Betty Friedan
Leading figure in 1960's womens movement who wrote a feminist book called The Feminine Mystique
William Levitt/Levitttown
American real estate developer who created Levittown- the nation's first planned community (suburbia)
Billy Graham
Southern baptist who rose to celebrity status as his sermons were broadcast on radio and television in the 1960's
Alfred Kinsey
American biologist and professor that founded the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, as well as producing the Kinsey Reports and the Kinsey scale.
Thurgood Marshall
American jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States
Earl Warren
Chief Justice on Supreme Court that ended segregation in public schools
Emmett Till
Black boy brutally murdered at 14 yrs. old for flirting with a white women. His controversial death was broadcast to unveil american intolerance for blacks
Rosa Parks
Black, female civil rights activist that refused to sit in the back of the bus thus getting arrested, but unveiling the cruelty of American segregation
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Black, male civil rights activist that led many marches and speeches to support tolerance and nonviolence in America
Kitchen debate
series of impromptu exchanges between then U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the opening of the American National Exhibition
Interstate Highway and Defense Act of 1956
began the construction of the Interstate Highway System throughout America.
Brinksmanship
practice of pushing dangerous events to the verge of disaster in order to achieve the most advantageous outcome
Mutually assured destruction (MAD)
a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender becoming a war with no victor, only total destruction
Domino theory
speculated that if one land in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect
Geneva Accords
a model permanent status agreement to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO)
an international organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia created by the Manila Pact
United Fruit Company
United States corporation that traded in tropical fruit grown on third world plantations and sold in the United States and Europe
Eisenhower Doctrine
a country, specifically in the Middle East, could request American economic assistance and/or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another state
Sputnik
the first human-made object to orbit the Earth, launched by the Soviet Union
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Executive Branch agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's civilian space program and aeronautics and aerospace research
U-2 incident
United States U-2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet Union airspace while collecting covert intelligence during the Cold War
Military-industrial complex
concept commonly used to refer to policy and monetary relationships between legislators, national armed forces, and the industrial sector that supports them
Affluent society
book by Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith that outlined the manner in which the post-World War II America was becoming wealthy in the private sector but remained poor in the public sector
Sun Belt
a region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the South and Southwest defined by its warm-temperate climate with extended summers and brief, relatively mild winters
Operation Wetback
1954 operation by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service to remove about one million illegal aliens from the southwestern United States, focusing on Mexican nationals
Baby Boom
period marked by a greatly increased birth rate due to economic prosperity in the US
Beat generation
group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired
Brown v. Board of Education
Supreme Court case ruling that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional
Central High School, Little Rock, AR
School in which the first 9 black students integrated with white students causing mobs, riots, and federal troops
Montgomery Bus Boycott
political and social protest campaign that started in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, USA, intended to oppose the city's policy of racial segregation on its public transit system
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
American civil rights organization closely associated with M.L.K Jr. that had a large role in the American Civil Rights Movement
