Post-war American society and economy

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Alan Freed.

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Interpretation A argues that McCarthy was doing necessary work against a real threat. It says that the previous government had denied there were Communists in government, but that Alger Hiss was convicted and atomic secrets were 'passed to Moscow', so McCarthy's rough methods are justified because 'we are at war with a ruthless enemy'. It even claims his critics are 'protecting the traitors'. Interpretation B argues that McCarthyism was 'a witch-hunt'. It says that innocent people who had joined left-wing groups in the Depression were forced to name their friends, lost their careers and had to work under false names, and that 'not one' of them had passed on secrets. Whereas A sees McCarthy as catching traitors, B says the committees 'did not catch spies; they spread fear'.

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Interpretation A is more convincing, although Interpretation B describes an important part of the boom.

Interpretation A argues that the boom was built on government spending. There is strong evidence for this. The GI Bill helped about 2 million veterans to go to college and millions more to buy homes with government-backed loans, which fuelled the building of suburbs such as Levittown. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 funded about 41,000 miles of highways. Above all, the Cold War and the Korean War meant that defence took more than half of all federal spending in the 1950s, supporting the aircraft and electronics industries and the rapid growth of California.

Interpretation B argues that business and families created the prosperity. This is partly convincing. Americans had large savings from the war, when rationing left little to buy, and consumer credit grew from under 10 billion dollars in 1945 to over 50 billion by 1960, helped by hire purchase and new credit cards such as Diners Club (1950). Advertising, much of it on television, persuaded people to buy new cars, refrigerators and televisions; by 1960 about 87% of homes had a television. However, B was written by a car dealer whose business depended on consumer spending, so he was bound to see things this way, and he ignores how much his customers' jobs, homes and roads depended on the government.

Overall, A is more convincing, because government spending created many of the jobs, homes and roads that made consumer spending possible in the first place. Consumer spending, advertising and credit kept the boom going, so B describes how prosperity spread, but A better explains what underpinned it.

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Racial discrimination was a major reason why many Americans did not share in the American Dream. In the South, segregation laws kept African-Americans in separate, poorer schools, most were denied the vote, and many could only find low-paid work. In the North, black workers faced discrimination in jobs, and they were shut out of the new suburbs: Levittown and many other estates would not sell to black families, and banks 'redlined' black neighbourhoods, so even black veterans could not use GI Bill home loans in the same way as white veterans. As a result, black family incomes were only about half those of white families, and over half of African-Americans were poor in 1959. Mexican-Americans and Native Americans also faced discrimination.

Poverty in rural areas was also important. In Appalachia, coal mining was mechanised and small farms could not compete, leaving many families without work, with poor housing, schools and health care. In the South, mechanical cotton pickers pushed sharecroppers, black and white, off the land, and the number of Americans living on farms fell from about 24 million in 1945 to about 16 million in 1960. Native Americans on reservations and migrant farm workers were among the poorest Americans of all. In total about 22% of Americans were poor in 1959, and most poor Americans were white.

Racial discrimination was the more important reason. Rural poverty affected more people in total, but it was a problem of particular places and industries, and people could escape it by moving to the cities, as millions did. Discrimination followed African-Americans wherever they went: even a black family with a good income in a northern city could be refused a house in the suburbs or a loan from a bank. The two overlapped, because black sharecroppers suffered both, but discrimination shut people out of the Dream because of who they were, not just because of where they lived or what they earned.