Chapter 27: the Age of Affluence, 1945-1960

Chapter 27: The Age of Affluence, 1945-1960

1944 Bretton Woods economic conference

This United Nations-sponsored conference adopted several policies with the objective of stabilizing the postwar world economy. The American dollar was to be used as the benchmark for international economic life.

World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) founded

The Bretton Woods conference established both of these international economic organizations. The first would provide private development loans for devastated European nations; the second would stabilize the international economy.

1947 Levittown, New York, built

Developer Arthur Levitt was the first to adopt assembly line construction techniques to build postwar suburban housing developments. This method cut costs and enabled families (if they were white) to purchase their own homes at remarkably low prices.

1953-1958 Operation Wetback and Indian termination programs

Responding to economic recession, the first of these programs sought to deport millions of Mexican laborers who were once allowed to work in the United States. The second attempted to end the system of Indian reservations and to encourage Indians to assimilate into the mainstream of American society. Both programs were soon eliminated.

1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

The Supreme Court ruled that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional, overturning the Court's 1896 "separate but equal" doctrine.

1955 AFL and CIO merge

Having split apart during the Great Depression, these two labor federations reunited, forming an organization whose member unions represented 90 percent of America's unionized labor force.

Montgomery bus boycott

This successful yearlong protest against segregation in local public transportation brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and his strategy of nonviolent protest against racial inequality, to national attention.

1956 National Interstate and Defense Highway Act

Dwight Eisenhower sponsored this largest public works program in American history, which eventually produced 42,500 miles of four-lane highways across the entire nation. 1957 Peak of postwar baby boom

The years following World War II saw a temporary but dramatic reversal of the decline in birth rates that had characterized the twentieth century. Americans married earlier and bore one-third more children per family than they had in the 1930s, creating an enormous impact on schools, popular culture, employment opportunities, and (eventually) old-age assistance programs as the generation moved through its life cycle.

School desegregation battle in Little Rock, Arkansas

After Arkansas governor Orval Faubus used National Guard soldiers to prevent court-ordered desegregation, President Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce integration and to protect the black children who had enrolled in a previously all-white high school.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) founded

Led by Martin Luther King Jr., this organization of black ministers helped coordinate the churches' support for nonviolent desegregation campaigns.