AP US History AMSCO Guided Notes
8.5: Culture after 1945
AMSCO Guided Notes
AP US History Guided Notes
AMSCO 8.5 - Culture after 1945
Learning Objectives
- Explain how mass culture has been maintained or challenged over time.
I. Consumer Culture and Conformity
1. How did television, advertising, and suburban migration contribute to homogeneity in American culture during the 1950s?
A. Television
1. How did television become central to American family life and what values did popular sitcoms reinforce?
2. What concerns did FCC chairman Newton Minnow raise about television's impact on American culture and children?
B. Advertising
1. How did advertising and new shopping technologies in the 1950s promote consumer conformity and standardization?
2. What role did franchise operations and fast food chains play in the shift from local to national consumer culture?
C. Paperbacks and Records
1. How did paperback books and long-playing records change American reading and music consumption in the 1950s?
2. What was rock and roll music and why did it appeal particularly to teenagers?
D. Corporate America
1. How did large corporations promote conformity among workers and what did William Whyte argue about this trend?
2. What changes occurred in American labor after the AFL-CIO merger in 1955 and how did unions reflect broader social trends?
3. What trade-offs did most Americans accept in exchange for suburban affluence and consumer goods in the 1950s?
E. Religion
1. How did organized religion expand after World War II and what did Will Herberg observe about religious practice in the 1950s?
II. Women's Roles
1. How did the baby boom and suburban living reinforce traditional views of women's roles in the 1950s?
2. What evidence suggests that some women, particularly well-educated middle-class women, were becoming dissatisfied with their prescribed roles?
III. Social Critics
1. What common concerns did social critics like David Riesman, John Kenneth Galbraith, and C. Wright Mills raise about 1950s American society?
A. Novels
1. How did novelists like J. D. Salinger and Joseph Heller critique conformity and institutional rigidity in their works?
B. Beatniks
1. Who were the beatniks and what values did they promote as alternatives to 1950s conformity?
2. How did the Beat Generation influence the youth rebellion of the 1960s?
IV. Assassination and the End of the Postwar Era
1. How did President Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, affect American public confidence in government?
2. What was the Warren Commission's conclusion about Kennedy's assassination and why did conspiracy theories persist?
A. In Retrospect
1. How did Kennedy's inaugural message inspire young Americans and what events caused them to question American society?
2. How did American culture shift from the consensus of the 1950s to the divisions and counterculture of the late 1960s?
V. Historical Perspectives: A Silent Generation?
1. What was the traditional liberal interpretation of the 1950s and how has historical scholarship revised this view?
A. Eisenhower the Leader
1. How did historians' assessment of President Eisenhower change after examining his papers and what did William O'Neill argue about his presidency?
B. Liberal Victories
1. What liberal successes and social progress did historians identify in the 1950s economy and civil rights?
2. How did the integration of various ethnic and religious groups in the 1950s pave the way for Kennedy's election in 1960?
C. Conservative Foundations
1. What intellectual foundations for conservative politics were laid in the 1950s and how did they influence later administrations?
Key Terms
television
credit cards
fast food
paperback books
rock and roll
conglomerates
The Lonely Crowd
The Affluent Society
The Catcher in the Rye
Catch-22
beatniks
Warren Commission