22nd Amendment
sets a term limit of no more than two terms, for election and overall time of service to the office of President of the United States. Congress passed the amendment on March 21, 1947. It was ratified by the requisite 36 of the then-48 states on February 27, 1951.
Demobilization
the process of deactivating military units and returning drafted personnel to civilian life.
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
the thirty-fourth President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was previously a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II, serving as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. He had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942-43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944-45, from the Western Front.
Fair Deal
the nickname for Harry Truman's economic program during his election campaign in 1948. included measures such as: aid to education, tax cuts for low-income earners, increased public housing, an immigration bill, the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, an increase in minimum wage, national health insurance and expanded Social Security coverage. Most never passed.
GI Bill
a federal law, passed in 1944, which provided a range of benefits to veterans of World War II, including unemployment compensation, low-interest loans, and free tuition at American universities and vocational schools.
Minimum wage
first established in 1933, this refers to a mandatory hourly pay rate established by the federal government.
Harry Truman
the thirty-third president. He was Franklin Roosevelt's vice-president, Truman was elevated to the White House after Roosevelt's death in 1945 and was re-elected in 1948.
Interstate Highway System
A network of limited-access roads, including freeways, highways, and expressways, forming part of the National Highway System of the United States. The system is named for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who championed its formation. Construction was authorized by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, and the original portion was completed 35 years later.
space race
The informal competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to launch unmanned satellites, send people into space, and land them on the moon.
Taft-Hartley Act
A federal law that monitors the activities and power of labor unions. The act became law by overriding U.S. President Harry S. Truman's veto on June 23, 1947. Nevertheless, Truman would subsequently use it twelve times during his presidency. The Taft–Hartley Act amended the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA; informally the Wagner Act), which Congress passed in 1935.
agribusiness
Big business connected to agriculture, either owning or operating large scale farms, or catering to those who do.
Discretionary Income
Money remaining after all bills are paid off. It is income after subtracting taxes and normal expenses (such as rent or mortgage, utilities, insurance, medical, transportation, property maintenance, child support, inflation, food and sundries, etc. ) to maintain a certain standard of living.
conspicuous consumption
A public display of acquisition of possessions with the intention of gaining social prestige; excessive consumerism in order to flaunt one's purchasing power. baby boom a marked increase in the U.S. birthrate during 1946–1964
economy
The system by which goods and services are produced, sold and purchased in a country or region.
Levittowns
suburban housing developments consisting of acres of mass-produced homes
Redlining
The practice of denying, or increasing the cost of services such as banking, insurance, access to jobs, access to health care, or even supermarkets to residents in particular areas. The term "redlining" was coined in the late 1960s by John McKnight, a Northwestern University sociologist and community activist. It describes the practice of marking a red line on a map to delineate the area where banks would not invest; later the term was applied to discrimination against a particular group of people (usually by race or sex) no matter the geography.
Zoning Laws
A device of land use planning utilized by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another. Zoning may be use-based (regulating the uses to which land may be put), or it may regulate building height, lot coverage, and similar characteristics, or some combination of these. Similar urban planning methods have dictated the use of various areas for particular purposes in many cities since ancient times.
Levittown
The name of four large suburban developments created in the United States of America by William Levitt and his company Levitt & Sons. Built in the post-WWII era for returning veterans and their new families, the communities offered attractive alternatives to cramped, central city locations and apartments. He and other builders were guaranteed by the Veterans Administration and the Federal Housing Association (FHA) that qualified veterans could receive housing for a fraction of rental costs. Production was modeled in an assembly line manner and thousands of identical homes were produced.
Sputnik
the first manmade orbital satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in October 1957
Sunbelt
region of the US generally considered to stretch across the South and Southwest.
Alliance for Progress
A plan and program initiated by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1961 which aimed to establish economic cooperation between the U.S. and Latin America.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
An unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles in 1961 to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the U.S. government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.
Berlin Crisis of 1961
(June 4-November 9, 1961): the last major politico-military European incident of the Cold War. The U.S.S.R. provoked the Berlin Crisis with an ultimatum demanding the withdrawal of Western armed forces from West Berlin—culminating with the city's de facto partition with the East German erection of the Berlin Wall.
Blockade
By extension, any form of formal isolation of something, especially with the force of law or arms.
Containment
A United States policy using numerous strategies to prevent the spread of communism abroad. A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam. It represented a middle-ground position between détente and rollback.
Cuban Missile Crisis
A thirteen-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other; the crisis occurred in October 1962, during the Cold War. It is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict
Foreign Assistance Act of 1962
A United States Act of Congress. The Act reorganized the structure of existing U.S. foreign assistance programs, separated military from non-military aid, and created a new agency, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to administer those non-military, economic assistance programs.
Hotline Agreement
The Moscow-Washington hotline is a system that allows direct communication between the leaders of the United States and Russia. It was originally designed by Harris Corporation for communication between the United States and the Soviet Union. Also known as the "red telephone", the hotline linked the White House via the National Military Command Center with the Kremlin during the Cold War.
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
A U.S. act that abolished the national origins quota system that had composed American immigration policy since the 1920s, replacing it with a preference system that focused on immigrants' skills and family relationships with citizens or U.S. residents.
John F. Kennedy
(May 29, 1917 - November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963.
Kennedy Doctrine
The foreign policy initiatives of JFK towards Latin America during his term in office between 1961 and 1963. Kennedy voiced support for the containment of Communism and the reversal of Communist progress in the Western Hemisphere.
Lee Harvey Oswald
(October 18, 1939 - November 24, 1963) was, according to four government investigations, the sniper who assassinated John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
New Frontier
A phrase used by liberal Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy at the 1960 United States Democratic National Convention as the Democratic slogan to inspire America to support him. The phrase developed into a label for his administration's domestic and foreign programs.
Warren Commission
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established on November 29, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. It concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, but these findings have since proven controversial and been both challenged and supported by later studies.
New Frontier
the nickname for President Kennedy's domestic and international program and policies.
Great Society
a set of domestic programs in the United States announced by President Lyndon B. Johnson at Ohio University and subsequently promoted by him and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice.
Lyndon Johnson
President of the United States from 1963-1968, who oversaw a major growth in American social programs, advances in civil rights legislation, and the growth of war in Vietnam.
Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
Signed by Lyndon B. Johnson on August 20, 1964, it was central to Johnson's Great Society campaign and its War on Poverty. Implemented by the since-disbanded Office of Economic Opportunity, the Act included several social programs to promote the health, education, and general welfare of the impoverished.
Job Corps
is a program administered by the United States Department of Labor that offers free-of-charge education and vocational training to youths aged 16 to 24.
"War on Poverty"
the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent.
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
A U.S. act that abolished the national origins quota system that had composed American immigration policy since the 1920s, replacing it with a preference system that focused on immigrants' skills and family relationships with citizens or U.S. residents.
Medicaid
a social health care program for low-income families and individuals created under the Johnson administration.
Medicare
a national social insurance program covering american senior citizens, created under the Johnson administration.
socialism
The intermediate phase of social development between capitalism and full communism. This is a strategy whereby the state has control of all key resource-producing industries and manages most aspects of the economy, in contrast to laissez-faire capitalism.
welfare state
A social system in which the state takes overall responsibility for the welfare of its citizens, providing health care, education, unemployment compensation, and social security.
Peace Corps
a national volunteer organization dedicated to international assistance and the establishment of peaceful relations, founded by President Kennedy.
Voting rights act
a major civil rights law passed under the Johnson Administration which clocked many segregationist practices in US southern states.
Elementary and Secondary Education Act
a major education overhaul passed into law under the Johnson administration.