Chapter 32: Through The Picture Window: Society And Culture, 1945–1960
Document Reader
Through the Picture Window: Society and Culture, 1945–1960 - Document Overview
» Return to Document Reader
» Worksheet
The dominant theme of American life after 1945 was unprecedented prosperity and spreading affluence coupled with persistent—if little noticed—poverty. Between 1945 and 1960 the economy soared, propelled by a boom in residential construction and by the high levels of defense spending spurred by the Cold War. A public weary of the sacrifices and rationing required by war eagerly purchased new consumer goods such as electric refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines, television sets, high fidelity phonographs, and transistor radios.
The postwar consumer culture was centered in the new suburban communities that sprouted like mushrooms across the landscape of American life. By 1960 some 60 million people, one-third of the total population, lived in suburban neighborhoods outside the cities that nurtured them. Suburban life revolved around the automobile and the new shopping centers as well as the fast-food restaurants that were invented to serve the retail needs of the expansive and mobile new middle class. In 1948, only 60 percent of families owned a car; by 1955 it had risen to 90 percent, and many households had two.
The prescribed role for women in this new suburban culture was traditional. Women who worked in defense plants during the war were encouraged to return to the domestic circle and devote their attention to husbands and children. Even though the number of working women increased during the 1950s, the stereotypic image of the middle-class housewife remained that of a doting spouse who cooked the meals and transported the kids in her station wagon. Women who persisted in their efforts to lead independent lives outside the home were often denounced as deranged neurotics. A best-selling study of social psychology entitled Modern Woman: The Lost Sex asserted that the very notion of an independent woman was "a contradiction in terms."
Religious life also prospered in the postwar era. With the nation locked into an ideological battle with atheistic Communism (which prohibited or suppressed religious expression), spiritual belief took on new political significance. In 1954 Congress saw fit to add the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, and the next year it required that the phrase "In God We Trust" be placed on all American currency. Attendance at churches and synagogues soared, movies with biblical themes were box office hits, and religious books were perennial best sellers.
Yet not all observers were comforted by a religious revival animated by a "feel good" theology. Champions of more orthodox beliefs—theologians Reinhold Niebuhr and Will Herberg—criticized the superficiality associated with much of the era's religious enthusiasm.
Corporate life also experienced profound changes in the two decades after World War II. The war effort had benefited the interests of big business. Anti-trust activity eased, and most of the defense contracts were awarded to a few dozen huge corporations. In 1940, the one hundred largest corporations accounted for 30 percent of all manufacturing output. By 1943, the figure had risen to 70 percent.
As giant corporations grew even more dominant, a new work culture emerged. With thousands of employees working in high-rise buildings or sprawling corporate complexes, relations between employees and supervisors, managers and vice-presidents became more impersonal. Bureaucratic life devalued individual initiative in favor of regimented standards. White-collar employees, critics noted, began to look and dress and talk alike in order to please the boss and move up an endless corporate ladder. "Personal views can cause a lot of trouble, " an oil company recruiting pamphlet asserted.
A growing disenchantment with the regimentation of the corporate culture helped give rise to the Beat Generation, a group of talented yet eccentric young intellectuals and artists centered in New York City. These conspicuous dropouts derived their name from the quest for beatitude, a state of inner peace cultivated by Zen Buddhists. The Beats cultivated an uninhibited spontaneity and intuitive impulsiveness that flew in the face of conventional norms and values. Like the black jazz musicians they befriended and admired, the Beats felt oppressed and marginalized by the conformist pressures of conventional American life. "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, " wrote Allen Ginsberg in his 1955 poem Howl.
Ginsberg's close friend, writer Jack Kerouac, was the chronicler of the Beat generation. His most influential book, On the Road (1957), presented the search for fulfillment, meaning, and inner joy as an alternative to the bland consumerism and careerism of middle-class life. The Beats' zany exploits, disheveled appearance, drug and alcohol abuse, anti-materialism, and odd attire and appearance led critics to dismiss them as "beatniks." Yet for all of their self indulgent antics, the Beats represented a powerful strain of nonconformity that would flower into the counterculture of the 1960s.
Section Menu
Organize
Learn
Connect
Multimedia
Instructors now have an easy way to collect students’ online quizzes with the Norton Gradebook without flooding their inboxes with e-mails.
Students can track their online quiz scores by setting up their own Student Gradebook.