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.

The U.S. rejected totalitarianism and colonialism, in line with the principles laid down by the Atlantic Charter of 1941: self-determination, equal economic access, and a rebuilt capitalist, democratic Europe that could again serve as a hub in world affairs.

The House Un-American Activities Committee, with young Congressman Richard M. Nixon playing a central role, accused Alger Hiss, a top Roosevelt aide, of being a communist spy, using testimony and documents provided by Whittaker Chambers.

[20] With anxiety over communism in Korea and China reaching fever pitch in 1950, a previously obscure Senator, Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, launched Congressional investigations into the cover-up of spies in the government.

When, in 1953, he started talking of "21 years of treason" and launched a major attack on the Army for promoting a communist dentist in the medical corps, his recklessness proved too much for Eisenhower, who encouraged Republicans to censure McCarthy formally in 1954.

[24] In addition to communists, and those in the entertainment industry, McCarthy also targeted homosexuals, particularly those employed in the State Department during the Lavender Scare--during the New Deal era, a significant amount of gays and lesbians had come to work in Washington, partially out of a desire to escape discrimination in small town America.

The most prominent of those doctrines was the policy of "massive retaliation", which Dulles announced early in 1954, eschewing the costly, conventional ground forces characteristic of the Truman administration in favor of wielding the vast superiority of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and covert intelligence.

Increasing numbers enjoyed high wages, larger houses, better schools, more cars and home comforts like vacuum cleaners, washing machines—which were all made for labor-saving and to make housework easier.

As a result of the postwar economic boom, 60% of the American population had attained a "middle-class" standard of living by the mid-1950s (defined as incomes of $3,000 to $10,000 in constant dollars), compared with only 31% in the last year of prosperity before the onset of the Great Depression in 1929.

The substantial increase in average family income within a generation resulted in millions of office and factory workers being lifted into a growing middle class, enabling them to sustain a standard of living once considered to be reserved for the wealthy.

[44] As argued by the historians Ronald Edsforth and Larry Bennett: By the mid-1960s, the majority of America's organized working class who were not victims of the second Red Scare embraced, or at least tolerated, anti-communism because it was an integral part of the New American Dream to which they had committed their lives.

Developers purchased empty land just outside the city, installed tract houses based on a handful of designs, and provided streets and utilities, as local public officials race to build schools.

With Detroit turning out automobiles as fast as possible, city dwellers gave up cramped apartments for a suburban life style centered around children and housewives, with the male breadwinner commuting to work.

Nonetheless, the social conformity and consumerism of the 1950s often came under attack from intellectuals (e.g. Henry Miller's books The Air-Conditioned Nightmare and Sunday After The War) and there was a good deal of unrest fermenting under the surface of American society that would erupt during the following decade.

The rapid social and technological changes brought about a growing corporatization of America and the decline of smaller businesses, which often suffered from high postwar inflation and mounting operating costs.

This had its culmination in the development of new music genres such as rock-and-roll as well as fashion styles and subcultures, the most famous of which was the "greaser", a young male who drove motorcycles, sported ducktail haircuts (which were widely banned in schools) and displayed a general disregard for the law and authority.

Popular music and Country music in the early 1950s featured vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Frankie Laine, Patti Page, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Judy Garland, Johnnie Ray, Kay Starr, Bill Monroe, Eddy Arnold, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Rosemary Clooney, Édith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, Maurice Chevalier, Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, Jimmy Durante, Georgia Gibbs, Eddie Fisher, Pearl Bailey, Jim Reeves, Teresa Brewer, Dinah Shore, Sammy Davis Jr., Tennessee Ernie Ford, Loretta Lynn, Chet Atkins, Guy Mitchell, Nat King Cole, and vocal groups like The Mills Brothers, The Ink Spots, The Four Lads, The Four Aces, The Chordettes, The Jordanaires, and The Ames Brothers.

Popular Doo Wop and Rock-n-Roll bands of the mid-to-late 1950s include The Platters, The Flamingos, The Dells, The Silhouettes, Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Danny & the Juniors, The Coasters, The Drifters, The Del-Vikings and Dion and the Belmonts.

Other popular musicals of the 1950s include Love Me Tender which starred Elvis Presley, High Society, An American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain, Guys and Dolls, The Band Wagon, Show Boat, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Gigi, Daddy Long Legs, Funny Face, Calamity Jane, Porgy and Bess, Carmen Jones, and many others.

The studio began producing live-action period and historical films such as The Sword and the Rose, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, Johnny Tremain, Old Yeller, Light in the Forest, Tonka, and Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

Established stars appeared in films that have come to be regarded as classics such as Sunset Boulevard (Gloria Swanson), and (William Holden), All About Eve (Bette Davis), Vertigo (James Stewart) and (Kim Novak), Some Like It Hot (Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon), High Noon (Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly), The Searchers (John Wayne), North by Northwest (Cary Grant), Lust for Life (Kirk Douglas) and (Anthony Quinn), The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (Gregory Peck), The Bridge on the River Kwai (Alec Guinness), Singin' in the Rain (Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor), White Christmas (Bing Crosby), and Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston), a film which holds (with Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) a record for most Academy Awards.

The Stanislavski system's theater-orientated, yet organic approach to acting influenced the work of film actors including Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando James Dean, and Paul Newman.

The return of many black soldiers following the end of World War II led a wave of racial violence to sweep through the south in 1945-46, becoming a national issue and prompting the Truman administration to focus increasingly on civil rights.

The U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954); Powell v. Alabama (1932); Smith v. Allwright (1944); Shelley v. Kraemer (1948); Sweatt v. Painter (1950); and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950) led to a shift in tactics, and from 1955 to 1966, nonviolent direct action was the strategy—primarily bus boycotts, sit-ins, freedom rides, and social movements.

Sheriff Jim Clark of Dallas County, Alabama, loosed his deputies during the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" event of the Selma to Montgomery march, injuring many of the marchers and personally menacing other protesters.

The NAACP and its director, Roy Wilkins, provided legal counsel for jailed demonstrators, helped raise bail, and continued to test segregation and discrimination in the courts as it had been doing for half a century.

Rationing of goods was officially ended in October 1945 but the transition back to a peacetime economy was difficult and marred by high inflation, raw materials shortages, serious labor strikes, and racial tensions--much like happened in 1919, white servicemen returning home from the war were unhappy at blacks being given their jobs in their absence.

He ended the Korean War, maintained the peace in Asia and the Middle East, and worked smoothly with NATO allies in Europe while keeping the policy of containing Communism rather than trying to roll it back.

Voters were polarized on religious grounds, but Kennedy's election was a transforming event for Catholics, who finally realized they were accepted in America, and it marked the virtual end of anti-Catholicism as a political force.

[98] The Kennedy Family had long been leaders of the Irish Catholic wing of the Democratic Party; JFK was middle-of-the-road or liberal on domestic issues and conservative on foreign policy, sending military forces into Cuba and Vietnam.