The 1950s were an ambivalent era in America. Experiencing great economic prosperity, the nation was booming in every respect. Following the war, America had become a world power, a nation looked up to by the rest of their world. American’s were in the possession of more money and luxuries than every before. But somehow, this time period was known as age full of anxiety. The sources of conflict and anxiety were serious issues, both domestically and foreign. At home, the evolving nation was being forced to address the civil rights issues that had been concentrating in the South for so long. Also, the war against the world’s fellow superpower, the Soviet Union, was beginning to become a crusade against Communism. As these events began to shape the nation, America realized it was encountering new challenges and serious conflicts that jeopardized the safety of the nation. Although the way with which these issues were addressed was not always the best, America overcame these hardships and the anxiety that had threatened America.

          The new face of America as a world superpower with a booming economy didn’t change everything throughout the nation. There still existed problems that had remained since the beginning, but had not been fully addressed. America was at a point where they had grown to a new level nationally, but the foundation holding America together had not evolved at the same rate. One of the central issues that needed to be addressed was the civil rights revolution that was beginning to take on momentum. When informed of a specific situation of lynching, Truman stated he had no idea it was that bad. However, the realization of the problem is only half the battle. Actually desegregating the South would be a far more difficult task that would require massive changes in behavior, and more importantly changes in attitude. With institutions like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), there were people whose voices now made noise. However, addressing this issue resulted in many unsightly conflicts. The crisis in Little Rock gave America a scare, but the resulting actions made great strides toward the goal of the civil rights movement.

          On the international front, the issue of Communism was now the primary focus in America. There was no greater threat to the integrity of the nation than the fellow superpower, the Soviet Union. At home, the Red Scare and the actions of the senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, seemed like the appropriate course of actions at the time. But upon reflection, the over the top actions taken by those in manhunt for communists was a bit extreme. This, the source of the greatest anxiety in America at the time was Communism, and it was now becoming more than a conflict between powers. It was growing into a global struggle that pitted every nation on either the sides of the Communists or the free world. Once the threat was of force in the battle of ideologies. But now the transformation was one of mutually assured destruction on a global scale. There could be no slip-ups now as the result would be catastrophic. These sources of anxiety in America, both domestically and internationally, brought great fear throughout the nation. Although there were signs of great hope, the nation realized that they were in a very precarious situation that could easily result in the ultimate culmination of dire circumstances.

One reason why the 1950’s could be considered to be an “age of anxiety” is because of the racial conflicts going on in the United States.  This would probably not be a worldwide cause for anxiety, but it most likely caused great amounts of concern for people living in these areas.  In the south African Americans were dominated by the Jim Crow laws.  These laws separated them from other Americans, by making schoolrooms, restrooms, and many other public places segregated.  “Blacks everywhere in the South, for example, not only attended segregated schools, but were compelled to use separate public toilets, drinking fountains, restaurants, and waiting rooms.  Trains and buses had “whites only” and “colored only” seating.  Because Alabama hotels were prohibited from serving blacks, the honeymooning Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and his wife, Coretta, spent their wedding night in 1953 in a blacks-only funeral parlor.” (912).  All together African Americans were treated very poorly, which lead to civil rights’ demonstrations and even some violent events.  The tension found in the South when the Jim Crow Laws were taken away would definitely contribute to the age of anxiety.

            Another aspect of the 1950’s that would have been another leading factor to the age of anxiety would be the rise of communism.  The Soviet Union and China were both communist nations trying to spread their political beliefs.  The United States did not agree with communism since it went against their democratic political ways.  However “mere containment of communism was condemned in the 1952 Republican platform as ‘negative, futile, and immoral.’  Incoming Secretary of State John Foster Dulles…promised not merely to stem the red tide but to ‘roll back’ its gains and ‘liberate captive peoples.’” (918).  Dulles thought that the an air fleet of super bombers, that would be called the Strategic Air Command, would make sure that the Soviet Union and China would not get out of hand.  Even though the United States promised to protect every country from communism, they did not help out Hungary in their time of need.  Hungary was revolted against the Soviet Union, who was in charge of this wonderful country.  Hungary asked the United States to help them.  However the United States did not help Hungary since they thought this problem to be too small for drastic action.   

            The Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh would have also been a cause for anxiety during these times.  Much before the 1950’s Indochina was looking for help from the United States.  They were and desired to remain a nationalistic nation.  However with the events of the Cold War, the United States became occupied.  During this period Ho Chi Minh became much more communist, while the United States became much more anti-communist.  Vietnam became very divided between the South and the North.  The North, under the guidance of Ho Chi Minh, was becoming a communist nation.  The South was still pro-western and desired to become a democratic nation.  Ngo Dinh Diem was the leader of the South.  In an attempt to keep peace in this part of the world, Dulles created the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization.  This was supposed to be an imitation of NATO.  However in later events the SATO did not help Southern Vietnam.

Despite widespread power and affluence, the 1950s were often described as an "age of anxiety." What were the major sources of anxiety and conflict that stirred beneath the surface of the time? Could they have been addressed more effectively by President Eisenhower and other national leaders? Explain.

            The 1950s were an “age of anxiety” because of Senator McCarthy’s witch hunting for communists and because of the suppressive nature of the time period. People were held to the highest standards: one wrong move and a person might be shunned by his peers for as long as he knew them. Women were also expected to always look nice, even when cleaning, and to act like the mother in “Leave it to Beaver.”

When the celebration of the victory faded away, America’s people began to worry about their future. Four years of war had not driven away the very painful experiences of the Great Depression. The 1930’s left America with jobs or security. The marriage rate went down substantially as the suicide rate went way up. It was believed that the war had only momentarily lifted the horror of the depression. The real gross national product went down in 1946 and 1947 from its peak during the war. When the wartime price controls were taken away, the prices went up by 33 percent. During the year 1946 alone, about 4.6 million workers went on strike. The increasing labor forces annoyed many conservatives. They got revenge against labor’s new deal gains in 1947, when a republican controlled the congress, and passed the Taft-Hartley Act over President Truman’s veto. Many labor leaders condemned the Taft-Hartley act as a law on slave labor. This law entailed that the all union shops were outlawed, and made unions liable for damage that came from jurisdictional arguments among themselves. It also required that the union leaders take an oath stating that they were not communists.
The Taft-Hartley Act was not the single obstacle that slowed the growth of organized labor after World War II. In the new days of the New Deal, unions spread rapidly in the Northeast. The post war efforts to organize anti-union areas in the South and West were much more difficult. “Operation Dixie” was a plan to unionize the southern steel and textile workers. This failed in 1948 to overcome fear of racial mixing. Workers in the growing service section of the economy, worked part time in small shops, and were very far apart from each other. This proved that it was much harder to organize than the thousands of assembly-line workers who in the 1930s, flowed into the auto and steel unions. Union membership would reach its highest point in the 50s and then began a long decline.
The Democrats took several steps of its own to stop an economic failure. They sold several war factories as well as other government installations to private businesses at very cheap prices. This secured passage in 1946 of the Employment Act, making it a policy to “promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power.” This created three-member Council of Economic Advisers to provide the president with data and recommendations to make this policy go into full swing.
The most dramatic was the passage of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, otherwise known as the GI Bill of Rights. Created out of fear that the employment markets would never be able to absorb 15 million returning veterans at the end of the war, the GI Bill made very large provisions for sending the former soldiers to school. A decade after the war, 8 million veterans advanced their education thanks to the government. Most of them attended technical and vocational schools, but colleges and universities were quite crowded as well. The expense of sending the veterans to school was about 14.5 billion dollars. 16 billions dollars in loans was spent to buy veterans homes, farms and small businesses. By raising the educational levels and stimulating the construction industry, the GI Bill powerfully nurtured the economic expansion that took hold in the 1940s, which shaped the entire history of the post WWII era.