Chapter 37

Front 1

The Feminine Mystique

Back 1

Best selling book by feminist thinker Betty Friedan. This work challenged women to move beyond the drudgery of suburban housewifery and helped launch what would become second wave feminism.

Front 2

Rock 'n' roll

Back 2

Crossover musical style that rose to dominance in the 1950s, merging black rhythm and blues with white bluegrass and country. Featuring a heavy beat and driving rhythm, rock n'n' roll music became a defining feature of the 1950s youth culture.

Front 3

Checkers Speech

Back 3

Nationally televised address by vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon. Using the new mass medium of television shortly before the 1952 election, the vice presidential candidate saved his place on the ticket by defending himself against accusations of corruption.

Front 4

McCarthyism

Back 4

A brand of vitriolic, fear mongering anticommunism associated with the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In the early 1950s, Senator McCarthy used his position in Congress to baselessly accuse high-ranking government officials and other Americans of conspiracy with communism. The term named after him refers to the dangerous forces of unfairness and fear wrought by communist paranoia.

Front 5

Army-McCarthy Hearings

Back 5

Congressional hearings called by Senator Joseph McCarthy to accuse members of the army of communist ties. In this widely televised spectacle, McCarthy finally went too far for public approval. The hearings exposed the Senator's extremism and led to his eventual disgrace.

Front 6

Jim Crow

Back 6

System of racial segregation in the American South from the end of Reconstruction until the mid-twentieth century. Based on the concept of "separate but equal" facilities for blacks and whites, the Jim Crow system sought to prevent racial mixing in public, including restaurants, movie theaters, and public transportation. An informal system, it was generally perpetuated by custom, violence, and intimidation.

Front 7

Montgomery bus boycott

Back 7

Protest, sparked by Rosa Parks's defiant refusal to move to the back of the bus, by black Alabamians against segregated seating on city buses. The bus boycott lasted from December 1, 1955 until December 26, 1956, and became one of the foundational moments of the Civil Rights Movement. It led to the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr., and ultimately to a Supreme Court decision opposing segregated busing.

Front 8

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

Back 8

Landmark Supreme Court decision that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and abolished racial segregation in public schools. The Court reasoned that "separate" was inherently "unequal," rejecting the foundation of the Jim Crow system of racial segregation in the South. This decision was the first major step toward the legal end of racial discrimination and a major accomplishment for the Civil Rights Movement.

Front 9

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Back 9

Youth organization founded by southern black students in 1960 to promote civil rights. Drawing on its members youthful energies, SNCC in its early years coordinated demonstrations, sit-ins, and voter registration drives.

Front 10

Operation Wetback

Back 10

A government program to roundup and deport as many as one million illegal Mexican migrant workers in the United States. The program was promoted in part by the Mexican government and reflected burgeoning concerns about non-European immigration to America.

Front 11

Federal Highway Act of 1956

Back 11

Federal legislation signed by Dwight D. Eisenhower to construct thousands of miles of modern highways in the name of national defense. Officially called the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, this bill dramatically increased the move to the suburbs, as white middle-class people could more easily commute to urban jobs.

Front 12

Policy of boldness

Back 12

Foreign policy objective of Dwight Eisenhower's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who believed in changing the containment strategy to one that more directly engaged the Soviet Union and attempted to roll back communist influence around the world. This policy led to a build-up of America's nuclear Arsenal to threaten "massive retaliation" against the communist enemies, launching the Cold War's arms race.

Front 13

Hungarian uprising

Back 13

Series of demonstrations in Hungary against the Soviet Union. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev violently suppressed this pro-Western uprising, highlighting the limitations of America's power in Eastern Europe.

Front 14

Battle of Dien Bien Phu

Back 14

Military engagement in French colonial Vietnam in which the French forces were defeated by Viet Minh nationalists loyal to Ho Chi Minh. With this loss, the French ended their colonial involvement in Indochina, paving the way for America's entry.

Front 15

Suez crisis

Back 15

International crisis when Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which had been owned mostly by French and British stockholders. The crisis led to a British and French attack on Egypt, which failed without aid from the United States. The Suez crisis marked an important turning point in the post-colonial Middle East and highlighted the rising importance of oil in world affairs.

Front 16

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

Back 16

Cartel comprising Middle Eastern states and Venezuela first organized in 1960. OPEC aimed to control access to and prices of oil, wresting power from Western oil companies and investors. In the process, it gradually strengthened the hand of non-Western powers on the world stage.

Front 17

Sputnik

Back 17

Soviet satellite first launched into Earth orbit on October 4, 1957. This scientific achievement marked the first time human beings had put a man-made object into orbit and pushed the USSR noticeable ahead of the United States in the Space Race. A month later, the Soviet Union sent a larger satellite, Sputnik II, into space, prompting the United States to redouble its space exploration efforts and raising American fears of Soviet superiority.

Front 18

Kitchen debate

Back 18

Televised exchange in 1959 between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and American Vice President Richard Nixon. Meeting at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, the two leaders sparred over the relative merits of capitalist consumer culture versus Soviet state planning. Nixon won applause for his staunch defense of American capitalism, helping lead him to the Republican nomination for president in 1960.

Front 19

Abstract expressionism

Back 19

An experimental style of mid-twentieth century modern art exemplified by Jackson Pollock's spontaneous "action paintings," created by flinging paint on canvases stretched across the studio floor.

Front 20

International Style

Back 20

Archetypal, post-World War II modernist architectural style, best known for its "curtain-wall" designs of steel-and-glass corporate high rises.

Front 21

Beat Generation

Back 21

A small coterie of mid-twentieth century bohemian writers and personalities, including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S Burroughs, who bemoaned bourgeois conformity and advocated free-form experimentation in life and literature.

Front 22

Southern Renaissance

Back 22

A literary outpouring among mid-twentieth century southern writers, begun by William Faulkner and marked by a new critical appreciation of the region's burdens of history, racism, and conservatism.