Migration and Settlement : 1946 - 2016

Essential Question : How does this era of migration help further define and expand on the idea of the American Dream than in large migratory movements in the past?

Enduring Understandings

• Postwar economic and demographic changes had far-reaching consequences for American society, politics, and culture.
• Moving into the 21st century, the nation experienced significant technological, economic, and demographic changes.

Key Concepts

• Rapid economic and social changes in American society fostered a sense of optimism in the postwar years.
• The U.S. population continued to undergo demographic shifts that had significant cultural and political consequences.

Suburban Growth

• 1950 - suburban population grows by 47%, twice more quick than the rest of the population
• privately own cars - doubled in a decade
• roads & highways
• economy grew 10 times faster than it did in 30 years after the war

Modern West Rising

• 1960 - development of the most important industrial and cultural centers of the nation
• result of gov't spending - dams, power stations, highways, etc
• growth of automobile usage that pushed forward petroleum / oil business
• education centers leads the largest research/education facilities in US

Climate

• The weather contrasted heavily from that of the east - warm and dry.

Levitowns

• By 1960 - 1/3 of population are in suburbs, thanks to levitowns
• thousands of identical homes, mass produced to be cheap and affordable
• post-war Americans placed enormous focus on the importance of family - and therefore home-owning

Racism in Migration

• few African Americans in suburbs for multiple reasons
• economic and social reasons
• After so many whites left, what was left in the cities were ghettos
• ~3 million black people left southern America to live in northern cities

Urban Renewal

• plan to tear down 400,000 buildings in the oldest and poorest parts of cities, home to about 1.5 milllion people
• some were for the better - many for the worse

The Immigration Act

• Lyndon B. Johnson passed the immigration act in 1965. It kept the past system of limiting the amount of immigrant that would enter the every year to about 170,000 people
• what made the legislation so important to changing the future was that it got rid of the "national origins" so there was no more preference for immigrants from Northern Europe.

Latino Immigration

• The Latino community - fastest growing minority group. A very diverse group, similar to Natives
• Puerto Ricans - eastern U.S.
• Florida -Cuban immigrants.
• South/Southwest - Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Peru
• During WW2 - many Mexican people came over for work

So... Who started the fire?

This period of massive growth can be tied back to FDR and new deal plans, which influenced heavily how the government affected people's lives, and increased the standard of living enormously.

Work Cited

• Brinkley, Alan. American History: Connecting with the past. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2012. Print.
• Gutierrez, David G. "An Historic Overview of Latino Immigration and the Demographic Transformation of the United States." National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior, n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2016.
• "Suburban Growth." Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2016.
• "The Growth of Suburbs - US History 1950s." The Growth of Suburbs - US History 1950s. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2016.
• "The Rise and Decline of the American Ghetto." The Rise and Decline of the American Ghetto. National Bureau of Economic Research, n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2016.