Not only in its breadth but also in depth as the very notion of freedom something that symbolizes America became intertwined with it. Economic prosperity led to a growing middle class, which demanded appliances and products that would enable them enjoy more leisure time and spend less in the kitchen or cleaning up the house. Inventions such as the dishwasher, washing machine and vacuum cleaners became household items.
One of the most important elements of the economic growth in the beginning of the golden age sets back to the rise of residential construction and the spending on consumer goods. The erupt demand for housing, television sets, home appliances and cars, transpired from a population shift from the cities to the suburbs. The number of women working outside the home increased significantly in the '50s. Women continued to earn considerably less than men for doing the same job, regardless of whether they worked in a factory or office, or in a profession such as teaching or nursing.
The fact that so many women worked outside the home ran counter to the myth in popular culture that emphasized the importance of traditional gender roles. Advertising, mass circulation magazines such as Life, and television's situation comedies sent the message that women should focus on creating a beautiful home and raising a family. Modern Republicanism. Although some Republicans hoped that Eisenhower would dismantle all of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs, the president realized that doing so was neither possible nor desirable.
However, the president's domestic agenda did reverse some New Deal trends. For example, Eisenhower focused on reducing the federal budget, which included cutting farm subsidies, abolishing the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, keeping inflation in check, and promoting private rather than public development of the nation's energy resources.
Despite Eisenhower's concern for fiscal responsibility, he was prepared to increase spending to get the country out of the , , and recessions. Modern Republicanism represented a pragmatic approach to domestic policy. Committed to limiting the role of the government in the economy, the administration was ready to act when circumstances demanded it.
Eisenhower's modern Republicanism embraced two major public works projects — the St. Lawrence Seaway and the interstate highway system. The Interstate Highway Act, passed in , authorized the federal government to finance 90 percent of the cost of building the interstate system through a tax on automobiles, parts, and gasoline that went into the Highway Trust Fund.
The Other America. Although the economy grew in the s, not everyone experienced prosperity. Despite the expansion of Social Security, older Americans often lived in substandard housing with inadequate food and medical care.
Because poverty was not recognized as a national problem until the s, federal policy in the s often contributed to the situation rather than to help resolve it. Although the workers were expected to return to Mexico at the end of the harvest or the labor contract, many opted to stay and became illegal aliens. They were convicted of treason and sentenced to death. The great fear slowly declined after the disgrace of Joe McCarthy and other anti-communist demagogues.
But the fear of communism remained into the s, and well beyond for those who believed that communism was not just in the Soviet Union, but also in the United States as well.
The average family income grew as much in the ten years after World War II as it had grown in the previous fifty years combined. These years also saw a significant decrease in although not a disappearance of poverty in America. The percentage of families below the official poverty line in was 30 percent. By it had dropped to 22 percent and by the s, it had dropped to under 14 percent.
Between and , in other words, poverty declined by over 60 percent. That was not true. There was no significant redistribution of wealth in the s and s, up or down, simply an increase in the total amount of wealth. But significantly—and in sharp contrast to the period since the mids—while there was no downward redistribution of wealth, neither was there an upward distribution of wealth.
Distribution patterns, in other words, remained unchanged—the wealthy and the poor experienced roughly the same rates of growth. The gap between them remained the same. What caused this remarkable growth? One important cause was government spending, which was clearly the major factor in ending the Depression in the early s.
Government expenditures in were 1 percent of GNP; in , they were 17 percent. The bulk of this increase in the early s came from military spending until the end of the Korean War. After that, highway and home construction picked up much of the slack. Population grew in the s and s at twice the rate it had grown in the s. Increased population was also responsible for increased demand and increased consumption, a spur to economic growth. The growth of suburbs after World War II was one of the great population movements in American history.
Eighteen million people—10 percent of the population—moved to suburbs in the s. The American population as a whole grew 19 percent in s; suburban population grew 47 percent.
Suburbs created a vast new market and provided an important boost to several of the most important sectors of the economy: the housing industry, the automobile industry, highway construction, and a wide range of consumer industries. And another element of growth was the transformation in labor relations. The growing power of unions allowed workers to receive better wages and benefits for their members.
Economic growth affected both popular and elite ideas about capitalism. Gradually it became possible to believe that there were few limits to economic growth. Capitalism, many Americans came to believe, was capable of much greater feats than most Americans had once believed possible. John Kenneth Galbraith, the famous Harvard economist, hardly an uncritical defender of capitalism, published a small book in entitled American Capitalism. In it, he expressed some of the wonder and enthusiasm of this new discovery.
In the United States alone there need not lurk behind modern programs of social betterment that fundamental dilemma that everywhere paralyzes the will of every responsible man, the dilemma between economic progress and immediate increase of the real income of the masses. By the mids, the belief that Keynesianism worked, that it could provide the key to keeping the economy stable, gained a growing number of economists.
Many economists believed they had discovered the secret of permanent growth and permanent stability. It suggested new possibilities for social progress.
Keynesianism, some of its disciples argued, made it possible to turn capitalism into a genuinely revolutionary force. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Wall Street knows it. Main Street. You can bet that the statisticians in the Kremlin know it. The growth of affluence also provided an opportunity to improve the lives of Americans and to meet social needs. Galbraith urged a major increase in public spending on such things as schools, parks, hospitals, urban renewal, and scientific research.
The launching of Sputnik, the Soviet satellite that was the first to be launched into orbit before the United States had managed to do so , was a tremendous event in American politics and culture. It too persuaded many Americans, and the government, to ask for massive social investment in an effort to catch up—particularly in science, technology, and education. Many Americans in the s considered their era as a time of affluence, community, and unity.
Today—a half century later—many people still see those years as a golden era that has now been lost. Even the most sophisticated chroniclers of its time believed in the great successes of the s. The renowned historian Richard Hofstadter wrote at the time:.
The jobless, distracted and bewildered men of have in the course of the years found substantial places in society for themselves, have become homeowners, suburbanites, and solid citizens. Class barriers disappear or become porous; the factory worker is an economic aristocrat in comparison with the middle class clerk; even segregation is diminishing; consumption replaces acquisition as an incentive.
Many middle-class Americans in these years believed in the idea that the American people, for all their diversity, were becoming more and more alike—and could expect to continue to do so in the future. Few ideas became more pervasive in popular culture than the sense that America was becoming a middle-class nation—a society in which everyone was either already part of the middle class, soon to become part of it, or aspiring to become part of it.
And there was some evidence for in this powerful idea. Home ownership rose from 40 percent in to 60 percent in By , 75 percent of all families owned cars; 87 percent owned televisions; 75 percent owned washing machines.
0コメント