Chapter 26: Affluence and Anxiety in the Atomic Age, 1950–1959
CORE OBJECTIVES
1. Explain President Eisenhower’s political philosophy and priorities.
TRUE/FALSE
1. President Eisenhower was committed politically to “moderate Republicanism.”
2. The Federal-Aid Highway Act created a national network of interstate highways across
America.
3. The postwar era witnessed tremendous economic depression.
4. A major reason for the tremendous growth of the U.S. economy after World War II was a
lack of foreign competition.
5. A financial innovation that helped the growth of a consumer economy in the 1950s was the
credit card.
6. The consumer culture of the 1950s was limited and encouraged activities that did not
require spending money.
7. The GI Bill of Rights provided financial assistance for home loans and college expenses.
8. Rural areas experienced a loss of population in the 1950s and after.
9. The Supreme Court ruling in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) successfully ended racially
segregated housing practices and increased the number of African American homeowners in
white neighborhoods.
10. Society’s message to women in the 1950s was that they should strive to combine
motherhood and professional careers.
11. Because of the overall prosperity of the decade, blacks were able to close the income gap
with whites by the end of the 1950s.
12. Despite increased income across classes, a quarter of whites and half of African Americans
were afflicted by poverty during the 1950s.
13. Ralph Ellison wrote Invisible Man, part of a growing body of literature about individuals
who find no contentment or respect in the modern world.
14. Some of the “Beats” liked that term they were known by because it implied being “beaten
down” in life—a quality none of them actually showed.
15. According to the textbook, the United States experienced a wave of juvenile delinquency in
the 1950s because of access to automobiles.
16. President Eisenhower believed that pushing for civil rights progress in the South could only
do more good than harm.
17. Martin Luther King, Jr. encouraged a tactic known as nonviolent civil disobedience to
promote the civil rights movement.
18. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 established the Civil Rights Commission and a new Civil
Rights Division in the Justice Department.
19. A major weakness of the policy of mass retaliation was that by the mid-1950s, the United
States and the Soviet Union had created more powerful hydrogen bombs, meaning that
every global dispute turned into a possible war of annihilation.
20. In October 1957, the United States took the lead in the space race by launching the first
satellite into orbit around the earth.
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. President Eisenhower’s presidential platform was committed to
a. moderate Republicanism.
b. the New Deal.
c. the New Frontier.
d. the Final Frontier.
e. the Fair Deal.
2. Which of the following was part of Eisenhower’s moderate Republicanism?
a. Restraining the federal government from social “engineering”
b. Increasing federal government activity at the local level
c. Passing civil rights legislation
d. Staying away from “virtuous” and “visionary” ideals
e. Decreasing state and local government authority
3. In 1952, President Truman fired 250 employees of the IRS because
a. they were communists.
b. they specifically targeted conservative groups.
c. corruption within several federal agencies had been disclosed.
d. they were trying to unionize.
e. they refused to recognize his authority.
4. Why did both Republicans and Democrats recruit Dwight Eisenhower to run for president in
1952?
a. He planned to follow Truman’s containment policy in regards to the spread of
communism.
b. He had displayed great organizational and diplomatic abilities, especially in World War
II.
c. He was hardly known outside his home state.
d. He sought to start a second Korean War.
e. He had no war experience and, thus, would focus on domestic issues.
5. Eisenhower’s nickname was
a. Bill.
b. the Gipper.
c. the Dandy.
d. Blood and Guts.
e. Ike.
6. In order to reassure some conservatives, the Republican Party chose the youthful and
ambitious __________ as Eisenhower’s running mate in 1952.
a. Ronald Reagan
b. Harry S Truman
c. Walter Mondale
d. Richard Nixon
e. Jimmy Carter
7. Which of the following was characteristic of the 1952 Democratic presidential candidate
Adlai Stevenson?
a. He was brilliant but came across as too intellectual.
b. He was a well-known “man of the people.”
c. He was unquestionably decisive.
d. He was not viewed as intelligent enough to be president.
e. He was a socialist.
8. President Eisenhower’s domestic policy of “dynamic conservatism” was defined as
conservative when it comes to
a. warfare and liberal when it comes to communism.
b. money and liberal when it comes to human beings.
c. capitalism and liberal when it comes to socialism.
d. state rights and liberal when it comes to minority rights.
e. immigration and liberal when it comes to creating jobs.
9. At the end of his administration, which of the following had President Eisenhower done?
a. He had removed most of the New Deal’s programs.
b. He had retained most of the basic New Deal structure and in some ways expanded the
programs.
c. He had eliminated government involvement in construction projects.
d. He had dismantled Social Security, decreasing the number of people with access to
retirement programs.
e. He had enacted his own program that created more jobs than those of his Democrat is
predecessors.
10. Which of the following occurred immediately after World War II in the United States?
a. The United States declared war on the Soviet Union.
b. There was a mild economic recession and then a booming economy.
c. Another Great Depression began.
d. Women started to outnumber men in the workplace.
e. High government spending ended.
11. Which of the following contributed to the state of the economy in the United States after
World War II?
a. Decreased U.S. federal government spending
b. Decreased industrial productivity in the United States
c. Increased income taxes on the wealthy in the United States
d. European dominance in international trade
e. Massive construction of U.S. highways and airports
12. What contributed to the low cost of fuel across the United States after World War II?
a. The general fall in the efficiency of American industries
b. The discovery of oil fields in the Middle East
c. The struggling aircraft industry
d. The oil boom in Texas, Wyoming, and Oklahoma
e. The oil boom in Mexico
13. In an attempt to provide aid for returning servicemen after World War II, Congress passed
the
a. GI Bill of Rights.
b. Hopwood Act.
c. Federal-Aid Highway Act .
d. New Deal.
e. Soldiers’ Beneficiary Act.
14. What was a major limitation of the GI Bill of Rights of 1944?
a. The bill failed to address veteran unemployment and only included subsidized health
care for the first year.
b. Many African American veterans did not benefit because most colleges and universities
were segregated and did not accept black students.
c. The bill failed to take into account any questions about where veterans would live when
they returned from war, leaving many of all backgrounds homeless.
d. The bill was only in effect during wartime, with programs being discontinued in the
years after a war.
e. The bill brought an influx of veterans into the workforce, resulting in a disruption to the
economy in which a large number of seasoned workers lost their jobs.
15. Which of the following statements about the growth of suburbia in the 1950s is accurate?
a. Moving to suburbia was reserved for upper class families because cars were still
expensive and limited in availability.
b. African Americans were most commonly the owners of suburban homes, with whites
remaining in inner cities.
c. After World War II, there was already an overabundance of housing in cities, so
building suburban neighborhoods proved a form of excess.
d. The expansion of the middle class contributed to the growth of suburbs, which provided
needed affordable housing close to cities.
e. Suburbia at the time remained much like cities in that the architecture of each newly
built home was highly unique.
16. After World War II, __________ migrated to the urban North in record numbers.
a. Chinese immigrants
b. Hispanics
c. Cuban exiles
d. Filipino exiles
e. African Americans
17. The renewed __________ program allowed Mexican workers to serve as migrant workers
in the United States during planting and harvest seasons.
a. empresario
b. bracero
c. hacienda
d. Alan Freed
e. Federal-Aid Highway
18. Which of the following statements accurately describes the experiences of women in the
1950s?
a. After World War II, women were encouraged to stay in the industrial, traditionally male
jobs they had taken on during the war.
b. The fall in birth rates after World War II demonstrated that women were increasingly
adopting roles outside the traditional family.
c. The average age of marriage for women had gotten significantly higher after World War
II, showing that women usually had careers before starting families.
d. Although advertisements and popular culture emphasized middle class women’s role as
homemakers, many women worked outside the home out of necessity.
e. The prevailing images of middle class life no longer portrayed women as devoted
servants to their husbands.
19. Who wrote the book The Affluent Society in the 1950s and challenged the idea that U.S.
prosperity was solving difficult social problems?
a. Maurice McDonald
b. John Philips Souza
c. John Galbraith
d. George Meany
e. Dwight D. Eisenhower
20. Between 1940 and 1950, the average African American income
a. decreased by 50 percent.
b. increased by 100 percent.
c. remained stagnant.
d. grew by 400 percent.
e. experienced mild growth.
21. Many authors and social critics of the 1950s alleged that despite the American ideal of
rugged individualism, the nation was actually celebrating