Gospel Music. It started declining when all the popular artists and their scandals were known by the people. They died, became preachers, some went to the army, some retired. And when rock and roll was not famous anymore, new music genres were famous like surfing music, garage rock, and the Twist dance.
ReplyDeleteGood job Daniel. I really like tho topic you chose to right about and i thought you presented your ideas very, very well. Good job.
DeleteVoices against Conformity
ReplyDeleteThis was a period in which the American dream was at its peak and family's were depicted exactly that way... In many tv shows from that era such as leave it to beaver, had the idea of perfection. But behind all of this perfection was outrageous segregation. And minority group was pretty much completely forgot about. The poverty rate of the different ethnicities sky rocketed and all because of there culture, skin color, and or background. Personally I think it gave people a very false unrealistic idea of life in America. It set an Unachievable standard that no one could really live up to. There was a movie produced during this period called "the invisible man" I think this movie truly represented all of the forgotten people. A quote was stated some where along the lines of "I'm invisible because people choose not to see me" and that's exactly the issue people kept running into because nothing they could do could change the facts. So many things like this have been forgotten about, people still today fail to see that person that we choose not to take notice of and care about.
Good job Jessi! Your essays are always very well written and you always present your ideas and opinions very well.
DeleteThe CIA
ReplyDeleteThe CIA, also called Central Intelligence Agency, was formed after World War 2 as a new tool to fight the Soviet Union and Communism around the World. It was supposed to gather intelligence and stop communistic dictators from taking over third world countries. One of the first instances the CIA was used was when the Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh nationalized the oil fields of British Petroleum. The CIA intervened and managed it to rise a fake mob to return the power to the American-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In Guatemala Jacobo Arbenz promised the farmers a way out of poverty by redistributing the land the United Fruit Company owned. Before he could make his promise true, the CIA overthrew this government as well and established a military government. You can see this kind of pattern almost everywhere in South America. Most of the time the U.S. didn’t care about the methods of the dictators as long as the government was friendly to the U.S.
Policy of Mass Retaliation
With the knowledge that the nuclear arsenal of the U.S. was much bigger than the one the USSR had Eisenhower and Dulles announced a policy of mass retaliation. It stated that the U.S. would react with nuclear fore to any attack on itself or its allies.
@ Amanda
ReplyDeleteYou did a very good job with your essay about Rock and Roll. It is really interesting to read about how the people in this time viewed this kind of music. It is very interesting that the people opposed that strong during this time. Good job with your essay!
@ Lara
I think you did a very good job with your essay, it has a lot of interesting information in it. I think it is really interesting that Levitt managed it to built 36 houses a day. That seems like an awful lot to me and I wonder what quality those houses were.
@ Bobby
You did a very good job with your essay Bobby, it is very interesting. It is interesting how the modern TV shows developed and what big impact they had during those days and also how the impact has grown since the last couple of years.
For this week, I would like to talk about The Atomic Era. In 1947, President Truman had ordered background checks of every civilian in service to the government. When Alger Hiss, a high-ranking State Department official was convicted on espionage charges, fear of communists intensified. McCarthy capitalized on national paranoia by proclaiming that communist spies were omnipresent and that he was America's only salvation. An atmosphere of fear of world domination by communists hung over America in the postwar years. There were fears of a nuclear holocaust based on the knowledge that the Soviet Union exploded its first A-bomb in 1949. That same year, China, the world's most populous nation, became communist. Half of Europe was under Joseph Stalin's influence, and every time Americans read their newspapers there seemed to be a new atomic threat. At a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, on February 9, 1950, McCarthy launched his first salvo. He proclaimed that he was aware of 205 card-carrying members of the Communist Party who worked for the United States Department of State. A few days later, he repeated the charges at a speech in Salt Lake City. McCarthy soon began to attract headlines, and the Senate asked him to make his case. And the other one is Blacklisting. McCarthy was not the only individual to seek out potential communists. The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) targeted the Hollywood film industry. Actors, writers, and producers alike were summoned to appear before the committee and provide names of colleagues who may have been members of the Communist Party. Those who repented and named names of suspected communists were allowed to return to business as usual. Those who refused to address the committee were cited for contempt. Uncooperative artists were blacklisted from jobs in the entertainment industry. Years passed until many had their reputations restored.
ReplyDelete53b. Suburban Growth
ReplyDeleteIn the 1950’s the perfect made-up Hollywood family was a reality on every corner of the street. The people began living the always polished “Leave It to Beaver” type of life style. The picture perfect family included a stay at home mom, a hard working dad, and usually more than one child in the household that always got into trouble with his neighbors. But you can’t have a picture perfect family without owning their own land, a car, a dog, and at least two children. The 1950’s was all about being the envy of your neighbors. The mothers most likely never left the house, and the father was gone all day at work and if the children were not old enough to be at school well they would be outside playing while the mother does the housework. The houses and cars were made up to look very classy. They were undergoing what we call a postwar baby boom, where every family had at least two to three children.