What was the central consumer product in the 1950s?
Cars - America was the first Society to have cars as the central consumer product
1 of 29
On average how expensive were cars at the time?
$1,300 - cars were not cheap in 1955 and costed around 2/5 of the family income
2 of 29
Why could people afford cars?
The post-war economic boom meant people had more job security and more money to spend
3 of 29
How many cars were manufactured in 1955 alone?
7.9 million new cars
4 of 29
What was the UAW?
United Automobile Workers - it was the nations most prominent trade union
5 of 29
How many members did the UAW have?
1 million workers were members
6 of 29
Who were the United States ‘Big Three’?
General Motors, Ford and Chrysler
7 of 29
What did President Eisenhower initiate?
A great highway construction programme - this was despite his dislike for excessive federal government intervention in American lives
8 of 29
What was the name of the Act for Eisenhower’s highway expansion?
National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956
9 of 29
What did the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act do?
It set up a ten year programme, at the cost of $25 billion, to construct a nationwide network of 42,500 miles of interstate highways between 4 and 8 lanes wide
10 of 29
What did automobiles indicate?
Social and ethnic status, they gave young people and women more freedom
11 of 29
Why did young people enjoy having cars?
Independence, escape from parental control - they turned respectable family cars into chrome-covered, grease machines
12 of 29
How many white-collar workers were there in 1960?
27.2 million - there were 21.2 million in 1950
13 of 29
At what rate was female employment increasing?
At a rate four times faster than that of men
14 of 29
How did defence spending impact jobs?
It helped create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the 1950s
15 of 29
How did the automobile affect the suburbs?
It enabled people to move into spacious homes in the suburbs but still work in the city
16 of 29
What did the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Veterans Administration offer?
They offered house buyers mortgages of up to 90% of the value of a home and up to 30yrs to pay them off at a low interest rate
17 of 29
What was white flight?
when affluent whites moved from inner cities to the suburbs to economically homogenous neighbourhoods
18 of 29
What were Levittowns? Give an example of a Levittown?
Mass Housing in the suburbs, created by the Levit brothers. An example could be Hempstead, Long Island, which had 17,000 homes
19 of 29
What were some rules those living in Levittowns had to conform to?
Weekly lawn mowing, no fences and no washing hung out at the weekends
20 of 29
What happened to a black American family that bought a house in the Pennsylvania Levittown in 1957?
Rocks were thrown at the house and state authorities had to intervene
21 of 29
How did whites contribute to the growth of large, urban ghettos?
They used restrictive covenants to exclude them from neighbourhoods (even though the Supreme Court declared them legally unenforceable in 1948), whites staged Housing riots and policies of the federal government promoted residential segregation.
22 of 29
How much more spending power did the average family income have in 1960?
30% More purchasing power than in 1950.
23 of 29
Why did must-have domestic technology products, such as the washing machine, make housewives lives easier?
They could spend less time on household chores and enjoy more free time
24 of 29
What made the consumer boom of the 1950s and 1960s easier?
Ready availability of credit to buy goods and services
25 of 29
In 1950, who introduced the first credit card?
Diner’s Club
26 of 29
What was the effect of the American retail industry changing to meet consumer demand?
Old city centre retail areas declined and were replaced by new, out of town shopping centres
27 of 29
What was the name of the first satellite in space, launched by the USSR in 1957?
The Sputnik
28 of 29
In 1959, life magazine reported that teenage consumers had suddenly become what?
A major factor in the nations economy
29 of 29
Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
On average how expensive were cars at the time?
Back
$1,300 - cars were not cheap in 1955 and costed around 2/5 of the family income
Comments
No comments have yet been made