Gross national product (GNP)
the total value of all goods and services produced by a country
Taft-Hartley Act (1947)
Also called the Labor Management Relations Act. This act was Congress' response to the abuse of power. Outlawed closed shops; prohibited unions' unfair labor practices, and forced unions to bargain in good faith.
Employment Act (1946)
Enacted by Truman, it committed the federal government to ensuring economic growth and established the Council of Economic Advisors to confer with the president and formulate policies for maintaining employment, production, and purchasing power
Council of Economic Advisers
A three-member body appointed by the president to advise the president on economic policy.
GI Bill of Rights (1944)
The GI Bill of Rights, or the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, was passed in 1944 as a way to ease veterans of World War II back into the work force. The bill rewarded soldiers for their loyalty to the country and eased their fears of competition with women for jobs. The GI bill gave returning veterans priority over other workers for jobs, as well as offering occupational guidance and the option of fifty-two weeks of unemployment benefits. This bill created veterans' hospitals and gave low-interest loans to veterans who were looking to starting their own business or purchasing homes or farms. In the bill, the government also pledged to pay up to four years of "further education or job training for veterans." Although some Americans did not approve of this, claiming that the government was responding to "demands by minorities to special entitlements," 1.5 million veterans were attending college in 1946. This led to a steep increase in higher education and the creation of many new colleges, both state-wide and at the community level. By 1947, veterans accounted for over half of the student population enrolled in colleges. In order to accommodate the large surge of veterans pursuing education after WWII, colleges often "limited the percentage of women admitted or barred students from out of state." By 1950, approximately 8 million veterans responded to the GI Bill's incentive to go to college. By 1956, this number rose to nearly 10 million, as veterans enrolled in colleges, universities, and vocational training programs. Consequently, higher education "became an accepted part of the American dream" and many of the veterans' children were now expected to achieve that dream just as they had. It also "propelled millions of veterans into the middle class, heightening the postwar demand for goods and services."
VA loans
Department of veterans affairs, assists veterans in financing the purchase of homes, farms, and small businesses with little to no down payment at market interest rate.
Dr. Benjamin Spock
Was a 1950's doctor who told the whole baby boom generation how to raise their kids. He also said that raising them was more important and rewarding than extra $ would be.
"Sunbelt"
The southern and southwestern states, from the Carolinas to California, characterized by warm climate and recently, rapid population growth
Suburbs
Residential areas surrounding a city. Shops and businesses moved to suburbia as well as people. Sub Urban
Federal Housing Administration (FHA)
A federal agency established in 1943 to increase home ownership by providing an insurance program to safeguard the lender against the risk of nonpayment. Currently part of HUD.
"Levittown"
In 1947, William Levitt used mass production techniques to build inexpensive homes in surburban New York to help relieve the postwar housing shortage. Levittown became a symbol of the movement to the suburbs in the years after WWII.
"White flight"
working and middle-class white people move away from racial-minority suburbs or inner-city neighborhoods to white suburbs and exurbs
"Baby boom"
An increase in population by almost 30 million people. This spurred a growth in suburbs and three to four children families.
Harry S Truman
The 33rd U.S. president, who succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt upon Roosevelt's death in April 1945. Truman, who led the country through the last few months of World War II, is best known for making the controversial decision to use two atomic bombs against Japan in August 1945. After the war, Truman was crucial in the implementation of the Marshall Plan, which greatly accelerated Western Europe's economic recovery.
Yalta Conference (February 1945)
meeting of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Winston Churchill to discuss postwar plans and Soviet entry into the war against Japan near the end of World War II; disagreements over the future of Poland surfaced. During the Red Scare of the 1950s, some Americans considered the meeting to have been a sellout to the Soviets.
"Big Three"
Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt
Bretton Woods (1944)
Meeting of Western allies to establish a postwar international economic order to avoid crises like the one that spawned World War II. Led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, designed to regulate currency levels and provide aid to underdeveloped countries. (923)
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
An international organization of 183 countries, established in 1947 with the goal of promoting cooperation and exchange between nations, and to aid the growth of international trade.
IBRD (World Bank)
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1944); Established as part of the Bretton Woods system. Created to finance reconstruction after WWII. Since 1950s it has let money to lesser developed countries to finance development projects and humanitarian needs.
United Nations (1945)
like the League of Nations except better because they had more countries participating and they were committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights
Security Council
Five permanent members( US, UK, France, China, USSR) with veto power in the UN. Promised to carry out UN decisions with their own forces.
Big five powers
United State, Britain, USSR, France, China
Baruch Plan
In 1946, Bernard Baruch presented an American plan to control and eventually outlaw nuclear weapons. The plan called for United Nations control of nuclear weapons in three stages before the United States gave up its stockpile. Soviet insistence on immediate nuclear disarmament without inspection doomed the Baruch Plan and led to a nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Nuremberg trials (1945-1946)
Nazi`s were held on trial---accused of crimes against humanity. 12 were hanged, 7 got life, 3 were acquitted
Hermann Goering
In 1936 he headed a Nazi Four-Year Plan to prepare the German economy for a war. He sought economic self-sufficiency , or AUTARKY, and emphasized the production of armaments over goods for civilians. Goering's slogan was "guns not butter."
German occupation zones
At the war's end, Germany had been seperated into four military occupation zones, each assigned to one of the Big Four powers. These were the bases for the formation of two seperate countries in 1949, when the British, French, and American zones became West Germany, and the Soviet zone became East Germany.
"Iron curtain"
a political barrier that isolated the peoples of Eatern Europe after WWII, restricting their ability to travel outside the region
Berlin blockade (1948)
1949)- Stalin blocked all highway traffic through Society zone of Germany to Berlin and its Western allies were forced to airlift provisions into the city. Eventually the Soviets backed down and it seemed like containment of communism to Russia and preventing its spread into Germany was working.
Berlin airlift (1948-1949)
Germany as divided into four zones after World War I, city of Berlin was divided into 2 zones
East Germany and east Berlin- under control of the USSR
West Germany and west Berlin- under control of France, Britain, and the US
What happens- USSR cuts of land routes to west Berlin in order to force out US, France and Britain
Us response- fly supplies non-stop to West Berlin until the Russians back down and reopen land to West Berlin
"Containment" doctrine
a foreign policy strategy advocated by George Kennan that called for the United States to isolate the Soviet Union, "contain" its advances, and resist its enroachments by peaceful means if possible, but by force if neccesary.
George F. Kennan
an American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. He later wrote standard histories of the relations between Russia and the Western powers.
Truman Doctrine (1947)
the announced policy of President Truman to provide aid to free nations who faced internal or external threats of a Communist takeover; announced in conjunction with a $400 million economic aid package to Greece and Turkey, it was successful in helping those countries put down Communist guerrilla movements and is considered to be the first U.S. action of the Cold War.
European Community (EC)
Organization of European states established in 1957; it was originally called the European Economic Community and was renamed the EC in 1967; it promoted economic growth and integration as the basis for a politically united Europe.
Marshall Plan (1947)
A plan for aiding the European nations in economic recovery after World War II, proposed by U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall in 1947 and implemented in 1948 under the Economic Cooperation Administration.
Recognition of Israel (1948)
The Jewish state of Israel in the British mandate territory of Palestine. Should Israel be born, a Saudi Arabian leader warned Truman, the Arabs "will lay siege to it until it dies of famine."
National Security Act (1947)
created the Department of Defense, which was housed in the Pentagon and headed by a new cabinet position, the Secretary of Defense, under which served civilian secretaries of the army, navy, and air force and created the National Security Council (NSC) to advise the president on security matters and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to coordinate the government's foreign fact-gathering (spying)
Pentagon
a government building with five sides that serves as the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense
NSC
a committee in the executive branch of government that advises the president on foreign and military and national security
CIA
an independent agency of the United States government responsible for collecting and coordinating intelligence and counterintelligence activities abroad in the national interest
"Voice of America" (1948)
radio broadcasts sent behind the iron curtain in attempts to entice the people in communist countries into capitalist nations
Selective service system (1948)
Shaped millions of young people's educational, marital, and career plans in the folowing quarter-century.
NATO (1949)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization; an alliance made to defend one another if they were attacked by any other country; US, England, France, Canada, Western European countries
Japanese occupation
Following its own Imperialist dreams, Japan began its own militarized occupation of Vietnam in 1940. The Japanese kept both the French and the figurehead Vietnamese emperor in place-- essentially a double puppet government. Eventually surrender to Vietminh.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur
During the Korean War, he was commander of Allied Forces in the South Pacific during World War II and of UN forces in Korea. He lead the American, British, and South Korean forces. MacArthur fought up until the Yalu River by the Chinese border. Truman told him to only use Korean forces in case China got involved. However MacArthur did not follow orders and sent US, British and Korean forces to fight. The Chinese responded heavily and the troops were pushed back to the 38th parallel. Truman was extremely upset and dismissed MacArthur. Some believe that MacArthur was the reason that the US failed to "liberate" North Korea. Also MacArthur, while back in the states, was always publicly dismissing Truman's ideas. At one point he was even going to run for president.
Jiang Jieshi
Chinese nationalist leader that was against Mao; supported by the US; loss to Mao, so he and his followers fled to Taiwan
Mao Zedong
This man became the leader of the Chinese Communist Party and remained its leader until his death. He declared the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and supported the Chinese peasantry throughout his life.
Communist China (1949)
1. by the peasants
2. led by Mao Zedong
3. state control of all productive property
4. Reduced economic inequality but political stratification remained
Dean Acheson
He was Secretary of State under Harry Truman. It is said that he was more responsible for the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine than those that the two were named for.
Soviet A-bomb (1949)
Truman shocked the nation by announcing that the Soviets had exploded an atomic bomb approximately tree years earlier than many expperts had though possible.
H-bomb
the hydrogen bomb - a thermonuclear weapon much more powerful than the Atomic bomb
Loyalty oaths
Truman orders background checks on 3 millon federal employees, and loyalty oaths were demanded, especially from teachers. Many citizens feared that communist spies were undermining the government.
House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)
created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties (nps.gov).
Richard M. Nixon
He was a committee member of the House of Representatives, Committee on Un-American Activities (to investigate "subversion"). He tried to catch Alger Hiss who was accused of being a communist agent in the 1930's. This brought Nixon to the attention of the American public. In 1956 he was Eisenhower's Vice-President.
Alger Hiss (1948)
A former State Department official who was accused of being a Communist spy and was convicted of perjury. The case was prosecuted by Richard Nixon
Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy
Him, along with Nixon, led the hunt for Communists in Washington
McCarran Internal Security Bill (1950)
vetoed by Truman, authorized the president to arrest and detain suspicious people during an "internal security emergency"
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Arrested in the Summer of 1950 and executed in 1953, they were convicted of conspiring to commit espionage by passing plans for the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
1948 election
Truman pulled out an unlikely victory due to intense stumping, despite what you may have read in the Chicago Tribune
Thomas E. Dewey
the Governor of New York (1943-1955) and the unsuccessful Republican candidate for the U.S. Presidency in 1944 and 1948
Strom Thurmond
He was an American politician who served as governor of South Carolina and as a United States Senator. He also ran for the presidency of the United States in 1948 under the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party banner.
Henry A. Wallace
head of the Progressive Party, another faction that branched off from the Dem Party before the election of 1948; was a liberal Democrat who were frustrated that Truman's domestic policies were ineffective and were against his foreign anti-Communist policies
Truman's "Point Four" Program
The fourth point of Truman's inaugural address dealt with a plan to lend money to poor countries for economic development. Truman hoped that economic development would help these nations resist communism.
"Fair Deal" Program
policy by Truman; raised minimum wage to help working class (middle class)
Korea/38th parallel
When Japan collapsed in 1945, Soviet troops had accepted the Japanese surrender north of the 38th Parallel on the Korean peninsula, but both superpowers professed the want to reunify Korea, but each helped set up rival regimes above and below the parallel.
North Korean attack (1950)
June 25, 1950, spearheaded by Soviet-made tanks, North Korean army columns rumbled across the 38th parallel. The South Korean forces were shoved back southward to a dangerously tiny defensive area around Pusan, their backs were to the sea.
NSC-68
National Securtiy Council memo #68 US "strive for victory" in cold war, pressed for offensive and a gross increase ($37 bil) in defense spending, determined US foreign policy for the next 20-30 yrs
U.N. "police action"
Congress supported the use of U.S. troops in the Korean crisis but failed to declare war, accepting Truman's characterization of U.S. intervention as this term.
MacArthur's Inchon landing (1950)
MacArthur's bold gamble on September 15, 1950, succeeded brilliantly; within two weeks the North Koreans had scrambled back behind the "sanctuary' of the 38th parallel and there seemed little point in permitting the North Koreans to regroup again. THe U.N assembly tacitly authoried a crossing by MacArthur whom Pres. Truman ordered northward, provided that there was no intervention in force by the Chinese or Soviets.
Yalu River
a battle in the Korean War (November 1950)
MacArthur firing
MacArthur felt that he was being asked to fight with one hand tied behind his back and began to take issue with presidential policies publicly. Truman removed him from command, and Truman was seen as a "pig" and an "imbecile."