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Is the image of the happy 1950s housewife accurate? 

Document A: Harper’s Weekly, 1953 (Modified)
The daily pattern of household life is governed by the husband's commuting schedule. It is entirely a woman's day because virtually every male commutes. Usually the men must leave between 7:00 and 8:00 A.M.; therefore they rise between 6:00 and 7:00 A.M. In most cases the wife rises with her husband, makes his breakfast while he shaves, and has a cup of coffee with him. Then she often returns to bed until the children get up. The husband is not likely to be back before 7:00 or 7:30 P.M.
This leaves the woman alone all day to cope with the needs of the children, her house-keeping, and shopping. (Servants, needless to say, are unknown). When the husband returns, he is generally tired, both from his work and his traveling. . . . Often by the time the husband returns the children are ready for bed. Then he and his wife eat their supper and wash the dishes. By 10:00 P.M. most lights are out.
For the women this is a long, monotonous (boring) daily [routine]. Generally the men, once home, do not want to leave. They want to "relax" or "improve the property" -putter around the lawn or shrubbery. However, the women want a "change." Thus, groups of women often go to the movies together.
Source: Harry Henderson, “The Mass-Produced Suburbs: How People Live in America’s Newest Towns.” Harper’s Weekly, November 1953. Harry Henderson based his observations on extensive visits, observations, and interviews in 1950s suburbs.
What were suburban women doing?
(Provide evidence to support your answer)

How did they feel?(Provide evidence to support your answer)

Document B: The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (Modified)
The problem . . . was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, . . . lay beside her husband at night--she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question--"Is this all?" . . .
In the fifteen years after World War II, this mystique of feminine fulfillment became the cherished . . . core of contemporary American culture. Millions of women lived their lives in the image of those pretty pictures of the American suburban housewife, kissing their husbands goodbye in front of the picture window, depositing their station-wagons full of children at school, and smiling as they ran the new electric waxer over the spotless kitchen floor. They baked their own bread, sewed their own and their children's clothes, kept their new washing machines and dryers running all day. . . . Their only dream was to be perfect wives and mothers; their highest ambition to have five children and a beautiful house, their only fight to get and keep their husbands. They had no thought for the unfeminine problems of the world outside the home; they wanted the men to make the major decisions. . .

Source: Betty Friedan was one of the early leaders of the Women’s Rights movement that developed in the 1960s and 1970s. She published The Feminine Mystique in 1963. In the book, Friedan discusses how stifled and unsatisfied many suburban women were in the 1950s.
What were suburban women doing?
(Provide evidence to support your answer)

How did they feel?(Provide evidence to support your answer)

Hypothesis One: Is the image of the happy 1950s housewife accurate? Why or why not?    

Document C: Historian Joanne Meyerowitz (Modified)
The Woman’s Home Companion (a popular women’s magazine) conducted opinion polls in 1947 and 1949 in which readers named the women they most admired. In both years the top four women were [women involved in politics].
The postwar popular magazines were also positive about women’s participation in politics. The Ladies’ Home Journal had numerous articles that supported women as political and community leaders. One article in the Ladies’ Home Journal from 1947 encouraged women to “Make politics your business. Voting, office holding, raising your voice for new and better laws are just as important to your home and your family as the evening meal or spring house cleaning.”
[This shows that women at the time believed that individual achievement and public service were at least as important as devotion to home and family].

Source: Joanne Meyerowitz, “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946- 1958.” The Journal of American History, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Mar., 1993), pp. 1455-1482. Meyerowitz examined 489 articles in eight monthly magazines from the 1950s. 
What were suburban women doing?
(Provide evidence to support your answer)

How did they feel?(Provide evidence to support your answer)

Document D: Historian Alice Kessler-Harris (Modified)
At first glance, the 1950s was a decade of the family... But already the family was flashing warning signals. . . . Homes and cars, refrigerators and washing machines, telephones and multiple televisions required higher incomes . . . The two-income family emerged. In 1950, wives earned wages in only 21.6 percent of all families. By 1960, 30.5 percent of wives worked for wages. And that figure would continue to increase. Full- and part-time working wives contributed about 26 percent of the total family income.
Source: Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work, 2003, pp. 301- 302.

What were suburban women doing?
(Provide evidence to support your answer)

How did they feel?
(Provide evidence to support your answer) 


Final Claim: Is the image of the happy 1950s housewife accurate? Why or why not? Use 2-4 pieces of evidence to support your claim. 

Was the Great Society successful?

Great Society Speech, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964 (Modified)
I have come today from the turmoil of your Capital to the tranquility (peace) of your campus to speak about the future of your country. . .
The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. . .
It is harder and harder to live the good life in American cities today. There is not enough housing for our people or transportation for our traffic. . . . Our society will never be great until our cities are great. . .
A second place where we begin to build the Great Society is in our countryside. We have always prided ourselves on being not only America the strong and America the free, but America the beautiful. Today that beauty is in danger. The water we drink, the food we eat, the very air that we breathe, are threatened with pollution. Our parks are overcrowded, our seashores overburdened. Green fields and dense forests are disappearing. . .
A third place to build the Great Society is in the classrooms of America. There your children's lives will be shaped. Our society will not be great until every young mind is set free to scan the farthest reaches of thought and imagination. We are still far from that goal. . . Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty. . .
For better or for worse, your generation has been appointed by history to deal with those problems and to lead America toward a new age. You have the chance never before afforded to any people in any age. You can help build a society where the demands of morality, and the needs of the spirit, can be realized in the life of the Nation.
So, will you join in the battle to give every citizen the full equality which God enjoins and the law requires, whatever his belief, or race, or the color of his skin?
Will you join in the battle to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of poverty?
Will you join in the battle to build the Great Society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit?
Source: The speech above was delivered by President Johnson as a commencement (graduation) speech at the University of Michigan on May 22, 1964.

Major Great Society Programs
War on Poverty: forty programs that were intended to eliminate poverty by improving living conditions and enabling people to lift themselves out of the cycle of poverty.
Education: sixty separate bills that provided for new and better-equipped classrooms, minority scholarships, and low-interest student loans.
Medicare & Medicaid: guaranteed health care to every American over sixty-five and to low-income families.
The Environment: introduced measures to protect clean air and water.
National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities: government funding for
artists, writers and performers.
Head Start: program for four- and five-year-old children from low-income families.
Sampling of the laws passed during the Johnson administration to promote the Great Society.

PREVENTION & ABATEMENT OF AIR POLLUTION
(THE CLEAN AIR ACT)
DEC. 17, 1963

VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965 AUG. 6, 1965
HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT ACT AUG. 10, 1965
PUBLIC WORKS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ACT
AUG. 26, 1965
DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT ACT
SEPT. 9, 1965
NATIONAL FOUNDATION ON THE ARTS & THE HUMANITIES ACT
SEPT. 29, 1965
HIGHER EDUCATION ACT OF 1965 NOV. 8, 1965
CHILD NUTRITION ACT OF 1966 OCT. 11, 1966
CHILD PROTECTION ACT OF 1966 NOV. 3, 1966
NATIONAL SCHOOL LUNCH ACT MAY 8, 1968

VOCATIONAL DEC. 18, 1963
CIVIL RIGHTS JULY 2, 1964
URBAN MASS JULY 9, 1964
FEDERAL-AID AUG. 13, 1964

EDUCATION ACT
ACT OF 1964 TRANSPORTATION HIGHWAY ACT OF 1964

CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT OF 1964 AUG. 20, 1964
FOOD STAMP ACT OF 1964 AUG. 31, 1964
NATIONAL ARTS CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 1964
SEPT. 3, 1964
SOCIAL SECURITY AMENDMENTS JULY 30, 1965

Source: http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/gresoc.htm

 PRO: What Was Really Great About The Great Society (Modified)

By Joseph A. Califano Jr.
The Washington Monthly (online), October 1999
If there is a prize for the political scam of the 20th century, it should go to the conservatives for [claiming that the] Great Society programs of the 1960s were a misguided and failed social experiment that wasted taxpayers' money.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, from 1963 when Lyndon Johnson took office until 1970 as the impact of his Great Society programs were felt, the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century. . . If the Great Society had not achieved that dramatic reduction in poverty, and the nation had not maintained it, 24 million more Americans would today be living below the poverty level. . .
Since 1965 the federal government has provided more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in 86 million college loans to 29 million students, and more than $14 billion in work-study awards to 6 million students. Today nearly 60 percent of full- time undergraduate students receive federal financial aid under Great Society programs. . .
Head Start has served more than 16 million preschoolers in just about every city and county in the nation and today serves 800,000 children a year. . . . Lyndon Johnson knew that the rich had kindergartens and nursery schools; and he asked, why not the same benefits for the poor?
Is revolution too strong a word? Since 1965, 79 million Americans have signed up for Medicare. In 1966, 19 million were enrolled; in 1998, 39 million. Since 1966, Medicaid has served more than 200 million needy Americans. In 1967, it served 10 million poor citizens; in 1997, 39 million. . . Closely related to these health programs were efforts to reduce malnutrition and hunger. Today, the Great Society's food stamp program helps feed more than 20 million men, women, and children in more than 8 million households. Since it was launched in 1967, the school breakfast program has provided a daily breakfast to nearly 100 million schoolchildren.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965. . .opened the way for black Americans to strengthen their voice at every level of government. In 1964 there were 79 black elected officials in the South and 300 in the entire nation. By 1998, there were some 9,000 elected black officials across the nation, including 6,000 in the South. . . .
Source: Joseph Califano, Jr., became a special assistant to President Johnson in July 1965, and served as President Johnson's senior domestic policy aide for the remainder of Johnson's term.

Source:
1) Who wrote this?
2) What is his perspective?
3) What do you predict the author will say? 

4) What is the author’s main argument?

5) What are three pieces of evidence that the author uses to support his claims?

CON: War on Poverty Revisited (Modified)
By Thomas Sowell
Capitalism Magazine (online), August 17, 2004
The War on Poverty represented the crowning triumph of the liberal vision of society -- and of government programs as the solution to social problems. . .
In the liberal vision, slums bred crime. But brand-new government housing projects almost immediately became new centers of crime and quickly degenerated (declined) into new slums. . .
Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years before the new 1960s attitudes toward sex spread rapidly through the schools, helped by War on Poverty money. These downward trends suddenly reversed and skyrocketed.
The murder rate had also been going down, for decades, and in 1960 was just under half of what it had been in 1934. Then the new 1960s policies toward curing the "root causes" of crime and creating new "rights" for criminals began. Rates of violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed.
The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized (paid for) unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life. . .
The economic rise of blacks began decades earlier, before any of the legislation and policies that are credited with producing that rise. The continuation of the rise of blacks out of poverty did not -- repeat, did not -- accelerate during the 1960s.
The poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent in 1960, during an era of virtually no major civil rights legislation or anti-poverty programs. . . . In various skilled trades, the incomes of blacks relative to whites more than doubled between 1936 and 1959 -- that is, before the magic 1960s decade when supposedly all progress began. The rise of blacks in professional and other high-level occupations was greater in the five years preceding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than in the five years afterwards.

Source: Thomas Sowell is a conservative economist, author, and social commentator. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. 

Source:
1) Who wrote this?
2) What is his perspective?
3) What do you predict the author will say? 

4) What is the author’s main argument?

5) What are three pieces of evidence that the author uses to support his claims?

Which author do you find more convincing and why? 

Was the U.S. planning to go to war with North Vietnam before the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?

Most history books say that the United States war in Vietnam began in 1964, after Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. However, it’s no secret that the United States had been very involved in the region for at least a decade before. By the time JFK was assassinated in 1963, the United States had 16,000 military troops in Vietnam. Today we’re going to try to answer the question:
Was the U.S. planning to go to war in Vietnam before August 1964? 

 

Document A
1. According to this document, what did the North Vietnamese do?
2. Why did the United States feel compelled to respond at this point?
3. According to this document, was the U.S. planning to go to war in Vietnam
before August 1964? Explain your answer.

 Document B

1. When was this document written? Who wrote it?
   
2. What did Bundy suggest to the President?
   
3. What are three reasons why Bundy made this recommendation?
   
4. According to this document, was the U.S. planning to go to war in Vietnam
   before August 1964? Explain your answer. 
   

 Document C

1. When was this document written? Who wrote it?
2. How did Rusk feel about the South Vietnamese government’s ability to fight
the Communists? Support your answer with evidence.
3. Why did Rusk think attacking the North Vietnamese is not a smart idea? 4. According to this document, was the U.S. planning to go to war in Vietnam
before August 1964? Explain your answer. 

Document D

1. What type of document is this? How trustworthy do you think this type of document is?
2. What is the dilemma facing President Johnson?
3. According to this document, was the U.S. planning to go to war in Vietnam before August 1964? Explain your answer. 

Using all four documents, write a paragraph in response the question:
Was the U.S. planning to go to war in Vietnam before August 1964?