United States of America
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA) is a country located in North America. It consists of 48 states, a federal district, six major unincorporated territories, eleven minor outlying islands, and numerous Indian reservations. It is the third-largest country by both land and total area. The United States shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south. It has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations.The United States in the 1950s
The 1950s was a decade marked by the post-World War II boom, the dawn of the Cold War, and the civil rights movement in the United States. “America at this moment,” said the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1945, “stands at the summit of the world.” During the 1950s, it was easy to see what Churchill meant. The United States was the world’s strongest military power. Its economy was booming, and the fruits of this prosperity–new cars, suburban houses, and other consumer goods–were available to more people than ever before. However, the 1950s was also an era of great conflict. For example, the nascent civil rights movement and the crusade against communism at home and abroad in the Korean War exposed underlying divisions in American society.The Civil Rights Movement
A growing group of Americans spoke out against inequality and injustice during the 1950s. African Americans had been fighting against racial discrimination for centuries; during the 1950s, however, the struggle against racism and segregation entered the mainstream of American life. For example, in 1954, in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, the Supreme Court declared that “separate educational facilities” for black children were “inherently unequal.” This ruling was the first nail in Jim Crow’s coffin. Many Southern whites resisted the Brown ruling. They withdrew their children from public schools and enrolled them in all-white “segregation academies,” and they used violence and intimidation to prevent blacks from asserting their rights. In 1956 more than 100 Southern congressmen even signed a “Southern Manifesto” declaring that they would do all they could to defend segregation. Despite these efforts a new movement was born. In December 1955 a Montgomery activist named Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give her seat on a city bus to a white person. Her arrest sparked a 13-month boycott of the city’s buses by its black citizens, which only ended when the bus companies stopped discriminating against Black passengers. Acts of “nonviolent resistance” like the boycott helped shape the civil rights movement of the next decade.The Cold War & The Korean War
The tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, known as the Cold War, was another defining element of the 1950s. After World War II Western leaders began to worry that the USSR had what one American diplomat called “expansive tendencies”; moreover, they believed that the spread of communism anywhere threatened democracy and capitalism everywhere. As a result, communism needed to be “contained”–by diplomacy, by threats, or by force. This policy is what drew American forces into the Korean War in July 1950. A month earlier some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. As far as American officials were concerned, fighting on behalf of the Republic of Korea was pushback against forces of international communism itself. The United States never formally declared war on North Korea. Instead, President Harry Truman referred to the addition of ground troops as a “police action.” The Korean War armistice, signed on July 27, 1953, drew a new border between North Korea and South Korea, granting South Korea some additional territory and demilitarizing the zone between the two nations. Cold War tensions shaped domestic policy as well. Many people in the United States worried that communists, or “subversives,” could destroy American society from the inside as well as from the outside. Between 1945 and 1952 Congress held 84 hearings designed to put an end to “un-American activities” in the federal government, in universities and public schools, and even in Hollywood. These hearings did not uncover many treasonous activities–or even many communists–but it did not matter; tens of thousands of Americans lost their jobs, as well as their families and friends, in the anti-communist “Red Scare” of the 1950s.1950s Pop Culture
In the 1950s, televisions became something the average family could afford, and by 1950 4.4 million U.S. families had one in their home. The Golden Age of Television was marked by family-friendly shows like I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Twilight Zone, and Leave It To Beaver. In movie theaters actors like John Wayne, James Stuart, Charlton Heston, Marlon Brando, Grace Kelly, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marilyn Monroe dominated the box office. The Abstract Expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning signaled a new age in art, paving the way for the Pop Art of artists like Andy Warhol in the 1960s.1950s Music
Elvis Presley. Sam Cooke. Chuck Berry. Fats Domino. Buddy Holly. The 1950s saw the emergence of Rock ‘n’ Roll, and the new sound swept the nation. It helped inspire rockabilly music from Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash. People swayed to The Platters and The Drifters. Music marketing changed, too; for the first time, music began to target youth.Demography and Population
As of April 1, 1955 the population of the United States of America is c. 161,136,449
"In God We Trust"
Maps
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United States of America c.1955
Detailed map of the USA pre-interstate highway system of 1955
Founding Date
July 4, 1776
Type
Geopolitical, Country
Capital
Alternative Names
United States (U.S. or US) or America
Demonym
American
Leader
Leader Title
Government System
Democracy, Representative
Power Structure
Federation
Economic System
Mixed economy
Currency
United States dollar
Legislative Body
Congress
• Upper house: Senate
• Lower house: House of Representatives
Judicial Body
Supreme Court of the United States
Executive Body
Under Article II of the Constitution, the President is responsible for the execution and enforcement of the laws created by Congress. Fifteen executive departments — each led by an appointed member of the President's Cabinet — carry out the day-to-day administration of the federal government.
Subsidiary Organizations
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