| A | B |
|---|
| The Servicemen's Readjustment Act (the GI Bill) | Eliminated the possibility of a second Bonus March and helped returning veterans contribute to the post-World War II economic boom |
| Republicans sweeping victories in the 1946 Congressional elections | Truman is unable to pass much of his Fair Deal because of Congressional opposition |
| Congress overrides Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act | A major defeat for labor as the closed shop is outlawed |
| Truman's civil rights policies | Truman alienates parts of the South and contributes to the rise of the Dixiecrats in 1948 |
| The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 | Facilitated the growth of suburbs and was actually a larger construction project than any New Deal program |
| The Baby Boom | Increasing popularity of child-rearing books, increased number of schools, and strains placed on the Social Security system in the 21st century |
| Jonas Salk's polio vaccine | Nationwide celebrations as parents no longer had to fear a crippling childhood disease |
| Returning veterans, demands for cheap housing, automobiles, generous government loans | Growth of suburbs |
| White flight to the suburbs | De facto segregation of urban areas and poverty/urban decay in the inner city |
| Increased defense spending, air conditioning, lower labor costs | Growth of the suburbs |
| End of World War II, millions of returning men to enter the work force, and a desire to return to normalcy | Women left the workforce for the home and the high tide of the cult of domesticity |
| Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963) | Beginning of the modern-day feminist movement |
| Hugh Hefner's Playboy and the "pill" being approved by the FDA | Loosening of sexual norms |
| Television | Radio was replaced as the major form of media; entertainment, sports, politics, advertising were all revolutionized |
| Rock 'n roll | Youth culture had its own form of music and parents worried greatly about what their teens were listening to |
| Michael Harrington's The Other America (1962) | Revealed poverty in post-World War II America and inspired LBJ's Great Society |
| The conformity and materialism of the 1950s | Were the fuel for critics such as David Riesman, William H. Whyte, C. Wright Mills, and Katherine Gordon |
| The Beatniks | Laid a foundation for the counterculture of the 1960s with drug use, nonconformity, and criticism of middle-class consumer culture |
