American History, 1877 to present

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Post-War America, 1945-1972

Introduction "America bestrides the world like a colossus," wrote the British politician and historian Harold Laski in 1947. At the time, Europe and Asia were still digging themselves out from the rubble of World War II. By contrast, the United States mainland had been spared the war's carnage, and its factories had roused themselves from their Great Depression slumber to churn out the weapons of war that propelled the Allies to victory. America thus entered the post-World War II era, according to Laski, possessing "half the world's wealth" and "more than half the world's productive capacity." This global economic preeminence would help usher in a period of economic expansion--or "golden age of capitalism"--that would persist for much of the quarter century following World War II. The long economic boom, in turn, helped underwrite contemporaneous struggles for economic, racial, and gender equality in American life. Never had any of America's previous rising tides lifted so many boats. Women drew more equal to men. Non-whites drew more equal to whites. The poor drew more equal to the rich. The great American author Phillip Roth would later describe the immediate post- World War II expansion as "the greatest moment of collective inebriation in American history." But like any drunken bender, it would eventually give way to a sobering hangover, arriving in the late 1960s and early 1970s and threatening some of the gains in racial equality. Over the next several decades, in fact, the advances toward greater economic equality made during the New Deal, World War II, and post-War quarter century would vanish. Aircraft Under Construction at a Ford Plant, c. 1941;; Evaporator Units at Garland Beet Sugar Refinery, 1971

Section 1: The Post War Boom • Section Question: Why was the post-war era “the greatest moment of collective

inebriation in American history”? • Question: How did the dramatic growth in population take place in the post-war

period, especially in the Sun-Belt states? Terms: • American post-war population increase or "baby boom" • Western population growth • "Sun belt" and defense industry/div> • Defense v. social spending • US dominance of exports • 60% of world manufactures What makes the post-World War II rising tide even more remarkable is the rapidly increasing number of boats there were to lift. After witnessing its lowest rate of population growth during the 1930s, America's increase in population during the 1940s and 1950s would outstrip any subsequent decade of the 20th century. The country ballooned from 132 million people in 1940 to 151 million in 1950 (a 14.5 percent increase). Between 1950 and 1960, the population grew from 151 to 179 million (a 19 percent increase), and again in the decade of the 1960s, it increased another 13.3 percent to 203 million people.

As Depression and World War II era anxieties gave way to post-World War II aspirations, Americans married at greater rates and younger ages during the 1940s and 1950s than at any other point during the 20th century. These younger newlyweds had more newborns on average than their counterparts had during the first half the 20th century or their own children had after 1970. Some 50 million babies arrived during the "baby boom" of the 1946 to 1962 period, with birth rates cresting in 1957 and then tapering off into the 1970s as the "baby boom" gave way to the "baby bust." A disproportionate amount of the country's over 50 percent population increase from 1940 to 1970 took place in its western states, where population tripled from 13.9 million to 34.8 million. Within this region, the Pacific coast states grew by nearly 200 percent. This included, above all, California, home to nearly half the

West's inhabitants in 1940 and nearly 60 percent in 1970. The Golden State mushroomed from 6.9 million residents in 1940 to 19.9 million by 1970, supplanting New York as the most populous state in 1962.

Long a nation of peripatetic people inclined to search for greater socioeconomic opportunity in the direction of the setting sun, America's mid-20th century western migrants often struck gold through federally funded Cold War defense contracts. California alone received nearly 25 percent of all military contracts (and 40 percent of all federal aerospace contracts), while the states along the Pacific coast received almost half of all research and development contracts issued by the Department of Defense. This spending reflected an affinity on the part of military officials for what they dubbed the "sunshine belt" (later re-named the "sun belt")--a sweeping swath of land arcing from Texas through California. The sunny skies and wide-open spaces were ideally-suited for military training, as well as airplane, ordnance, missile, and atomic bomb testing. California and its fellow western states were not exceptional, but rather, to paraphrase the great American writer Wallace Stegner, like America but only more so. Cold War defense dollars flowed across the country, constituting a growing share of the nation's overall economy. Following a post-World War II lull, the national defense budget stood at 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1950. As the Cold War heated up, however, the national defense budget (as a percent of GDP) nearly doubled to 9.3 percent in 1960 and decreased only slightly to 8.1 percent in 1970 before dropping by nearly half to 4.9 percent in 1980. By contrast, public social welfare expenditures (as a percent of GDP) grew only slightly from 8.9 percent in 1950 to 10.3 percent in 1960. As the Cold War buoyed America's post-World War II economy in some ways, World War II did so in others. Spared the home front fighting that devastated the fields and factories and roads and bridges of much of Europe and Asia (especially Japan), the United States entered the post-World War II era with

minimal global economic competition. Just one of over 100 countries in the world as of 1950, the United States nevertheless accounted for over 20 percent of the world's exports in the late 1940s and 15-17 percent for almost all of the 1950s. The country's balance of trade during this same time period tilted in the direction of more exports than imports--and remained that way through the 1960s before shifting in the other direction in the 1970s.

• Question: How did the GI Bill improve American economic performance after

the war? Terms: • G.I. Bill of Rights • G.I. Bill and labor productivity • G.I. Bill and new housing • Homeownership rates Besides hobbling America's global competitors, World War II also began the process of elevating the intellectual caliber of the United States' work force, thereby aiding the post-World War II economy in another way. In 1944, Congress enacted one of the most transformative pieces of legislation in US history--the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, better known as the G.I. Bill of Rights (or, simply, G.I. Bill).

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Many of these newly skilled former GIs would find jobs in the thriving home construction industry, which the G.I. Bill also did so much to stimulate. Building upon the New Deal's Federal Housing Administration, the G.I. Bill's Veterans Administration provided public insurance to private lenders. Lenders were then able to make more favorable terms for lending to returning servicemen (down payments, interest rates, years required to repay), increasing the number of homes the GIs purchased. It worked. Between 1945 and 1950, the number of new housing units started increased by nearly 450 percent (326,000 to 1,952,000). This, in turn, helped promote a substantial increase in home ownership rates-- from 43.6 percent in 1940 to 62.9 percent in 1970. For many Americans, FHA- and VA-mortgage-backed "ranch-style" houses in sprawling suburbs became the mid- 20th century equivalent of Homestead Act-backed ranches (and farms) in the previous century. The lure of the suburban (or, crabgrass) frontier supplanted the lure of the western frontier. The West, in general, and California, in particular, became synonymous with suburbia--as reflected in Bing Crosby's song, "San Fernando Valley," released in the same year that the G.I. Bill passed.

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Though the cost was not cheap (the G.I. Bill comprised 15 percent, or $14.5 billion, of the entire federal budget in 1948 alone), the long-term benefits made it a bargain. A more educated workforce, thanks to the G.I. Bill, meant a more productive work force. Labor productivity--the amount of output per hour of work- -grew at an average annual rate of 2.8 percent from 1950 to 1973, which would be 37 percent higher than the 1.7 percent average annual productivity growth rate from 1973 to 1998.

• Question: What factors contributed to American middle class prosperity after

the war and in what ways were American government policies involved? Terms:

• Labor productivity growth • Family income growth • The GDP growth in 1940-70 compared to before and after • Unionization • Poorer people's wealth grows faster than the wealthy A more productive work force meant a more robust economy. In 1940-70, the per capita gross domestic product (or, GDP, the standard measure of the total market value of goods and services produced) grew at an annual average rate of 2.9 percent. This represented a 107 percent increase from the 1.4 percent average annual per capita GDP growth rate of the period before, 1900-40. This average annual GDP growth rate was also much greater than the period after, 1970-2000, which was only 2.1 percent. The average annual GDP rate of 1940-70 of 2.9 percent translated into a 136 percent increase in real per capita (per person) GDP. In 1940 the economy produced for each person (if it had been distributed equally) $7,396;; but by 1970 per capita income was $17,449 (in 1996 dollars). Unfortunately, the rate slowed considerably from 1970 to 2000, increasing only 87 percent. Earnings rose in tandem with productivity in the post-war period. As overall productivity nearly doubled from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, so, too, did real average hourly wages--from $10.67 in 1947 to $18.74 in 1973 (in 2011 dollars). In the period after 1970, however, productivity continued to climb--albeit at a slower rate--but real average hourly earnings actually went down to $18.32 in

2000 (in 2011 dollars).

High rates of unionization in the post-WWII period helped insure that average, rank-and-file workers benefited from the growth in average wages. Building upon protections secured during the New Deal, unions saw their ranks swell from less than 15 percent (of the non-agricultural work force) in the mid-1930s to just under 35 percent for much of the 1950s. Some 90 percent of union workers belonged to the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in 1955. At that time, manufacturing workers were over half of all union members. United States manufacturing comprised nearly 60 percent of the total manufacturing output of the 10 leading western industrial countries in the world. (At 14 percent, Germany was a distant second.) Women Model Union Label Clothing at an ILGWU Fashion Show, c. 1960

America's rising economic tide lifted more boats than ever before or since, and it lifted smaller ones more so than larger ones. As the economy prospered, incomes not only grew, but they grew at slightly higher rates for families in the 80th percentile and below, that is middle, working, and lower class families. The share of aggregate family income for this large swath of Americans increased from 57 percent of total income in 1947 to 59.3 percent in 1975. In contrast, the share of all income that went to the top 5 percent, the highest income families, decreased from 17.5 to 14.9 percent. Nevertheless, the vast majority of all American families prospered. From 1947 to 1973, real median family income doubled--from $26,697 to $54,527 (in 2011 dollars).

As it did, homeownership rates grew by nearly 45 percent in 1940-70, and car ownership rates climbed by nearly 155 percent in 1945-75 (reaching 1 car registered for every 2 people in the country). The percentage of households with televisions exploded from fewer than 1 in 10 in 1950 to 9 in 10 by 1965. The good times were quite literally rolling--and more and more Americans could listen in on the radios in their new cars or watch on the televisions in their new homes.

Section 2: Racial Equality • Section Question: How was legal racial equality achieved between 1940 and

1982? • Question: According to Mark Brilliant, how did New Deal liberalism spur or help

initiate movements toward racial equality? Terms: • New Deal liberalism • Government activism • Definition of minorities • Carey McWilliams • Racial segregation in New Deal legislation • Executive Order 8802 As economic equality peaked in the 1960s, the struggle against racial--and, later, gender--inequality followed. As with economic forces, World War II served as a critical catalyst for the campaign against racial inequality. The thriving post- World War II economy and the increased ideological acceptance for government intervention wrought by the New Deal now moved into the realm of race relations. If the New Deal ushered in the ideology of modern liberalism, then World War II witnessed the rise of racial liberalism. The gospel of modern or New Deal liberalism that President Franklin Roosevelt preached vested unprecedented faith in the positive influence that government could exert on the lives of citizens. Roosevelt transformed the meaning of liberalism from a synonym for minimal

government and laissez-faire economics into "a belief in an activist socially conscious state." By grasping the levers of state power, New Deal liberalism promised to deliver what Roosevelt described as "greater security for the average man than he has ever known in the history of America." Anton Refregier, "History of San Francisco," 1948

Racial liberalism took its cue from New Deal liberalism, but also tried to broaden its boundaries. It sought to use governmental tools to build a bridge connecting Roosevelt's Promised Land to America's not-so-chosen people, who were increasingly referred to as "minorities." Sociologist Louis Wirth defined "minorities" in 1945 as people whose phenotypical, or physical, characteristics served to single them out "as objects of collective discrimination." Wirth's definition echoed that of California-based journalist, lawyer, and activist, Carey McWilliams. McWilliams focused his attention on "colored minorities … [whose] degree of color visibility or physical differentiation [were] sufficient to constitute a recognizable difference" with discriminatory consequences. He drew a sharp distinction between "colored minorities," on the one hand, and "foreign- born 'white' immigrants"--Jews or eastern or southern Europeans--on the other hand, who stood a much better chance of being "absorbed, as their predecessor groups were absorbed." McWilliams's distinction was evidenced in New Deal legislation, which benefited "foreign-born 'white' immigrants" and their descendants more so than their non- white counterparts. The Wagner and Social Security Acts, for example, exempted disproportionately non-white agricultural and domestic workers from their protective orbits. The mortgage underwriting guidelines of the Federal Housing Authority perpetuated residential segregation;; and Agricultural Adjustment Administration payments went to farmers to let their fields lie fallow, with scant provision for farm laborers who were disproportionately of Mexican descent in the West and African American in the South. Moreover, the New Deal avoided grappling with race-specific inequalities, such as Jim Crow laws written into state statute books across the country. Nor did it deal with various forms of so-called "private" and therefore permissible racial discrimination in businesses, neighborhoods, banks, real estate agencies, and unions. Train Station Waiting Room, Durham, NC, 1940 and Segregated Drinking Fountains at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

As World War II approached, African Americans seized the symbolism of fighting racism abroad to mount a concurrent battle against racism at home. Walter White, leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), captured the essence of the Double V (Victory) campaign--meaning victory for racial equality abroad and at home--when he observed, "It sounds pretty foolish to be against park benches marked 'Jude' [Jewish] in Berlin but to be for park benches marked 'Colored' in Tallahassee, Florida." African American labor leader, A. Philip Randolph, applied this logic to federally- funded defense work. Randolph's March on Washington Movement in the early 1940s threatened to bring 100,000 African American protesters to the nation's capitol unless President Roosevelt took steps to guarantee equality of economic opportunity to African Americans looking for work in war industries. On June 25, 1941, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, barring discrimination in government-financed defense work and establishing a Fair Employment Practices Committee to assure compliance. Members of the "V" at Home Campaign, 1942

Executive Order 8802 marked the first official presidential action on behalf of racial equality since Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. It also reflected the extension of the transformed role of government wrought by the

New Deal into the realm of race relations. Whereas New Deal liberalism had unfurled an unprecedented government safety net to the "average" American, as Roosevelt maintained, racial liberalism endeavored to stretch that safety net to include the non-"average" American. What security had been to New Deal liberalism, antidiscrimination and equal opportunity became to racial liberalism. These were the terms that figured most prominently in the racial liberals' lexicon and best encapsulated their aspirations. "While we have moved away from laissez-faire doctrines in economics," wrote Carey McWilliams in 1943 about the changes wrought by New Deal liberalism, "we still anachronistically pursue laissez-faire theories in population matters." This conservative approach, McWilliams believed, was rooted in an inappropriate "fear" of employing state power on behalf of "democratic objectives," which racial liberalism proposed to correct. Executive Order 8802 marked a critical early step in this corrective direction. African American Defense Workers During the War

• Question: According to Mark Brilliant, what important pieces of legislation after the war helped to dismantle legalized segregation and what was the role of affirmative action? Terms:

• Linking New Deal liberalism with racial liberalism • Martin Luther King, Jr. • "I Have a Dream" Speech • Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

• Title VII • Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) • Fair Housing Act • 3 steps or goals of civil rights activists • Affirmative action • Opposition to affirmative action • University of California v. Bakke Civil rights activists for racial equality battled Jim Crow laws in the South throughout the 1940s and 50s. However, the less famous but perhaps more powerful thrust of racial equality activists across the country in the same periods was this campaign to link New Deal liberalism and racial liberalism, economic justice and racial justice. When Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his iconic 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech, hundreds of thousands had come to the nation's capital for a "March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom," the actual name of the march. It was very similar to the March on Washington Movement earlier in the 1940s that had demanded equality in defense hiring and yielded Executive Order 8802. Racial and economic equality had always mirrored each other, though the second half of that equation was always overshadowed. A year after King's speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Again, the best known feature of the act was Title II, which outlawed Jim Crow in places of "public accommodation" (i.e., private businesses open to the public, such as movie theaters, restaurants, hotels, etc.). The lesser-known provision was Title VII, which revived and expanded Executive Order 8802, establishing an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Its job was to enforce Title VII's prohibition of employment discrimination on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin in businesses with 25 or more employees, as well as labor unions. What Executive Order 8802 had begun in 1941 (and numerous states outside of the South had continued with the enactment of state fair employment practices laws from 1945 to 1964), Title VII now extended to the entire country. Four years later, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act, which did for fair housing laws in the states what Title VII did for state fair employment practices laws. Dismantling legalized segregation marked a first step down the road ventured by civil rights activists toward racial and economic justice. Erecting anti- discrimination statutes in labor and housing marked a second step. The third step in the late 1960s and early 70s was establishing affirmative action policies and programs. Affirmative action involved considering race as a factor in employment and higher education admissions decisions in order to translate anti-discrimination laws into racially integrated work places and student bodies. California Attorney General Stanley Mosk endorsed this approach. "A pattern of systematic exclusion may be overcome by a policy of deliberate inclusion," Mosk wrote in his April 1964 explanation of the state fair employment practices law. When Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote in his dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1890) that "the Constitution is color blind," according to Mosk, it "was never intended to blind the law to inequities which arise out of color

distinctions or to cripple the democracy in its efforts to eliminate such inequities." Mosk's reasoning did not mean that "quotas"--requiring fixed numbers of minority applicants to be accepted or admitted--were legal, but it did mean that the pursuit of "reasonable racial balance" was. Two years later, President Lyndon Johnson agreed. "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains … bring him to the starting line of a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair," Johnson pronounced at a commencement address delivered at Howard University. Beyond "equality as a right and a theory," what was needed was "equality as a fact and equality as a result." Equality as a result became the core of the definition of the affirmative action legislation that emerged in the mid- to late-1960s—achieving proportional racial representation in work places and student bodies. The spread of affirmative action stoked heated controversy. Its opponents typically maintained that the end goal of the civil rights movement was color blindness. In other words, the goal should be formal legal equality embodied in the uprooting of legalized discrimination in a variety of venues, such as schools, buses, neighborhoods, lunch counters, voting booths, and marriage. From this perspective the turn to color conscious policies, most typically associated with the rise of affirmative action, marked both a rupture and betrayal of original intent, or the intentions of the founding fathers in the Constitution. Proponents argued for practicality over ideological purity. In the famous Bakke v. Regents of the University of California (1978), the Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun defended the medical school of the University of California, Davis, which had reserved 16 spots for non-white applicants. Blackmun noted, "In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way." Blackmun's colleague on the court, Thurgood Marshall, added that color conscious means were necessary to achieve color blind ends--a "fully integrated society, one in which the color of a person's skin will not determine the opportunities available to him." Rally against Bakke v. Regents of the University of California, June 1978

• Question: What are some indicators by the 1980s that the campaign for racial equality had made important strides? Terms:

• Education gains for minorities • White collar v. blue color jobs for minorities • Growth in African American homeownership rates A more fully--though far from fully--racially integrated society had indeed emerged in America between World War II and the 1970s. In 1950, the median number of years of school completed for white males was 5 years greater than that of black males (12.4 to 7.4). The difference between black and white females was 3.3 years (12.2 to 8.9). Twenty years later those margins had nearly disappeared, winnowing to .6 years between white and black males and .3 years between white and black females. The declining racial gap in median years of school completed was accompanied by an increasing rate of college graduation for blacks versus whites. Between 1950 and 1980, black male college graduation rates increased by 379 percent (1.9 to 9.1 percent of all black males) and black female by 250 percent. White male and female college graduation increased at significantly lower rates--168 percent (8.8 to 23.6 percent) and 148 percent (6.1 to 15.1 percent), respectively.

The significantly greater black versus white rates of increase in education was even more pronounced in white collar work. Between 1950 and 1980, the number of nonwhite male professionals climbed 830 percent (from 82,256 men to 765,050), while the number of white male professionals increased 185 percent (3 million to 8.4 million). During this same time period, the number of nonwhite male managers and officials exploded by 918 percent (from 32,382 to 329,542), while the number of white male managers and officials grew by 155 percent (from 2,163,092 to 5,510,397).

More education and white collar work meant more income. From 1940 to 1980, the gap between what black males earned on average to every dollar earned by white males narrowed from 55 cents to 73 cents. More income, in turn, led to more homeownership. From 1950 to 1980 black household home ownership rates increased by 114 percent (from 20.5 percent of non-white families owning their home to 43.8 percent) compared to a 63 percent increase for white household home ownership rates (from 42.1 percent to 68.6 percent). Non-white men and women were still substantially behind their white counterparts in education, wealth, and homeownership;; however, they were making significant strides toward equality in the post-war years.

Section 3: Gender Equality • Section Question: What motivated gender equality and how did an opposition

form against it? • Question: What strides did women make toward gender equality in the post-

war years, and in what ways did women not make progress? Terms: • Women in the workforce in WWII and later • Women in higher education • Jobs in manufactures and service • Women in the economy • Median wages of women and men • "Pink-collar ghetto" • African American women's gains As with African Americans, women fought for their own victory on the homefront of WWII. To achieve victory abroad in the war, they joined the WWII workplace,

taking positions, especially in defense manufacturing that had been traditionally held by men. When the men returned, women refused to cede their place in working life. In 1940, the civilian labor force included 13 million women, more than half of whom were single. Ten years later, the civilian labor force included 16.6 women, more than half of whom were married. By 1980 just over half of all women (45.5 million) were working and more than twice as many working women were married than single. Rosie the Riveter and her daughters, in other words, would not go home after the war, even after they got married. As a result, an even more fully gender (as opposed to racial) integrated society emerged in America between World War II and the 1970s. Women, in general, and white women, in particular closed gender gaps in schooling and work at rates that outstripped those of African Americans as a whole.

In 1950, more than 2 times as many men were enrolled in institutions of higher education than women (1,560,000 to 721,000, together totaling 14.3 percent of the 18 to 24 year-old population). By 1979, female enrollment in institutions of higher education exceeded that of men for the first time (6,223,000 to 5,874,000, together totaling 40.2 percent of the 18 to 24 year-old population). The gender gap favoring women only widened as the 20th century drew to a close. This pattern was also reflected in graduation rates. In 1950, more than 2 times as many 23 year-old men held bachelor's degrees than 23 year-old women (278,240 to 104,306, totaling 16.1 percent of the 23 year-old population). Just over 30 years later, in 1981, women surpassed men on this metric. Just as more education gave women more access to employment, so, too, did the changing nature of the job market. Some 40 million new jobs were created between 1950 and 1980. Of these, 30 million were in the service sector, which displaced the goods producing/industrial sector as the site where more Americans worked. A significant proportion of the new service sector jobs went to women, making women, much more so than men, the beneficiaries of post-

World War II prosperity. Still, the extent to which women reaped the benefits of the growing and changing economy had its limits. More often than not, the increasing number of women who were well educated and who had entered the work force with great expectations found themselves slotted into highly gendered stratified jobs. The lower wages and lower benefits of these jobs constituted what became known as a "pink-collar ghetto." IBM Keypunch Machine Operators, c. 1965;; Receptionist, 2009;; Telephone Operators, 1958;; Receptionist, 1990

Though women would surpass men in higher education enrollment and degrees conferred by the late 1970s and early 1980s, men nevertheless comprised nearly two-and-a-half times the number of law school graduates, over 3 times the number of medical school graduates, and nearly 7 times the number of dental school graduates in 1980. While 10.5 percent of men who earned doctorates in 1980 did so in engineering, just under 1 percent of women did. Conversely, in 1980, 33.2 percent of doctorates earned by women were in education, a field traditional to women, while only 17.9 percent of men's doctorates were in education. The persistent--if narrowing--gender stratification in education and employment during the post-World War II period helps explain the persistent--and not narrowing--gender stratification in income. In 1960, the median earnings for full- time working women was 49 percent less than men. In 1980, it was 49.7 percent. During this same time period, racial gaps between the median earnings of black and white women narrowed to the point that black working women possessed nearly the same median earnings as white working women. At the same time, the racial gaps between black and white working men declined only slightly (from 36.6 percent in 1970 to 34 percent in 1980). Despite this difference, black men still had higher median earnings than white women by 16.2 percent in 1970 and 18.3 percent in 1980.

• Question: How did Betty Friedan and other activists for gender equality tackle

the social and cultural barriers for women in post-war society? Terms: • Betty Friedan • The Feminine Mystique • Cult of domesticity • Title IX • Roe v. Wade • Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Besides being consigned to "feminine" jobs, women also encountered a popular culture in the mid-20th century that venerated traditional feminine roles. This gender conservatism arose despite (or perhaps because of) the rapidly increasing number of educated and working women. It also stood in uneasy tension with the enthusiastic racial liberalism of the late 50s and early 60s that propelled the civil rights movement forward. In response to the double-burden and double-standard women confronted, Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963. Friedan's manifesto indicted the drudgery of the suburban domestic sphere where the post-World War II cult of domesticity sought to slot women as happy housewives and doting mothers. It also called attention to the frustration and guilt many of those same women encountered as they sought work for wages outside the home and, in the process, ran afoul of the "feminine mystique." Friedan's book became a best- seller, as well as an opening salvo in the modern women's movement. Betty Friedan 1960;; National Organization for Women leaders, 1968

Thereafter, women continued to buck the "feminine mystique" when they prevailed upon Congress to pass Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The law extended prohibitions against discrimination covering race in federally- assisted education programs to gender. Title IX would soon become synonymous with opening the floodgates to women in college athletics. One year later, women extended to their very bodies the kind of control they had secured over their school and work lives. In 1973, the United States Supreme Court handed down its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, striking down state laws prohibiting a woman from being able to choose to terminate a pregnancy. • Question: According to Mark Brilliant, what strategies did conservative

activists use to appeal to American voters? Terms: • Phyllis Schlafly • Exports after 1970 • Median income after 1970 • Busing and Richard Nixon • Brown v. Board of Education and Milliken v. Bradley • "Chocolate cities" and "vanilla suburbs" • "Great divergence" The women's movement provoked a backlash, which, in turn, would contribute to its most stinging defeat. In 1972, Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Initially proposed in the 1920s in the wake of the 19th Amendment's granting women the right to vote, the ERA proclaimed, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." Opponents of the ERA, like conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, insisted that the ERA would overturn longstanding legal protections women possessed as women. They also viewed the ERA as a threat to the traditional family structure that feminists like Betty Friedan had sought to challenge. Their efforts succeeded. In 1982, the ERA fell 3 states short of the 38 required for ratification. Though failure to ratify the ERA represented a bitter loss for the march for gender equality, it did little to derail the long-term post-World War II trends involving women in education and on the job. The marches for racial and economic equality, however, faced more formidable roadblocks and encountered bigger

setbacks. Rally for Equal Rights Amendment, 1978;; Demonstration against ERA, 1977

In the case of racial equality, the civil rights movement's progression from dismantling legalized segregation (or, Jim Crow) to legislating anti-discrimination (fair employment practices, fair housing) to establishing results-oriented proportional representation in affirmative action policies was accompanied by increasingly popular opposition. It was one thing, for example, to remove statutory language from the law books. This, for example, happened in rather short order from 1945 to 1950 in California and was, according to Carey McWilliams, "accepted throughout the state with scarcely a murmur of audible protest." It was quite another to establish anti- discrimination laws, which encroached upon the decisions of private businesses and homeowners to hire or promote, or to sell or lease to, anyone on whatever terms they chose. Similarly, it was one thing to strike down school segregation laws, as the Supreme Court did for the entire country in 1954, prompting massive resistance in the South. It was quite another to go from school desegregation in the law to integration in the classroom. When courts, including the Supreme Court in 1968, interpreted the principal of desegregation to require mandatory integration, the school busing required to achieve it quickly became what President Richard Nixon described in 1971 as "by far the hottest" domestic issue confronting the country. Three years later, as the heat generated by busing only increased, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that sought to turn it down. Milliken v. Bradley held that busing across school district lines--in this case from schools in Detroit to schools in Detroit's suburbs--was impermissible, absent evidence that those suburbs were complicit in the school segregation in Detroit. Twenty years after Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Milliken v. Bradley (1974) marked the Supreme Court's first retreat from the steps being taken to achieve integration. The nation was rapidly dividing itself into inner cities and suburbs, each of which had "economic and racial homogeneity"--a nation of "Chocolate cities" surrounded by "vanilla suburbs," in the funk band Parliament's memorable formulation. Milliken foreshadowed a trend toward the de facto (in fact), if not de

jure (in law) re-segregation of America's public schools that would begin in earnest in the 1980s. The Parliaments, 1969

Finally, it was one thing to pass fair employment practices laws that forbade racial discrimination in employment. It was quite another to suggest that there was racial discrimination because a race was underrepresented in a school or in employment. Insisting on affirmative action remedies became as controversial as busing. From the Double Victory campaign through the civil rights era, proponents of racial justice sought to insure that racial minorities had spaces aboard the boats being lifted by America's rising economic tide. However, no sooner had the civil rights movement secured its major congressional legislative victories in the mid- 60s, particularly with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, than reduced growth and prosperity in the 70s began to undermine the achievements. Members of the "V" at Home Campaign, 1942;; March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963, Anti-Bakke Protest, 1977

Harder economic times would have an even more devastating impact on the march for economic equality. Instead of being widely distributed, the benefits of the economy's productivity growth began to be narrowly concentrated. What would later become known as the "great divergence" in income equality took root. Beginning in the mid-1970s, the share of aggregate income for middle class to poor families declined, while the share of aggregate income for the top 20 percent rose;; the top 5 percent prospered even more. This marked a complete reversal of the pattern that had characterized the quarter century or so after World War II. America's overall economy continued to grow-- albeit at a slower rate than the 25 years after WWII. But this rising tide no longer lifted all boats. Instead, it lifted only bigger boats, while leaving the smaller ones grounded, returning America back to levels of income inequality not seen since the decade before the Great Depression. The "greatest moment of collective inebriation in American history" was over. Whinery family, Pie Town, NM, 1940, and The Flam family, San Diego, CA, 1970

Essay: The Post-War World, 1945-1972 Introduction

America dominance of world economy "The greatest moment of collective inebriation" Concentration of wealth after 1970

Section 1: The Post War Boom

American post-war population increase or "baby boom" Western population growth "Sun belt" and defense industry Defense vs. social spending US dominance of exports 60 percent of world manufactures G.I. Bill of Rights G.I. Bill and labor productivity G.I. Bill and new housing Homeownership rates Labor productivity growth Family income growth The GDP growth in 1940-70 compared to before and after Unionization Poorer people's wealth grows faster than the wealthy

Section 2: Racial Equality

New Deal liberalism Government activism Definition of minorities Carey McWilliams Racial segregation in New Deal legislation Executive Order 8802 Linking New Deal liberalism with racial liberalism Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Have a Dream" Speech Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Fair Housing Act Three steps or goals of civil rights activists

Affirmative action Opposition to affirmative action University of California v. Bakke Education gains for minorities White collar vs. blue color jobs for minorities Growth in African American homeownership rates

Section 3: Gender Equality

Women in the workforce in WWII and later Women in higher education Jobs in manufactures and service Women in the economy Median wages of women and men "Pink-collar ghetto" Women in professions African American women's gains Betty Friedan The Feminine Mystique Cult of domesticity Title IX Roe v. Wade Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Phyllis Schlafly Exports after 1970 Median income after 1970 Busing and Richard Nixon Brown v. Board of Education and Milliken v. Bradley "Chocolate cities" and "vanilla suburbs" "Great divergence"

Lecture/Slides/Problems Lecture: "The Color of America Has Changed"

"Dominant narrative of the civil rights movement" 4 components narrative: geographic, demographic, chronological, and

substantive Geographic: South to everywhere else Demographic: African Americans and whites Chronological: Mid-1950s to late 1960s

Substantive: Focus on state-sanctioned segregation "Long" civil rights movement Goals of the civil rights reformers Carey McWilliams and the diverse civil rights movements Brothers Under the Skin Racially restrictive housing covenants Perez v. Sharp and inter-racial marriage Anton Refregier's mural California Federation of Civic Unity (CFCU) Lack of cooperation among movements Pat Brown African American's concern for fair housing César Chávez Willie Mays case and housing discrimination California fair housing legislation Proposition 14 Ronald Reagan Private property rights vs. civil rights 1966 California gubernatorial election Bilingual education in California and retreat The Bakke decision (1978) Affirmative action in college admissions Thurgood Marshall's opinion in Bakke decision Lewis Powell: "race yes, quotas no" Shifting rationale to promote "diversity"

Problem: Perez v. Sharp

14th Amendment ("Due Process") Loving v. Virginia Perry v. Schwarzenegger California the first state successfully to challenge in court state-

sanctioned prohibitions against interracial marriage Same-sex marriage uses precedent of inter-racial marriage cases States that prohibit inter-racial marriage

Problem: Suburbanization and Environmental Movement

Western suburbs Septic tanks

Water pollution Modern environmental movement Clean Water Act of 1972 Locus of environmental movement from state parks to suburbs John Muir