Lesson 4: Cold War America

Lesson Focus

After WWII, America sought security amid prosperity and inflation. This lesson explores how social groups fought for new gains while fear of communism created widespread suspicion and political conflict during the Truman years.

People to Know

Harry S. Truman

Learning Objectives

• Explain how the American labor force, especially for women and minorities, changed after World War II.
• Describe the social and economic conditions for African Americans during the 1940s, including their fight for civil rights.
• Evaluate President Truman's leadership, including his domestic policies and his response to the growing fear of communism.

After World War II, many feared a depression. Instead, high consumer savings from wartime rationing, tax cuts, and the Marshall Plan fueled a boom. This prosperity, however, also caused sharp inflation. While the economy grew, many women were pushed from factory jobs back into the home. Black Americans saw new opportunities but still faced significant economic inequality and discrimination. Pay special attention to how prosperity did not benefit everyone equally.

The postwar economic boom and changing attitudes about racism created new opportunities for African Americans. Many migrated from the rural South to cities, moving into better-paying jobs, while the NAACP expanded its legal challenges against segregation. Despite these gains, which saw incomes nearly double, Black Americans still faced widespread discrimination, lower wages than whites, and the oppressive Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation in the South. Full equality remained a distant goal.

Rising inflation after the war eroded workers' purchasing power, leading to a massive wave of nearly 5,000 strikes in 1946. Public anxiety over these strikes helped Republicans win control of Congress. In 1947, they passed the Taft-Hartley Act over Truman's veto. The law outlawed the closed shop and other union tactics like jurisdictional strikes. Note that labor leaders called it a "slave labor" law because it significantly weakened union power.

Everyone expected Republican Thomas E. Dewey to win the 1948 presidential election because the Democratic Party was split. Truman launched an energetic "whistle stop" train tour, attacking the "do-nothing" Republican Congress. He successfully rallied the New Deal coalition of farmers, labor, and Black voters. Truman's surprising victory allowed him to propose his Fair Deal, an expansion of New Deal policies, though conservative opposition in Congress blocked most of his ambitious proposals.

The Soviet atomic bomb and the "loss" of China to communism created intense fear in America, leading to a search for subversives. This panic was exploited by figures like Senator Joseph McCarthy, who made reckless accusations about Communists in the government. The Alger Hiss spy case seemed to confirm these fears. The result was McCarthyism—a period of intense anti-communist hysteria where careers were ruined by unfounded accusations, creating a climate of fear and conformity.

By 1952, Truman's popularity had fallen due to the stalemated Korean War and charges of being "soft on communism." Despite a hostile Congress, he prevented a retreat into isolationism and established the foreign policy of containment. Although unpopular when he left office, Truman's reputation grew over time. Many of his Fair Deal proposals eventually became law, and his foreign policy set a course of world responsibility for future presidents.