Continuity and Change in Period 8 in two minutes
- Continuity: every president from Truman to Carter pursued containment of Soviet power, with détente easing tension in the 1970s until the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
- Change: in 1945 segregation was legal across the South, but by 1965 federal law banned it in public places and protected the right to vote.
- Women, Latinos, American Indians, Asian Americans and gay Americans borrowed civil rights tactics, and the Supreme Court under Earl Warren widened the rights of the accused, of voters and of speakers.
- The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended national-origins quotas, and while most immigrants came from Europe in the 1950s, most came from Latin America and Asia by the 1970s.
- The poverty rate fell from about 22 percent in 1960 to about 11 percent in 1973, then rose to 13 percent by 1980, and suburbs such as Levittown stayed almost entirely white.
- Vietnam, Watergate, inflation and the hostages cut trust in Washington from about three Americans in four in 1964 to one in four by 1980, and a conservative movement grew.
- On the exam: Topic 8.15 asks how far 1945 to 1980 reshaped national identity; weigh continuity, such as the Cold War frame, against change in rights, immigration and trust.
Topic 8.15 key terms
- Point of view
What a source's maker believed, wanted and left out. This list shows what a 1965 committee wanted the future to see.
- Cold War
The long rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, about 1945 to 1991, carried on through alliances, arms and proxy wars. Period 8 covers 1945 to 1980.
- Continuity and change
What held steady across a span of years, what changed, and how much. That is the work of this review.
- National identity
Who counted as a full American, what the country was for, and what people expected of their government, from 1945 to 1980.
- Sun Belt
The fast-growing South and Southwest, from Florida to California. After 1945, federal spending, air conditioning and cheap land drew people, jobs and political power there.
- Reapportionment
After each census, the 435 House seats are divided again by state population. The new numbers take effect at the following congressional election. Electoral votes move with the seats.
- Iran hostage crisis
On November 4, 1979, Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Fifty-two Americans were still held a year later. They were freed on January 20, 1981.
- corroborate
Back your claim with more evidence that agrees with it.
- qualify
Show where your claim stops being true.
- Détente
An easing of Cold War tension through summits, trade and arms-control treaties, from about 1969 to 1979. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ended it.
- Military-industrial complex
Eisenhower's 1961 name for the permanent partnership of the armed forces and the defense industry, and his warning that it could gain unwarranted influence.
- Civil Rights Act (1964) · Voting Rights Act (1965)
The 1964 act banned segregation in public places and discrimination in hiring. The 1965 act enforced the Fifteenth Amendment by suspending literacy tests and sending federal examiners to register voters.
- Immigration and Nationality Act (1965)
The 1965 law that ended the national-origins quotas of 1924. Visas went by family ties, job skills and refugee status. In the years after, most newcomers came from Latin America and Asia.
- Great Society
Johnson's programs, from 1964 to 1966, against poverty and discrimination, including Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start and federal aid to schools.
- New Right
The conservative movement of the 1970s, growing since Goldwater's 1964 campaign: a smaller federal government, traditional social values and a harder line on the Soviets. Evangelical groups such as the Moral Majority, founded in 1979, were a big part of it.
- Suburbanization
The move of families from cities to new suburbs after 1945. Federally backed mortgages, cars and highways drove it. Most families who moved were white, because lenders and builders shut out many Black families.
- Restrictive covenant
A clause in a deed or lease that kept nonwhite families from buying or living in a house. Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) stopped courts from enforcing racial covenants. The Fair Housing Act (1968) outlawed discrimination in selling and renting homes.
- Conformity
Pressure to look, live and think like the people around you. In the 1950s, critics said the new suburbs, big companies and television were producing it.
Transcript
Quotes are from the historical record and name their source. Lines marked Dramatized are reconstructions.
6939
1965
Key terms: Point of view, Cold War, Continuity and change, National identity
Flushing Meadows, Queens October 16, 1965
On October 16, 1965, the day before the World's Fair closed. Westinghouse lowered a steel torpedo into Queens. The one over the pavilion was a replica.
It went fifty feet down, ten feet due north of the capsule buried in 1938. Both are to be opened in the year 6939.
Westinghouse meant it to explain America to people five thousand years from now. A committee chose what went in. The list is a source about 1965.
It included a Nobel Peace Prize winner, the co-discoverer of plutonium and the painter Andrew Wyeth. They packed a bikini. It also held credit cards, birth-control pills, tranquilizers and a Beatles record.
The 1938 capsule came with a book that told the future where to dig. It included a key to the English language, in case ours was lost.
The capsule was built to last five thousand years. The Beatles broke up in 1970.
A time capsule is a bet on what will last. So pack one for 1945 to 1980.
Then check your bet. How much did those thirty-five years change what it meant to be an American?
The Attic
1980
Key terms: Sun Belt, Reapportionment, Iran hostage crisis
You know this street.
Fifteen years later and about twenty miles east, it's Election Day in Levittown.
You've been in this house. A family moved in here in the spring of 1950. They've sold it. They're moving to Florida.
Millions of Americans moved too. Florida more than tripled between 1950 and 1980. New York lost about six hundred eighty thousand people in the seventies. This spring's census will take five seats in Congress from New York and give Florida four.
The last room to clear is the attic. In 1956 it was the daughter's bedroom. Now it holds thirty years of things nobody threw away.
Somebody kept the brochure from the World's Fair.
Today is also one year since students in Tehran seized the American embassy. Fifty-two Americans are still held there.
Pack It
1945–1980
Key terms: corroborate, qualify
Two boxes. Thirty-five years. Pack them.
The Answer
1945–1980
Key terms: Détente, Military-industrial complex, Civil Rights Act (1964) · Voting Rights Act (1965), Immigration and Nationality Act (1965), Great Society, New Right
Here's how a historian might write the same letter. A capsule is a source, too. It shows what its packers wanted the future to see.
From 1945 to 1980 the Cold War held the frame of American identity steady. Inside it, the fight for equal rights and a collapse of trust changed who counted as a full American and what Americans expected of their government.
Claim. The Cold War held the frame steady for thirty-five years. Inside it, the fight for equal rights and a collapse of trust changed nearly everything else.
Every president from Truman to Carter promised to contain Soviet power. Détente eased the Cold War in the 1970s. The invasion of Afghanistan ended it.
At home, the argument changed targets. In 1950 it was about hunting Communists. By 1968 it was about Vietnam.
In 1945, segregation was law across the South. By 1965, federal law banned it in public places and protected the right to vote.
Women, Latinos, American Indians, Asian Americans and gay Americans took up the same tools. The Supreme Court widened the rights of the accused, of voters and of speakers.
A 1965 law changed who the next Americans would be. In the 1950s, most immigrants came from Europe. In the 1970s, three in four came from Latin America and Asia.
Now qualify it. The laws changed faster than people's lives. The things across the flaps belong in both boxes.
In 1980, Levittown was still about ninety-nine percent white. It had fewer Black residents than in 1960.
The Great Society and a growing economy cut the poverty rate in half by 1973. Then it rose again, to 13 percent in 1980.
Trust collapsed. In 1964, three Americans in four trusted Washington most of the time. By 1980, one in four did. Vietnam, Watergate, inflation, gas lines and the hostages did that.
Now modify the question. It assumes Americans shared one identity. A New Left said liberals did too little. Evangelicals organized, and conservatives since Goldwater's 1964 campaign said too much.
Maybe the biggest change was the argument itself.
The Street
1950–1980
Key terms: Suburbanization, Restrictive covenant, Conformity, Continuity and change
Here's the street in 1950.
One kind of house. One kind of family allowed to buy it.
Critics called these houses identical. By 1957, the New York Times reported that hardly one was unaltered.
By the 1970s, a Japanese car sat in a Levittown driveway. The world economy America built after 1945 had come home.
The trees grew taller than the roofs. The faces on the street changed much less. Tonight, Americans will give their own answer to the time capsule's question. Unit 9 begins with it.
The two Westinghouse time capsules are still buried in Flushing Meadows. They are to be opened in the year 6939.
Somewhere under Queens, a bikini is still waiting to explain us.