12.+Happy+Days??



That's a great question, don't you think? We will answer it in class on Thursday in a (hopefully) fun activity, but to prepare, we should do a little background reading and watching. R**ead "The Fifties" in __Creating America__ (28-3, pp. 800-803), read over the ABC-CLIO links posted below, and w****atch the videos below.** 
 * FOR HOMEWORK, CREATE A LIST (IN YOUR ONLINE NOTEBOOK) OF POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES CONCERNING LIFE IN THE FIFTIES FOR CLASS ON THURSDAY. WE WILL USE IT TO WRITE SOME DIALOGUE ...**

[|The Cold War at Home]  / [|The Economy Booms] / [|The Sky is the Limit] / [|Boom-Time for Babies and Houses]

POSITIVES


 * The US was in a much better state within the economy. They were even producing 62% of the world's goods by 1952
 * New technologies also developed and things like frozen foods, jet industries, and plastics were being produced. Things like air conditioning also came into the picture
 * There were more people in the US now so manufacturing would go up and more people could work in businesses
 * Suburbs were also developing which required better transportation and more of it.
 * New technologies like vaccines were also developed and took away the fear of getting things like polio.
 * American started its space program and started research on going to space.

**
 *  NEGATIVES
 * There was a huge population bomb and so there were now more mouths to feed and more crammed cities and such.
 * There was a huge fear of communism where everyone was a afraid that this mights come to the US and take over like it did in many other countries including China. This was called the Red Scare
 * The HUAC had something called the "blacklist" where they would put down the names of people that the thought were communist and they would not let anyone hire these certain people.
 * In the 1950s many people were afraid of diseases like polio
 * The Soviet Union developed a missile to send a satellite into space, this scared Americans because it meant that they could sent a missile all the way to America.
 * Jobs for women were also limited as well and ethnic groups being discriminated.