History of the United States (1945–1964)
The history of the United States from 1945 to 1964 was a time of high economic growth and general prosperity. It was also a time of confrontation as the capitalist United States and its allies politically opposed the Soviet Union and other communist states; the Cold War had begun. African Americans united and organized, and a triumph of the civil rights movement ended Jim Crow segregation in the Southern United States. Further laws were passed that made discrimination illegal and provided federal oversight to guarantee voting rights.
| The United States of America — Post-World War II Era | |||
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| 1945–1964 | |||
Martin Luther King, Jr. leads civil rights protestors during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 28, 1963. The 1950s and 1960s were a time of major social and political changes in the United States. | |||
| Location | United States | ||
| Including | New Deal Era Early Cold War Third Industrial Revolution Migrations:
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| President(s) | Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson | ||
| Key events | Strike wave of 1945–1946 Formation of NATO Korean War Second Red Scare Civil Rights movement Postwar economic expansion Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedy Assassination Great Society | ||
Chronology
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| This article is part of a series on the |
| History of the United States |
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In the period, an active foreign policy was pursued to help Western Europe and Asia recover from the devastation of World War II. The Marshall Plan helped Western Europe rebuild from wartime devastation. The main American goal was the Containment of communism. An arms race escalated through increasingly powerful nuclear weapons. The Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact of European satellites to oppose the American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance. The U.S. fought a bloody, inconclusive war in Korea and was escalating the war in Vietnam as the period ended. Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, and when the USSR sent in nuclear missiles to defend it, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was triggered with the U.S., the most dangerous point of the era.
On the domestic front, after a short transition, the economy grew rapidly, with widespread prosperity, rising wages, and the movement of most of the remaining farmers to the towns and cities. Politically, the era was dominated by liberal Democrats who held together with the New Deal Coalition: Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945), Harry S. Truman (1945–1953), John F. Kennedy (1961–1963) and Lyndon Johnson (1963–1969). Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961) was a moderate who did not attempt to reverse New Deal programs such as regulation of business and support for labor unions; he expanded Social Security and built the interstate highway system. For most of the period, the Democrats controlled Congress; however, they were usually unable to pass as much liberal legislation as they had hoped because of the power of the Conservative Coalition. The Liberal coalition took control of Congress after Kennedy's assassination in 1963, and launched the Great Society.
This period of Post–World War II economic expansion witnessed the rapid growth of suburbs and a growing middle class.