Week 11

Week 11

The Postwar Years

Monday: Anticommunism at Home
Wednesday: The Affluent Society
Friday: Organization Men and Suburban Housewives

DISCUSSION SECTIONS: Growing Up in the Fifties.

READINGS:

1.Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye.
2.Betty Friedan, Chapters One and Two, The Feminine Mystique (1963).
3.Elaine Tyler May, "Explosive Issues: Sex, Women and the Bomb"
4.Documents: Truman's Loyalty Oath (1947); Joseph McCarthy, Speech at Wheeling, West Virginia (1950);
Raymond B. Allen, "Communists Should Not Teach in American Colleges" (1949); Walt Disney's Testimony
before HUAC (1947); Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Military-Industrial Complex" (1961); and Adlai Stevenson
Describes a Women's Place (1955).

ADDITIONAL INTERNET RESOURCES:

1.Archives on McCarthyism (including audio clips)
http://webcorp.com/mccarthy/
http://history.hanover.edu/20th/mccarthy.htm
2.Hypertext Resource on Hollywood Blacklist
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/blacklist.html
3.The Original (Unofficial) Elvis Homepage:
http://sunsite.unc.edu/elvis/elvishom.html
4.The Fifties Archives
http://www.fiftiesweb.com/fifties.htm

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT:

Having read (or reread) The Catcher in the Rye for this class, your assignment is to write three questions for discussions on the book for this course. What is it in this book that you would like to discuss in this class? In a sentence or two suggest how you would answer these questions.

created: February 10, 2000
last updated: February 23, 2000