How Cold War Impacted American People Lives

HOW COLD WAR IMPACTED AMERICAN PEOPLE LIVES
https://ehistory.osu.edu/articles/historical-analysis-cold-war#:~:text=The%20Cold%20War
%20shaped%20American,of%20expected%20conformity%20and%20normalcy.&text=The%20Cold
%20War%20was%20to,death%20of%20the%20Soviet%20Union.
https://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/history/timeline/origins/american_society.html
https://www.sgasd.org/cms/lib/PA01001732/Centricity/Domain/94/American%20Society%20and
%20the%20Cold%20War.pdf
https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/cold-war-history
https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/red-scare
https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/joseph-mccarthy
https://www.history.com/news/homework-cold-war-sputnik
Cold War shaped American foreign policy and political ideology, impacted the domestic
economy and the presidency, and affected the personal lives of Americans creating a
climate of expected conformity and normalcy. By the end of the 1950's, dissent slowly
increased reaching a climax by the late 1960's
The Cold War affected domestic policy two ways: socially and economically. Socially, the
intensive indoctrination of the American people led to a regression of social reforms.
Economically, enormous growth spurred by industries related to war was aided by heavy
government expansion.
For Army veterans the economic future brightened as the government spent countless
resources through the GI Bill, VA and FHA loans to help them buy new homes or receive
an education. Social reforms in the fields of civil rights, labor unions, working conditions, and
women concerns were minimum and often ignored.
Cold War left its mark on activities ranging from art and poetry to movies and comic books.
Sports events became particularly prominent venues for rivalry, beginning with the London
Olympics in 1948 and peaking every fourth year thereafter.
During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union fought

together as allies against the Axis powers. However, the relationship
between the two nations was a tense one. Americans had long been
wary of Soviet communism and concerned about Russian leaders.
For their part, the Soviets resented the Americans’ decades-long
refusal to treat the USSR as a legitimate part of the international
community as well as their delayed entry into World War II, which
resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Russians. After the war
ended, these grievances ripened into an overwhelming sense of
mutual distrust and enmity.
Post Worldwar Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe fueled many
Americans’ fears of a Russian plan to control the world.
Americans Policy: America’s only choice was the “long-term, patient
but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”
This containment strategy also provided the rationale for an

unprecedented arms buildup in the United States. In 1950, a
National Security Council Report known as NSC–68 had echoed
Truman’s recommendation that the country use military force to
contain communist expansionism anywhere it seemed to be
occurring. (To that end, the report called for a four-fold increase
in defense spending. )
American officials encouraged the development of atomic weapons
like the ones that had ended World War II. Thus began a deadly
“arms race.” ----Details of Budget spending on Arms and Space
rather than development.
When Russia tested the Atom bomb, Americans also tested.

The ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation had a great impact on
American domestic life. People built bomb shelters in their
backyards. They practiced attack drills in schools and other public
places.
The 1950s and 1960s saw an epidemic of popular films that horrified
moviegoers with depictions of nuclear devastation and mutant
creatures. In these and other ways, the Cold War was a constant
presence in Americans’ everyday lives.
Space exploration served as another dramatic arena for Cold War
competition
When Soviets launched first satellite, Sputnik, came as a surprise,
and not a pleasant one, to most Americans general public. They
wanted America to be first in the space program. ( Check American
People’s reaction).
U.S. astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American heroes.
Soviets, in turn, were pictured as the ultimate villains, with their
massive, relentless efforts to surpass America and prove the power
of the communist system.
How the Cold War Space Race Led to U.S. Students Doing Tons
of Homework
Prior to Coldwar, giving homework to kids was thought as a crime.
For the elementary school child and the junior high school child,”
concluded a 1930s study, homework was nothing less than
“legalized criminality.” The American Child Health Association
equated homework with child labor in 1930, claiming that both
practices were “chief causes of the high death and morbidity rates
from tuberculosis and heart disease among adolescents.
By the 1940s, nightly homework levels had dropped to all-time lows.
The single most important event that rocketed homework back into
the national conversation quite like the launching of Sputnik 1,
humankind’s first artificial satellite to reach Earth’s orbit. The
response from the U.S. federal government was swift. In 1958, just a
year after Sputnik, Congress passed the National Defense Education
Act (NDEA), a $1-billion spending package to bolster high-quality
teaching and learning in science, mathematics and foreign
languages.
(The NDEA investment had immediate effects. By 1962, 23 percent
of high-school juniors reported doing two or more hours of
homework a night, nearly twice as many as in 1957, the year of
Sputnik.
Still, the Sputnik homework bump didn’t last long.)
The RED SCARE: anticommunist hysteria

The Red Scare ( Communists are perceived as RED) was hysteria
over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. during
the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, which
intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The Red Scare led to a range of actions that had a profound and
enduring effect on U.S. government and society. Federal employees
were analyzed to determine whether they were sufficiently loyal to
the government. Communists and leftist sympathizers inside
America are analyzed as Soviet spies and pose a threat to U.S.
security. On March 21, 1947, President Harry S. Truman (1884-
1972) issued Executive Order 9835, also known as the Loyalty
Order, which mandated that all federal employees be analyzed to
determine whether they were sufficiently loyal to the government.
Truman’s loyalty program was a startling development for a country
that prized the concepts of personal liberty and freedom of political
organization.
So much so was the scare, any kind of protest is labelled as
communist subversion . FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was quick to
equate civil rights demonstrations led by Martin Luther King Jr.
Hoover labeled King a communist and covertly worked to intimidate
and discredit the civil rights leader.
With the dawning of the new anticommunist crusade in the late
1940s, Hoover’s agency compiled extensive files on suspected
subversives through the use of wiretaps, surveillance and the
infiltration of leftist groups.
The information obtained by the FBI proved essential in high-profile
legal cases, including the 1949 conviction of 12 prominent leaders of
the American Communist Party on charges that they had advocated
the overthrow of the government.
Public concerns about communism were heightened by international
events. In 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested a nuclear
bomb and communist forces led by Mao Zedong (1893-1976) took
control of China. The following year saw the start of the Korean
War (1950-53), which engaged U.S. troops in combat against the
communist-supported forces of North Korea. The advances of
communism around the world convinced many U.S. citizens that
there was a real danger of “Reds” taking over their own country.
Figures such as McCarthy and Hoover fanned the flames of fear by
wildly exaggerating that possibility.
As the Red Scare intensified, its political climate turned increasingly
conservative. Elected officials from both major parties sought to
portray themselves as staunch anticommunists, and few people
dared to criticize the questionable tactics used to persecute
suspected radicals. Membership in leftist groups dropped as it
became clear that such associations could lead to serious
consequences, and dissenting voices from the left side of the
political spectrum fell silent on a range of important issues. In
judicial affairs, for example, support for free speech and other civil
liberties eroded significantly. This trend was symbolized by the 1951
U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dennis v. United States, which said
that the free-speech rights of accused Communists could be
restricted because their actions presented a clear and present
danger to the government.
Americans also felt the effects of the Red Scare on a personal level,
and thousands of alleged communist sympathizers saw their lives
disrupted. They were hounded by law enforcement, alienated from
friends and family and fired from their jobs. While a small number of
the accused may have been aspiring revolutionaries, most others
were the victims of false allegations or had done nothing more than
exercise their democratic right to join a political party.
In human behavior, consensus to anti-communist ideals became the norm for everyone,
especially government employees. Firm anti-communist demeanor was expected from
everyone, particularly those in government
 Over 6 million people were tested for loyalty  Examples of what set off the radar  Books they
read  Who they were related to or friends with  Watching foreign films  Traveling outside of the
country
HUAC ( House Un-American Activities Committee )
This committee was was formed to investigate communist activities took

place in the U.S.
HUAC’s investigations frequently focused on exposing Communists
working inside the federal government or subversive elements
working in the Hollywood film industry, and the committee gained
new momentum following World War II, as the Cold War began.
Under pressure from the negative publicity aimed at their studios,
movie executives created Hollywood blacklists that barred suspected
radicals from employment; similar lists were also established in
other industries.
McCarthyism( Joseph R. McCarthy)
U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (1908-57) of Wisconsin, became
the person most closely associated with the anticommunist crusade–
and with its excesses. McCarthy used hearsay and intimidation to
establish himself as a powerful and feared figure in American
politics. He leveled charges of disloyalty at celebrities, intellectuals
and anyone who disagreed with his political views, costing many of
his victims their reputations and jobs. McCarthy’s reign of terror
continued until his colleagues formally denounced his tactics in 1954
during the Army-McCarthy hearings, when army lawyer Joseph
Welch famously asked McCarthy, “Have you no decency?”

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HOW COLD WAR IMPACTED AMERICAN PEOPLE LIVES

During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union fought

This containment strategy also provided the rationale for an

When Russia tested the Atom bomb, Americans also tested.

Still, the Sputnik homework bump didn’t last long.)

The RED SCARE: anticommunist hysteria

HUAC ( House Un-American Activities Committee )

This committee was was formed to investigate communist activities took

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