Good morning, have you got

Life in the suburbs

Films: Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes, 2008).

Family-centred.

Fathers went out to work. Mothers went shopping and looked after the kids.

Consumer Goods were seen as necessities. By 1960 50% homes owned a washing machine, and 90% a TV.

“Keep up with the Joneses”.

TV advertising.

Domestic comedies: I Love Lucy.

Westerns.


Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-61)

oRepublican, liberal economic policies: “What’s good For General Motors is good for the country” (Ch. Wilson, member of Eisenhower’s cabinet).

oProlonged Red Scare: The Interstate Highway promoted by the Federal Aid Highway Act, Popularly known as the National Interstate and Defence Highways Act of 1956.

The Arm race and the H-Bomb

oNovember 1952 – American scientists tested the Hbomb.1953 the Russians made an H-bomb Too.

oHungary and “Brinkmanship”.

oJohn Foster Dulles, Secretary of State with Eisenhower: long range rockets as “the Deterrent of massive retaliatory power”.

o1956- A rebellion in Hungary Against Soviet control.

oThe US didn’t help Hungary.

o“Brinkmanship” – Dulles seemed ready to take the USA to the brink / edge of war. “The ability To get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art.”

The beginnings of the space race

oOctober 4, 1957 – The Soviets sent the Sputnik into space.

oThe American government Began to speed up work on rockets.

oEnd of the 1950s – The US and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear missiles to kill Everyone on earth.

oNikita Khrushchev and “peaceful coexistence”.