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CHAPTER 27

AMERICA AT MIDCENTURY, 1945–1961

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Postwar Jitters

• Demobilization and Reconversion• The GI Bill of Rights• The Economic Boom Begins

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The Affluent Society

• The New Industrial Society• The Age of Computers• The Costs of Bigness• Blue-Collar Blues

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Prosperity and the Suburbs

• Suburban America• Consensus and Conservatism• Togetherness, the Baby Boom, and Domesticity• Religion and Education• Postwar Culture• The Television Culture

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The Growth of the Sunbelt, 1950–2000

Source: D.W. Meinig, The Shaping of America, Vol. 4

(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 232

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Seeds of Disquiet

• Sputnik• A Different Beat• Portents of Change

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The Other America

• Poverty and Urban Blight • Blacks’ Struggle for Justice• Latinos and Latinas • Native Americans

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The Civil Rights Movement

• The Politics of Race• Jim Crow in Court• The Laws of the Land• Mass Protest in Montgomery• New Tactics for a New Decade