The
1950’s
HOME WORK pgs 779-784
Under Terms and Names do all except Hollywood Ten. Five lines of explaination for each.
Intro
The 1950s is a decade
of contrasts.
We won the war, but we were fighting the cold war.
We were the land of freedom, yet McCarthy was doing witch hunts
We were the land of equality, yet blacks of the south were
segregated.
And in this time we created the model of the best life called
“suburbia”, but cultural bubbles of discontent were rumbling in the air.
We’re going to look at three things concerning the 1950s. 1st, the cold war, then Mcarthyism then
suburbia and its discontents.
Cold War
Intro
After WWII the West still controls almost all of the world.
Remember imperialism?
At the end of WWII they have listened to the allies talk about
democracy. They heard that hitler was
evil because he didn’t let people vote, but ruled them absolutely. They said what about us? How come the west rules us andwe don’t get
to run our own countries. And the
West is tired from fighting.
One by one the countries fight their Ex-Western masters off. To do so they either court backing by the
communists or the capitalists. By the
Russians or the US. Some go each
way. As such, the Superpowers fight it
out for world domination without fighting eachother. That is why it is called a “cold
war”. We superpowers fight without
going to battle, directly, with going to war.
During the beginning of this our president was Harry Truman (FDRs
vice-president). Truman was president
from 1945-53. Dwight D Eisenhower was 1953 - 1961.
the
cold war in grand scope
Draw a map of the world. have them do it too.
Draw areas that had gone commie and areas that hadn’t. Mention the
Cuban missle crisis, mention nicaragua, el salvador, cuba, vietnam, cuba. We already spoke of Arbenz in Guatemala.
PLAY SOME OF ATOMIC CAFE
Start with the two worlds or back it to the atomic bomb footage. Then play 20 minutes. At half way through there is korea and then
mcCarthy and then Rosenbergs in the last 3 minutes of this portion.
Places
RUSSIA - THE SOVIET UNION - USSR
The deal after WWII - the division of Germany. Germany was to be divided and the East
portion was to have free elections.
The leader that agreed to this was Stalin.
But the Soviet Union was very slow in getting its troops out. And The USSR started supplying arms to
rebels in Greece. And in 1946 Winston
Churchill noted that there was an “iron
curtain” descending across the continent.
Now western Europe was decimated by the war. And poor people do crazy things. In order to stabalize Western Europe, we
came up with with “The Marshall Plan” This 1947 plan was named after secretary of
state George C. Marshall. It was to
rebuild the western powers. Free powers
Spain was not invited.
The commies said that this was western imperialism, and some US
senators didn’t want to vote for it, but
in 1948, february, commies took over czechloslavakia and in April we
voted the first 4 of 12 billion dollars for it.
It worked. By the end of
1950 industrial production was up to prewar levels. And ever since big economic recovery plans have been called
“Marshal Plans”
Unfortunately, by leaving Eastern Europeans out of the marshall
plan it made them more dependent on the soviet Union.
NATO V. THE WARSAW PACT
After the announcement of the Marshall plan being in the lanning
stage Part of this being solid was the
coup in Czechloslavakia.
In reaction to this the West announced it would make western
germany one. Then Stalin ordered the
Berlin Blockade.
Truman was unwilling to risk war.
So we airlifted food into the city for a year. Then the Russians backed down and let us use the road and train
again.
As a result of this we created NATO. Nato said that an attack upon one, would be considered an attack
upon all. This was It was 12 countries
of western europe and turkey and
greece. And we commissioned a joint
military.
In 1955 the commies created the Warsaw Pact. This was a pact of 9 Eastern European
countries , under the guidance of Russia, that would oppose western
imperialism.
Talk a bit about NATO today and Kosovo.
The soviet unions blockade of Berlin.
In 1949 Russia explodes a nuclear bomb.
China
show the 20th century “Mao
Tse Tung” segment (it’s 10 minutes)
This led to us supporting the legitimate government which was
located in Taiwan. The russians
supported the actual government which was Mao’s on the mainland. Little chaing kai sheck was recognized on
the security councel and russia boycotted in protest.
By the way, our generous treaty with Japan required that they stay
out of war forever. This was to stop
them from being militaristic. It also
meant that, if after the commies took china, we were to keep them free we had
to supply them with military protection.
This allowed them to put their economy towards industrial pursuits and
kicking our asses economically.
Fallout from all WWII in Asia and Europe isw that the US becomes
the world military.
Korea
After WWII, Korea was divided in two. It was divided between russia and the united states at the 38th
parallel. The south had elections and
elected Syngman rhee. The north became
ruled y the Kim Ill sung family. The
south would have liked to have liberated the north, but we only gave it a
defensive little military backup and in 1949 we withdrew our military.
On June 24th 1950, the North Korean communists attacked south
korea. They caugght us and the south
koreans by suprise. The UN decided to
fight back. Us and 15 other nations
formed an army. It is the first such
action by the UN. We and south Koreans
were 91 % of the troops.
Tell fo inchon and the history of General Douglas MacArthur
South and Central America
Tell a little of each war & he may be a son of a ___ but he’s our s o b
Africa
Pretty much every place in Africa is fought over.
Vietnam
Steve Early Speaks
BRING BOOKS !!!WRITE IT ON THE BOARD !!!!!!
McCarthyism
Intro
We got a little nutty about the concept of communists being
everywhere. The color of communism is
Red. The Societ unions flag was red.
This was the second “red scare”.
In 1919-21 when the communists took Russia we got really scared about
communism. If you remember the woman
who whored herself to get a gun to shoot Carnegies’ manager was Emma
Goldberg. She was called “red
emma”. We sent her and lots of eastern
europeans back for being communists.
And, of course, during WW II we were friends with the
commies. But that ended quickly.
Two things made us really nutty about communists
1) We “lost” China.
2) Also in 1949 the Russians exploded the atom bomb.
Think about the implications of this.
Think of bombs bursting in air.
We were scared of the Commies.
At this point, every home got a bomb shelter. You had it in your back yard and it had provisions to live for a
few years. They had air raid drills.
But how did they do it so quickly? There must have been spys.
And we found some. These were
Ethel and Julius rosenberg. And if they
could have done it anyone could have.
They were the people next door.
We found them guilty and fried both.
Julius went quickly. Ethel took two pulls.
The
Ball gets rolling
To search for communists in the film industry, in 1938, the House
of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
The most important head of it was Senator Joseph McCarthy. They were set up to look for communist.
They would pull you into a big congressional room with tons of
audience and your tables facing theirs.
But their tables are above you and then they asked “Are you now or
have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”.
McCarthy was judge and jury.
He charged people with non-crimes.
The newspapers were mostly on his side.
They framed it as people being guilty or innocent but not in terms of
how could that pig ask such things.
They investigated lots of industries, but the investigation of
Hollywood was the most famous. People
feared the Communists would get into films and spread anti american
messages.
Hollywood was vulnerable because during the depression of the
1930s many people in hollywood and elsewhere joined or aided the Communist
Party.
But still and all the whole process was bogus. What does the first amendment to the
constitution say? It says we have
freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
The whole thing was unconstitutional and Un-American.
The correct response is, “the first amendment lets me be with
whichever group I want to be with. None
of your damned business, and it is basic to america that this sort of
ridiculous stuff doesn’t happen.
Unfortunately too many people complied. Ronald Reagan was the head of the Screen Actor’s Guild and he
turned people in. Loius Mayer and Jack Warner and Walt Disney (disney turned in
people that were trying to organize a union for disney workers).
Hollywood
fights back
A group of Hollywood starstried to form a defense. They called
themselves the Coommittee for the First Amendment (CFA). Ronald reagan, Groucho Marx, Frank Sinatra,
Ira Gershwin, Gene Kelly , Danny Kaye,
Humphry Bogart and Loren Bacall were the most famous. They didn’t behave themselves in a
respectful manner. They were theatric and out gunned. They didn’t look good defending the suspected subversives.
When their images were being undermined several wrote articles for
magazines saying they were wrong and sorry and didn’t like commies.
But the congressional inquisitors and the press started making
them loook like commie sympathizers.
They all went home and published apologies to the nation and the
hollywood ten were sunk. Several were
thrown in jail for contempt of court.
When they came out of jail they couldn’t get work.
Hollywood
falls back
Hollywood started to draw up lists of suspected communists. They agreed that they would not knowingly
employ a communist.
10 people said I take the fifth amendment, which says that I don’t
have to testify in a way in which I will incriminate myself. Basically saying “I don’t recognize your
right to ask me anything”. They fired
the ten.
Immediately they drew up lists and fired 212 people. Those who didn’t cooperate and give names
were “unfriendly witnesses and never worked again starting immediately. To get out of it they had to give
names. Once you were on the blacklist
you were blacklisted. Several people
killed themselves because their lives were ruined forever. This went on for years and years.
Someblacklisted people
started to use “fronts”. That is they
worked through with other’s names.
The Motion Picture Association of America made up a code saying
that no films mentioning abortion or drugs would be released. But, Otto Premingers films “the moon is
blue” and “The man with the Golden arm” got realeased and though the film was
banned in Kansas it was taken to the supreme court.
The
End
The President of the McCarthy era was Ike Eisenhower. He didn’t want to “get down in the dirt with
that little man”. And Ike didn’t stand
up to him. The point at which he went
too far was when he took on the military.
He started to say that the military was full of communists and it didn’t
fly.
Edward R. Murrow was a CBS TV guy and he went on TV and said that
McCarthy was a worm.
He did so mostly by showing clippings of mCCarthy hearings.
McCarthy ended up drinking himself to death in just a few years after this
In 1954 324 people were fired and then HUAC stopped.
READ THE KAZAN ARTICLE-
Results
1) it can happen here
This disgusting episode reveals that even here in the US we must
beware of people that would try to take your rights away. We must stand up to fascists big and little.
This episode is very very scary.
What would happen if you couldn’t talk without fearing jail. Then what if the person who wouldn’t let you
speak started passing laws that were horrible. Like peole he didn’t like
couldn’t be in business. Would people
stand up? At a point it would be too
late. At a point the whole country is a
nightmare and there is no more freedom.
2) Hollywood films became cautious.
Many anti-communist films were made and the codes got taken on
There is a point where the cure is worse than the disease. That is
the case often with chemotherapy.
We have a problem in our times with “rap music” Do you remember there was the album “cop
killer”
What about the internet and sex on it?
Do you want children to have that kind of information?
5 lines -What kind of things should not be on TV?
5 lines - Do you think they should be made/kept
illegal?
Republicans are more conservative about what should be on TV. Democrats are more liberal.
Suburbia and its discontents
Suburbia is like paradise -
What is the American dream?
A house and a white picket fence.
Godd neighborhood, good schools.
Barbeques. People got that after
WWII.
There were the endless tract homes. There was the Baby boom. People born at this time are called baby
boomers. These were built by WWII
vets. And thought they all look the
same and that is creepy. Contrast
that with the great depression.
Contrast it with countries where so many are poor and starving and the
cleen life doesn’t seem so bad.
People make fun of the nineteen fifties as being square. But contrast it to the depression which had
just ended. People think it was
superficial. These are the people that
fought WWII. That spent years in the
mud fighting NAZIs. Who has a deeper
understanding of life, a guy that’s been through war and depression or someone
who has only known good times?
But it was a time of good american values when the American Dream
was huge and we all kicked ass. Higher
education enrollments doubled. The
average years of schooling in the USA went up to 9. Research and development spending doubled. Largely this was due to sputnik. Machinery became more automated. Electric
The poverty rate declined. The
poor got richer. The
The president during this time was “Ike Eisenhower” He ran on the slogan “I like Ike”. This is seen as too cute, but after so much
war and poverty.... In away amrica
thinks its cute and backwards in relation to how rich it has become. Poor people don’t think having a home is
parochial and backwards.
Show the history channel
video on the 1950s-
2 forms of Discontent
Write 10 adjectives to
describe man.
Brainstorm.
Theorists and society now hold, that 1950s man was limited. He was
small in scope.
There are three cracks in the wall of suburbia
1 - Racism
The south still
doesn’t allow black veterans any rights.
The original tract homes didn’t allow black families.
This is a rumbling of unahappiness about coming back
from WWII and being treated unequally.
This uneasiness of the black situation shows itself in Jazz. The jazz of the day is BeBop. It is black pride music. It isn’t popular. It isn’t to please the whites.
And it is very complex. It is
art that screams, I am a creative genius, not inferior.
Show thelonious monk video (part) STRAIGHT NO CHASER.
2 - The youth culture
this has two parts-
1) the beat generation
Show kerouac
video and play his tribute to jazz
show how a good economy was necessary for his existence
Write all of the attributes of man, a brainstormed list of
adjectives.
Which of these
attributes
2) Rock N Roll
Show history of Rock video you haven’t found yet
Write 5 lines on how rocknroll undermines the 1950s
Write 10 adjectives that describe man from a youth culture point
of view.
Then 5 lines on WHAT are the best attributes of mankind?
SHOW COLD WAR WITH BILL MOYERS
Thelonious monk and play some keruoac
SHOW A
HISTORY OF LIGHT, THE FILM ON CINEMATOGRAPHY
SHOW THE JACK KEROUAC VIDEO
Show history of light, the first 20 minutes of the
history of cinematography.
Show WAR FILMS FILM FROM AMERICAN CINEMA SERIES
Lets show a leave it to beaver.
This is the birth of tv. SHOW THE AMERICAN CINEMA
VIDEO ON THE ADJUSTMENT TO TV