The corporate style, Madison Avenue regimentation, and the surrender to ambition that were the object of so much concern and criticism during the 1950s are well revealed in Sloan Wilson's novel The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1955). Another kind of social problem was explored in Evan Hunter's 1954 novel The Blackboard Jungle, based in part on Hunter's own experiences as a teacher for a brief time in a New York City vocational high school. The pupils in the novel are an undisciplined and insensitive bunch waiting only to be free of school. Both novels were made into interesting movies. The Blackboard Jungle (1955) starred Glenn Ford and Sidney Poitier and captured well the elements of frustration and alienation that characterized the school population. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), which was directed by Nunnally Johnson, featured a fine performance by Gregory Peck.

By the late 1950s, the nation's awareness of its race problem was unavoidable. In 1958 Stanley Kramer made The Defiant Ones, starring Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier as white and African-American members of a prison chain gang who, having escaped together, learn that despite their mutual animosity, they can grow to trust each other.

Hollywood's view of the younger generation was very preoccupied with alienation. Much like the pupils in The Blackboard Jungle, the bikers in The Wild One (1953) seethe with hostility. They terrorize a small town and commit mayhem. When motorcycle-gang leader Marlon Brando is asked what he is rebelling against, he answers, "What've ya got?" In Rebel Without a Cause (1955), director Nicholas Ray tells the story of a group of troubled adolescents who get little support from their families. They have only one another, and their lives are touched by tragedy. In 1973 director George Lucas made American Graffiti. The great divide of the 1960s separates this movie from those mentioned earlier. Starring Richard Dreyfuss and Ron Howard, it tells the story of one night in 1962, a year perhaps at the very end of the 1950s. There is a dance at the high school, kids congregating at Mel's Drive-In, kids cruising the streets of a small town in California, kids fearful of the future or looking forward to it. One of their central concerns is their cars, and there is a drag race reminiscent of the horrifying race in Rebel Without a Cause. But in Graffiti anguish has been replaced by sentimentality.

In nonfiction materials a useful political summary is available on videotape from Coronet/MTI: Eisenhower: Years of Caution (twenty-four minutes). PBS Video offers an impressive account of the career of Eisenhower (150 minutes), part of the American Experience series. The documentary shows Ike as both a military and a political leader and emphasizes his public persona rather than the shrewdness and ambition that lay beneath the surface. PBS also provides a one-hour examination of a moment of embarrassment and distress in Spy in the Sky, which is an account of the U-2 incident. The PBS television series Eyes on the Prize has deservedly won high praise for its superb treatment of the civil-rights struggle. Part 1, Awakenings (1954-1956) (sixty minutes), tells the story of Emmet Till, Rosa Parks, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Part 2, Fighting Back (1957-1962) (sixty minutes), tells the story of Brown v. Board of Education, Little Rock, and James Meredith. The PBS series A Walk Through the Twentieth Century with Bill Moyers offers The Second American Revolution, Part II, a sixty-minute videotape that traces the civil-rights struggle between 1896 and 1954.

Also from PBS Video and part of the American Experience series, Simple Justice (two hours) tells the story of the efforts of the NAACP to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson. Well acted and dramatic, this account uses recreations of courtroom scenes as well as newsreel footage and still shots to achieve its effects. The story covers the years from 1930 to the Brown decision. A more straightforward documentary account is also available in The Road to Brown (sixty minutes). See the Educational Film & Video Locator.

An interesting picture collection can be seen in Elizabeth Martinez, editor, Five Hundred Years of Chicano History in Pictures (revised edition; 1991).
Document Set 279-1

Changing Times: Origins of The Modern Civil-Rights Movement, 1954-1956

1. The Supreme Court Reverses the "Separate but Equal" Doctrine, 1954
2. A Southern Defense of Segregated Education, 1956
3. President Eisenhower Enforces the Brown Decision in Little Rock, 1957
4. Martin Luther King, Jr., Remembers the Montgomery Boycott, 1955-1956
5. Jo Ann Robinson Recalls the Background of Direct Action in Montgomery, 1955-1956Chapter 279 places emphasis on the Warren court and the rise of a determined civil-rights movement in the 1950s, which students may perceive as a development out of step with the conservative direction of American politics in the Eisenhower Era. Instructors might stimulate student interest with a lecture delineating the reasons for the emergence of the drive for racial justice at this moment. The documents in this chapter are arranged to facilitate discussion of the dynamics of social change in the mid-1950s through examination of the two major civil-rights crises of the period.A focus on Little Rock and Montgomery will enable instructors to explore the interaction between governmental activism and pressures from below as stimuli to social progress. One approach to discussion would be a student debate on the necessary preconditions for significant social change. A lively topic with modern students is the problem of government's proper role in American social and personal life, an issue that might be addressed through historical inquiry into the relative importance of the federal government in the success of the civil-rights movement.Equally provocative is the subject of moral commitment in what was an age of abundance and affluence. As they analyze King's personal memoir in light of the rich text coverage of the same events, students might assess the faith that he placed in human generosity and white Christian conscience. Aware of the long-term outcome for King and the movement, students today can debate the validity of King's assumptions about love, nonviolence, and social progress; instructors might guide this discussion toward an evaluation of King's realism in view of the stubborn problems that he attacked, including an analysis of his successes and failures as a civil-rights advocate.A related topic involves King's function as a moderate within the civil-rights movement. Students might probe his account of Montgomery to gain better understanding of his role in conflict resolution. Moreover, they could speculate on the role that King played as emissary to a troubled white community. This inquiry might focus on the reasons for his appeal beyond the African-American community and perhaps lead toward an appreciation of King as a moral leader.It is fortunate that the film record of the civil-rights struggle is extensive, because Martin Luther King, Jr., is best understood if students have an opportunity to experience his rhetorical skills and power as a communicator. Several excellent film documentaries are available (see "Audiovisual Resources"), but none is more compelling than the brilliant Eyes on the Prize Series. The series itself is likely to promote discussion of the events portrayed, but its greatest value may lie in awakening modern students to the moral consciousness of another, very different generation. This chapter not only underlines the significance of Montgomery and Little Rock as the beginning of modern social consciousness but also stands as a reminder of an unfinished task.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 2279-1


Numan V. Bartley. The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South During the 1950's (1969).

Taylor Branch. Parting the Waters: American in the King Years, 1954-1963 (1988).

Robert F. Burk. The Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights (1984).

David Garrow. Bearing the Cross (1986).

Elizabeth Huckaby. Crisis at Central High, Little Rock, 1957-1958 (1980).

Richard Kluger. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality (1975).

David Lewis. King: A Critical Biography (1970).

Stephen Oates. Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1982).

Harvard Sitkoff. The Struggle for Black Equality, 1954-1980 (1981).

Mark Tushnet. Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1936-1961 (1994).

Robert Weisbrot. Freedom Bound: A History of America's Civil Rights Movement (1990).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 279-1


Awakenings (1954-1956), Eyes on the Prize Series, No. 1 (videotape--58 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

Eisenhower. From The American Experience Series (videotape--150 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

Fighting Back (1957-1962), Eyes on the Prize Series, No. 2 (videotape--58 min.). PBS Video.

The Road to Brown (videotape--47 min.). Resolution Inc./California Newsreel, 149 Ninth Street, Suite 420, San Francisco, Calif. 94103.

Rosa Parks: The Path to Freedom (videotape--20 min.). Filmmakers Library, 124 E. 20th Street, New York, N.Y. 10016.

The Second American Revolution, Part 2, A Walk Through the Twentieth Century with Bill Moyers Series (videotape--55 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

Simple Justice. From The American Experience Series (videotape--134 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.
Document Set 279-2

Eisenhower, Dulles, and Hemispheric Security: Intervention in Guatemala

1. 1. Ambassador Richard C. Patterson Devises the "Duck Test," 1949
2. 2. Eisenhower's Recollection of American Intervention in Guatemala, 1954
3. 3. John Foster Dulles Reports on Guatemala, 1954
4. 4. An American Scholar Explains the Overthrow of the Arbenz Regime, 1954One of the most significant policy lines of the Eisenhower administration was the increased employment of covert action as a counterrevolutionary approach to instability and Soviet influence in the Third World. By focusing on the Eisenhower-Dulles intervention in Guatemala, this chapter enables students to analyze the personal and public assumptions on which the administration's anticommunist foreign policy was based. Moreover, it gives students an opportunity to evaluate the motives behind American actions in the Western Hemisphere, a problem with immense implications for the future.As students analyze the Dulles-Eisenhower record in Guatemala, they will be able to explore the use and abuse of history. Students might be asked to compare Philip B. Taylor's view of the background for intervention with the administration interpretation of its historical antecedents. An effort to uncover the facts and reconstruct an accurate account of the chain of events that produced the crisis will engage students in the historian's process by encouraging them to "do their own history."As they reconstruct the past, students should also begin to understand the potential for the misuse of history to foster the achievement of personal or national goals. In order to sharpen this insight, instructors might ask students to explore Taylor's, Dulles's and Eisenhower's backgrounds and objectives. By so doing, students may be altered to the interplay between the witnesses' ideological, professional, or personal agendas and the resultant interpretation of history.Another excellent stimulus to debate would be the topic of democracy and revolution in the context of the American political tradition. Instructors might ask students to define democracy and relate it to the political process that resulted in the establishment of the Arbenz regime. This discussion would also allow students to analyze the Dulles references to the aspirations and best interests of the Guatemalan people, with emphasis on his own ideological preconceptions, as revealed in the text. Moreover, students could be asked to compare the Third World revolution of rising expectations with the American Revolutionary heritage.Finally, given the Reagan administration's obsession with the problems in Central America, these documents might be used to link the assumptions of the 1950s with the realities of the 1980s and 1990s. Instructors could encourage students to relate the outcome in Guatemala to the Reagan administration's later support of the Nicaraguan Contras. Discussion might focus on the extent to which American policy assumptions and objectives changed over time.In view of today's Eisenhower revisionism, the Guatemalan incident raises an important issue. The basic objective could be to reconcile the intervention with Eisenhower's current high standing among scholars.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 279-2


Steven A. Ambrose. Eisenhower (2 vols., 1983-1984).

H. W. Brands. The Specter of Neutralism: The United States and the Emergence of the Third World, 1947-1960 (1989).

Blanche Wiesen Cook. The Declassified Eisenhower (1981).

Louis Gerson. John Foster Dulles (1968).

Townsend Hoopes. The Devil and John Foster Dulles (1973).

Richard H. Immerman. The CIA in Guatemala (1982).

Walter LaFeber. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (rev. ed., 1993).

Frederick W. Marks. Power and Peace (1993).

Stephen G. Rabe. Eisenhower and Latin America (1988).

Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer. Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (1982).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 279-2


Dwight D. Eisenhower: The Presidential Years (film, videotape--19 min.). Aims Media, Inc., 626 Justin Avenue, Glendale, Calif. 91201.

Eisenhower. From The American Experience Series (videotape--150 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

Eisenhower and the Cold War (film, videotape--17 min.). Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation, 425 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 60611.

Intervention (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.