the50'spositivesnegatives



That's a great question, don't you think? We will answer it in class on Thursday in a (hopefully) fun activity, but to prepare, we should do a little background reading and watching. **Watch the videos below, read over the ABC-CLIO links posted below, and read "The Fifties" in __Creating America__ (28-3, pp. 800-803).** 
 * FOR HOMEWORK, CREATE A LIST (EITHER IN PRINT OR ONLINE) OF POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES CONCERNING LIFE IN THE FIFTIES FOR CLASS ON THURSDAY!**

[|The Cold War at Home] / [|The Economy Booms] / [|The Sky is the Limit] / [|Boom-Time for Babies and Houses]


 * An overview of the Red Scare and McCarthyism**

The "Duck and Cover" video - 1950 classic - a must watch

= = none //Optional:// a note about this edit for the page history log
 * Some more 1950s Cold War propaganda - giggles **

//Optional:// tags for this page, separated by commas


 * Cancel ||
 * Note** that the content you create on http://turningpoints09.wikispaces.com is licensed under the [|Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 License]. Please only submit content that you write yourself or that is in the public domain. Learn more about our open content policy.

Positives and negatives of 1950s

Positives [|space race] Negatives
 * Margaret J. Smith speaking out against McCarthyism
 * Economy is doing very well
 * By 1952, the United States was supplying 65% of the world's manufactured goods
 * The housing industry also exploded during the postwar years.
 * More Americans are going to college
 * the United States experienced a huge population boom, with 28 million new Americans added between 1950 and 1960. In the prosperous economy, those added Americans became additional consumers fueling the fires of U.S. industry.
 * changes in the law and in government regulations increased wages for many workers.
 * With more money to spend—and more goodies on which to spend it—Americans began to buy. They created the biggest period of retail spending the United States had yet seen.
 * Advances in medicine and space research
 * polio vaccine is made
 * Many of these newly returned veterans went to college with the help of the GI Bill
 * suburbs started expanding
 * Soviet's have Atomic Bomb
 * Communism is spreading
 * Korean War- loss of american lives
 * McCarthyism
 * the Soviets had developed [|Sputnik] I, which they launched successfully in October 1957.
 * There was a housing shortage when all of the soldiers came back