The Age of Affluence and Political Developments (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes
Social change
Growth of suburbs
Post-war America experienced rapid suburban expansion driven by large-scale house construction. Building began during the war years but accelerated dramatically thereafter. In 1944, 114,000 new family homes were constructed, rising to 1.7 million by 1950. Between 1945 and 1960, approximately 15 million houses were built, primarily for private purchase.
Government-sponsored programmes made homeownership increasingly accessible. The Federal Housing Administration and Veterans' Administration offered mortgages covering up to 90% of the property cost, with interest rates as low as 4%. This financial support enabled the percentage of Americans owning their own homes to rise from 50% in 1945 to 60% by 1960.
The suburban population grew substantially. In 1920, only 17% of Americans lived in suburbs, but this figure reached 33% by 1960. However, critics argued that suburbs appeared monotonous and lacked variety. They complained about the uniformity of housing design and the absence of business activity, as residents typically remained at home rather than engaging in local commerce.
Suburban expansion had damaging consequences for inner-city areas. As middle-class residents moved to the suburbs, often abandoning lower-income and ethnic minority populations behind, residential inner-city districts deteriorated. These areas lost funding as wealthier residents departed, leading to urban decline.
Meanwhile, suburbs witnessed the development of new retail facilities. Shopping malls emerged as centres where consumers could purchase all their requirements in one location, arriving by car. Eight such centres existed in 1946; by the late 1950s, over 4,000 operated across the United States. These developments proved catastrophic for small independent shopkeepers, though they transformed ordinary Americans' lives by increasing prosperity and enabling widespread car ownership.
Levitt houses
Levitt houses represented the most famous examples of suburban housing. William Levitt (1907-94) became known as 'the king' or 'the inventor of suburbia', though this claim exaggerates his role. Nevertheless, he played an instrumental part in developing affordable housing.
Born into a family building firm operating in the New York area, Levitt served in the US Navy during the war as an engineer. Afterwards, he applied military construction techniques learned during his service to commercial building. His houses arrived in 27 separate components manufactured in factories using mass production methods. Before the war, typical builders constructed five homes annually; Levitt built 2,000 houses on a single Long Island site in 1947.
The post-war housing shortage had become acute, with many families living in coal sheds. By 1951, Levitt's original development had expanded to 17,000 homes accommodating 24,283 square kilometres and housing 82,000 people.
The consumer society
Suburban growth and increasing confidence that prosperity would continue generated an enormous consumer boom. Wages generally rose; by 1953, average family annual income reached $4,011. This meant many households possessed money to spend—indeed, their disposable income increased on average by 17%.
The consumer boom
Consumer spending expanded rapidly, fuelled by persistent advertising. The high-built-in obsolescence dollar industry grew from $6 billion in 1950 to over $13 billion by 1963. By 1960, over 50 million televisions existed in the USA. The population boom made baby clothes and nappies particularly sought-after; by 1957, nappies alone constituted a $50 million annual industry.
In 1980, historian Landon Jones wrote about 'the cry of the baby heard across the land' as numbers grew. Four million babies were born annually between 1954 and 1964. By 1964, 40% of the population had been born before 1946, marking a dramatic demographic shift.
The golden age of the nuclear family
This era possibly represented the golden age of the American nuclear family. The divorce rate declined from 17.9 per 1,000 marriages in 1946 to 9.6 by 1953. The average age of marriage for females fell from 21.5 years in 1940 to 20.1 by 1956, and within seven months of marriage most women became pregnant.
Leisure time also increased. One commentator reported that by 1956, many Americans spent more time watching television than actually working for pay. Households filled with labour-saving devices; by 1951, 90% of American families possessed fridges and 75% owned washing machines and telephones—often purchased through credit.
Debt increased from $5.7 billion in 1945 to $56.1 billion by 1960. New products appeared constantly: Diners' Club cards were introduced in 1950, made of cardboard initially, becoming plastic by 1955. American Express dates from 1958. Frozen and convenience food, TV dinners, long-playing records, electric clothes dryers and Polaroid cameras all emerged during this period, saving time and effort whilst making cleaning easier with plastics and artificial fibres.
Consumption reached extraordinary levels. With 6% of the world's population in the early 1950s, the USA consumed a staggering 33% of all goods globally and controlled 66% of the world's productive capacity. On a more mundane level, hot dog consumption increased from 750 million in 1950 to 2 billion by 1960. A famous photograph depicted a typical family consuming two and a half tons of food yearly, including 300lb beef, 31 chickens and 8.5 gallons of ice cream, with a weekly budget of $25.
Initially, many Americans feared the 1950s prosperity might not continue, remembering the 1920s experience. However, as the decade progressed, confidence grew that the post-war boom would last. The main threat most people perceived to their lifestyle came from the USSR, the new foreign enemy.
Table: Percentage of American families owning consumer goods (1950 and 1956)
| Year | Cars | Televisions | Refrigerators | Washing machines |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 60.0 | 26.4 | 86.4 | 71.9 |
| 1956 | 73.0 | 81.0 | 96.0 | 86.8 |
Contrasting perspectives
Not all commentators celebrated this prosperity. When the Paris Editor of the 'U.S. News and World Report' returned to the United States in 1960 after twelve years abroad, he expressed astonishment at the changes. Living in France where only one family in ten possessed a bath with hot running water, he returned to a country where, in California, at least one family in ten owned a swimming pool. With larger incomes than ever before, consumers enjoyed shopping precincts with piped music and supermarkets with brilliantly coloured displays. A Swiss department store chain instructed its customers to 'live like an American'.
However, in 1952, Democrat Senator Adlai Stevenson questioned this prosperity narrative in a speech, asking how prosperity could be discussed whilst thousands lacked decent housing, lived in worn-out land or city dwellings packed six to a room in slum tenements with garbage-strewn alley playgrounds. He argued that for eleven million families with incomes below $2,000 annually, national prosperity constituted a mockery.
The position of women
The Second World War produced mixed results for women's position. Wartime employment demonstrated they could perform jobs traditionally male-dominated. Four US states made equal pay for women compulsory, whilst others attempted protecting women from workplace discrimination. In 1940, women comprised 19% of the workforce, rising to 28.8% ten years later. Nevertheless, at the war's end, the majority of women willingly abandoned their wartime employment and returned to their roles as mothers and wives and their traditional 'female' occupations.
Stereotyping
The media appeared instrumental in both creating and developing the stereotype of women as homemakers. Commentators cite numerous periodicals aimed at women, such as Ladies' Home Journal and McCall's, filled with articles on cooking, fashion, homecare and maintaining husbands' happiness. Dr Spock, whose highly influential childcare books sold over a million copies yearly throughout the 1950s, emphasised the need for maternal presence and love.
Adverts focused on women as housewives and mothers. As with television, the media image portrayed was usually of white, middle-class women; working-class and ethnic minority women did not feature prominently. Many women's magazines published articles emphasising women's domestic role, though not all went as far as Mrs Dale Carnegie, who asserted in McCall's magazine in 1954 that there existed 'simply no room for split-level thinking—or doing—when Mr and Mrs set their sights on a happy home, a host of friends and a bright future through success in HIS job'.
The reality behind the stereotype proved more complex. Whilst periodicals may have promoted a particular message, little evidence exists regarding how effectively they informed actual relationships. Writing in 2000, historian Nancy Walker demonstrated that even persuasive periodicals like Ladies' Home Journal ran articles entitled 'How America lives', showing the wide ethnic and class mix. She argues that periodicals reflected life's complexities more than they reinforced stereotypes.
The magazine Redbook, for example, ran a $500 prize competition in 1960 inviting readers to write on 'Why You Feel Trapped', receiving 24,000 entries. Whilst many women may have accepted a largely domestic role, many others either did not or felt frustrated and unfulfilled by it; seeds were being sown for the women's liberation movement of the 1960s.
Women and work
Feminist Betty Friedan conducted research into the subsequent careers of former students at the exclusive all-female Smith College in 1957, finding that 89% were homemakers. However, her well-educated, wealthy respondents were hardly typical of women across the USA.
Despite the stereotype of women remaining at home, the percentage of women in the labour force increased during the 1950s from 33.8% in 1950 to 37.8% by the decade's end. Opportunities for career advancement jobs had not noticeably increased. Unions generally did not favour women in the workforce—although they did support a campaign for better working conditions for waitresses.
The biggest increase in female employment occurred amongst married women—from 36% in 1940 to 60% by 1960. This may have been necessary to help make ends meet. Many commentators have shown that consumer culture always left people wanting more—the latest model, the newest gadget—and advertising was so persuasive that luxury items became, in many people's view, necessities.
Writing in 1996, historian James T. Patterson concluded that many women in the 1950s sought jobs more than careers, to supplement family income. Clearly, however, this does not negate the effort many made to rise in the profession of their choice.
Women who went out to work instead of getting married were treated with great suspicion by the rest of society. A very influential book, Modern Woman: the Lost Sex, actually blamed many of the social problems of the 1950s, such as teenage drinking and delinquency, on career women.
In the 1950s, growing numbers of women, especially from middle-class backgrounds, began to challenge their traditional role as they became increasingly frustrated with life as a housewife. More existed to life than bringing up children and looking after their husbands. Many female teenagers were strongly influenced by the greater freedom of the 'swinging sixties' which, in turn, encouraged them to challenge traditional attitudes and roles.
Women became much better educated so they could have a professional career. In 1950, there were 721,000 women at university; by 1960, this had reached 1.3 million. However, many of these had a very limited choice of career because, once they married, they were expected to devote their energies to their husband and children. Many became increasingly bored and frustrated with life as a suburban housewife.
Cultural change
Popular culture in the USA of the second half of the twentieth century was greatly influenced by the cinema and the increasing popularity of television.
The cinema
The cinema remained popular but less so than the inter-war years because of television's influence. Average weekly cinema attendances fell from 90 million a week in 1946 to 47 million ten years later.
However, the drive-in cinema, first opened in the 1930s, became very popular in the 1950s and early 1960s, particularly in rural areas, with some 4,000 drive-ins spreading across the United States. Its advantages included the fact that a family with a baby could care for their child whilst watching a movie, whilst teenagers with access to cars found drive-ins ideal for dates. In the 1950s, the greater privacy afforded to patrons gave drive-ins a reputation as immoral, and they were labelled 'passion pits' in the media.
Following the Second World War, young people wanted new and exciting symbols of rebellion. Hollywood responded to audience demands—the late 1940s and 1950s saw the rise of the anti-hero, with stars like newcomers James Dean, Paul Newman and Marlon Brando replacing more 'proper' actors like Tyrone Power, Van Johnson and Robert Taylor.
The growing power of television
In 1954, water officials in the city of Toledo, Ohio began investigating why there seemed to be huge upsurges in demand during random three-minute periods each evening. They solved the mystery when they correlated the mass flushing of toilets with commercial breaks on television.
By this time television was a national phenomenon. The number of sets had risen from 60,000 in 1947 to 37 million by 1955; three million were sold in just the first six months of 1950. By 1956, Americans spent $15.6 billion on the sale and repair of television sets. Television was the lynchpin of the home; 1954 saw the arrival of TV dinners so families need not waste precious viewing time eating around the table.
Popular programmes
Popular programmes were viewed by millions. By 1960, watching television was estimated to be the favourite leisure activity of half the population. It is estimated that half the population saw Mary Martin take to the air as Peter Pan in a 1955 spectacular. A record audience of 50 million watched I Love Lucy.
Comedienne Lucille Ball broke the stereotypical mould of passive females, being both performer and producer. In 1953, she was awarded an $8 million contract. The irony was I Love Lucy itself was about a dizzy blonde who created comic mayhem wherever she went.
Many sitcoms celebrated the American family as the heart of the USA—Leave it to Beaver, for example, showed the boy Beaver learning that mum and dad were always right and life for those outside a family group was uncertain and unpleasant. In this sense, family values and the position of the sexes was always reinforced with mum as the homemaker and dad going out to work—such as the Donna Reed Show where housewife Donna always saved the day with her good sense and quiet manner.
Television became a huge factor in popular culture not only in the USA but throughout the world. Studios grew large and impressive, rivalling those of film, and major actors such as Loretta Young and Ray Milland were recruited to television.
Television stations in the USA were, like radio, always commercial concerns and advertisers adapted to funding programming as readily as they had on radio, sponsoring programmes such as The Colgate Comedy Hour and broadcasting adverts in between programmes, often competing to make them the most memorable and entertaining. Some programmes could generate income themselves—when Walt Disney launched his Davy Crockett series in 1955 it was accompanied by sales of $300,000 in tie-in merchandising.
Youth culture
In 1950, 41.6% of the population was under 24 and, in 1960, 44.5%. Teenagers were increasingly seen as a discrete group with common interests and concerns. As a market developed to cater for their interests, they seemed to look and act differently to their parents.
These changes were due to several factors:
- Young people in the 1950s had far more money to spend than any previous generation of teenagers had had and companies responded with new products specifically targeted towards them. In 1957, it was estimated that the average teenager had between $10 and $15 a week to spend, compared with 1-2 dollars in the 1940s. Teenagers' annual spending power climbed from $10 billion in 1950 to $25 billion in 1959.
- Many teenagers were influenced by the youth films of the 1950s. Rebel Without a Cause was the first film to appeal specifically to a teenage audience. As such, it was also the first film to address the issue of a generation gap. The film made a cult hero of James Dean, the more so as he was killed in a car accident in 1955 aged only 24. Dean plays a character who rebels against his parents, even coming to blows with his father, and gets in trouble with the local police for drunkenness.
- The establishment of rock and roll music was a crucial development, for it gave teenagers music of their own to listen to, instead of having to listen to their parents' type of music. The more parents disliked the new music, the more popular it was with teenagers. In 1956, Elvis Presley erupted onto the pop music scene, singing songs that broke all sales records, such as Heartbreak Hotel and Hound Dog. He was a phenomenal success with teenagers, whilst their parents and teachers deplored his sensual style of performing, his tight jeans and his permanent sneer.
- The increasing popularity of television also opened teenagers up to a new world that they didn't know about. These new experiences that teenagers were having made them realise that they were their own person, and they could do their own thing if they wanted. They didn't have to follow the same path as their parents.
Teenage rebellion?
However, there were increasing concerns that young people were out of control. Evidence was presented of gang fights, teenage drunkenness and disrespectful behaviour toward adults. In 1956, the number of murders carried out by teenagers in New York rose by 26% over the previous year.
So-called experts from various academic disciplines, particularly psychology, argued that aberrant behaviour could be cured once the problem was recognised. They offered various explanations of delinquency.
In 1954, psychologist Frederic Wertham published The Seduction of the Innocent, which exposed the violence and brutality of comic books that sold in their millions. After this, in fact, the content of comics was moderated but not before thirteen states passed laws regulating their publication, distribution and sale.
Some experts offered the explanation of poor role models, particularly the depiction of rebellious behaviour in movies such as Laszlo Benedek's The Wild One (1954) and Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (1955). The former is about a motorcycle gang who terrorise a sleepy town. When asked what he is rebelling against, their leader, played by Marlon Brando, answers, 'What you got?' It was argued that there was a link between violence and rebellion on the screen and in real life.
Others argued there were too many 'latch-key kids' whose parents were always out at work so exercised little control. The Senate was so concerned that it held hearings on delinquent behaviour throughout the decade.
Although teenagers in the first half of the 1950s may have had more money than their predecessors—the teenage market was reported to be worth $10 billion per year by 1955—most were just as conservative and deferential. It should be remembered that one-half of male teenagers during the course of the 1950s were drafted into the armed forces where discipline and traditional values were vigorously reinforced. Meanwhile the average age of marriage, young in itself in 1940 at 21.5 years, reduced even lower to 20.3 years; comparatively young women became housewives and mothers.
Whilst teenage rebellion was to become a much wider phenomenon as the decade progressed, there were in the early years of the 1950s few real signs of its stirrings—certainly not in middle-class white America.
Key Points to Remember:
- Suburban expansion transformed American society as homeownership increased from 50% to 60% between 1945 and 1960, facilitated by government-sponsored mortgages offering up to 90% of property costs at interest rates as low as 4%.
- The consumer boom saw disposable income rise by 17% on average, with the consumer industry growing from $6 billion (1950) to over $13 billion (1963), whilst television ownership reached 50 million sets by 1960.
- Women's position remained complex: whilst media stereotyped them as homemakers, the percentage of women in the workforce actually increased from 33.8% (1950) to 37.8% (1960), with married women's employment rising from 36% (1940) to 60% (1960).
- Youth culture emerged as a distinct phenomenon, with teenagers' annual spending power climbing from $10 billion (1950) to $25 billion (1959), fuelled by rock and roll music, films, and television.
- Debates about teenage rebellion revealed tensions between evidence of delinquency and the reality that most teenagers remained conservative, with one-half of male teenagers drafted into the armed forces during the 1950s where traditional values were reinforced.