- •Early america
- •Native Americans
- •E uropeans Explore the New World
- •Causes of Exploration
- •Motives for Exploration
- •Spaniards in the New World
- •The English in the New World
- •The Old and New Worlds Meet
- •The colonial period
- •The Chesapeake Settlements
- •Cultural Focus: Setting up Slavery
- •The New England Colonies
- •The Mayflower Compact
- •Cultural Focus: Thanksgiving Day
- •The Southern Colonies
- •Colonial Life and Institutions
- •New England
- •The Middle Colonies
- •Southern Colonies
- •Colonial Culture
- •Fighting for independence Colonies on the Eve of the Revolution
- •The French and Indian War
- •Taxation without Representation
- •American Revolution
- •War Begins
- •Declaration of Independence
- •Fighting for Independence
- •Forming a republic
- •The us Constitution
- •Focus on Government
- •Westward expansion
- •Acquiring Western Lands
- •The War of 1812 and its Effect
- •Cultural Focus: Uncle Sam
- •Settling the Frontier
- •Life on the Frontier
- •Indian Resistance and Removal
- •The civil war and the reconstruction
- •New States: Free or Slave?
- •The South and the North
- •The Conflict Begins
- •Fighting for the Union
- •The After-War Period
- •The Reconstruction Period
- •2) Recruit, recruitment
- •Growth and transformation
- •The Last Frontier
- •Industrial Growth
- •Immigration in the Age of Industrial Growth
- •Labor Unions
- •The Progressive Era
- •Cultural Focus: National Parks in America
- •2) Annihilate, annihilation
- •3) Exterminate, extermination, exterminator
- •4) Magnify, magnification
- •Modern history the united states before, during and after world war I
- •Becoming an Empire
- •The usa before World War I
- •Entering the War
- •Cultural Focus: Veterans' Day
- •Post-War Years
- •The Booming Twenties
- •The Great Depression
- •Isthmus, annexation, collide, ultimatum, crucial, negotiate, armistice, consumerism, disparity, subsidy
- •World war II and its aftermath
- •Beginning of World War II
- •The usa in World War II
- •The usa after World War II
- •The Post-War Foreign Affairs
- •The Cold War at Home and Abroad
- •The post-war era
- •Changing Economic Patterns
- •New Patterns of Living
- •Cultural Focus: Levittown
- •The Culture of the Fifties
- •The Other America
- •1) Suburb, suburban, suburbanite, suburbia
- •2) Fertile, fertility, fertilize, fertilizer
- •3) Metropolis, metropolitan
- •Time of change
- •Cold War – 2
- •The War in Vietnam and Watergate
- •The Civil Rights Movement
- •Ethnicity and Activism
- •The Rise of Feminism
- •The Revolt Generation
- •Approaching the new era
- •From Recession to Economic Growth
- •The End of the Cold War
- •Information Age and the Global Economy
- •Terrorism
- •Bibliography
The Other America
At the post-war time, when 75 % of all Americans enjoyed economic growth, 25 % lived below the poverty line. Although a number of poor Americans declined from 34 % in 1947 to 22 % in 1960, there were still more than 35 million poor people.
These people mostly lived in either decaying inner-city slums or in the rural areas far from state and interstate highways. Age, race, sex, education and marital status were the factors of their poverty. Among the poor were almost half of the nation's black population and Mexican-Americans, who continued entering the country in large numbers, often illegally.
The poorest group of population was Native Americans, whose annual income was half the amount of the poverty level. Indians, accustomed to the life in reservations had difficulty adjusting to the city. They moved to cities for better life, but instead found only poverty. As people were trapped in a cycle of poverty, they could not give proper education to their children, who often faced the same difficulties in life.
During the 1950s, poverty reached 36 %, and only by 1962 it fell back to 25 %. In the 1960s, the war against poverty stated by President Lyndon B. Johnson helped to reduce it to 13 % by 1969.
Task 2. Answer the following questions.
What were the factors that caused the after-war economic boom?
How did the pattern of jobs change in the post-war years?
What is a "postindustrial" society?
What factors caused the mobilization of the nation?
What megalopolises developed in the post-war period?
How did the baby boom contribute to the growth of economy?
What did the concept of "family togetherness" emphasize?
How did the Levitts contribute to the growth of suburbs?
What did the materialistic culture of the fifties reflect?
10. What population groups represented the "other America" of the fifties?
Task 3. Vocabulary development. State the meaning of the following derivatives and fill in the gaps.
1) Suburb, suburban, suburbanite, suburbia
a) is an outer area of a town or city where people live rather
than work.
b) is a derogatory term for dwellers.
c) Post-war America quickly .
2) Fertile, fertility, fertilize, fertilizer
a) are chemical or natural substances put in the land to make
crops grow better.
Some species of fish are very . They lay thousands of eggs.
Chemicals thrown in the water can diminish fish's .
Bees the flowers.
3) Metropolis, metropolitan
a) is a chief city or the capital city of a country.
b) New York area includes parts of New Jersey, Connecticut,
and Long Island.
4) affluent, affluence
a) The term denotes people having much money or possessions.
b) is one of the chief values for many modern people.
5) slum, slummy, slumming
a) New York were famous for poor conditions and unrepaired
buildings.
He was fond of – visiting places of lower social level.
Sometimes this place is very .
Task 4. Many well-known today terms were either coined or widely used in the 1950s. Match the term from column A to its explanation from column B.
A |
B |
|
1) a blue-collar worker |
a) a society where most jobs involve intellect rather that manual labor |
|
2) a white-collar worker |
b) a large shopping area with cinemas, cafes and entertainment |
|
3) postindustrial society |
c) a story told in pictures with small amount of writing |
|
|
Continuatior |
|
4) megalopolis |
d) a style, activity or interest popular for a very short period of time |
|
5) baby boom |
e) a worker employed in service or management |
|
6) highway |
f) a cinema where people can watch movies without leaving their cars |
|
7) sit com (situation comedy) |
g) an important road that joins cities and towns together |
|
8) paperback (pocket book) |
h) an amusing television or radio show in which the same characters appear in each program in a different story |
|
9) comic (comic book) |
i) a large increase in the number of babies born among the particular group |
|
10) a drive-in (theater) |
j) a cheap book with paper cover |
|
11) fad (crazy) |
k) a worker employed in manufacturing |
|
12) mall |
1) an interrupted metropolitan complex stretching from one big city to the other |
|