Assignment:
American Society in the Cold War Era
Complete both parts of assignment.
Part A: American Culture and Society in the 50s
From the following two lists, choose five events from each column. Identify the basic facts, dates, and purpose of the event in two to three sentences in the Identify column. Include why the event is significant in the significance column, and add a reference for your material in the reference column.
Fabulous 50s Culture
The Hula Hoop
Disneyland
McDonalds
The Mickey Mouse Club
Interstate Highways
Dishwashers
Drive-in Theaters
Levittown
Leave it to Beaver
I Love Lucy
American Bandstand
Elvis Presley
Chuck Berry
James Dean
Beats
Reverand Billy Graham
Cold War Society
Red Scare
House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)
Ronald Reagan (President of the Screen Actors Guild, not as the future U.S. president)
Senator Joseph McCarthy
Fallout Shelter
Duck and Cover Drill
CIA
Sputnik
Cuba and Fidel Castro
Cold War Propaganda
Alger Hiss
The Korean War
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Event
Identify
Significance
Reference
Part B: Select and complete one of the following:
Option 1: Cold War Soviet Spy
Option 2: Red Scare and McCarthyism
Option 1: Cold War Soviet Spy
Imagine you are a Soviet (USSR) spy during the 1950s Cold War-era. You have been instructed to write an encrypted letter to your Soviet contact explaining the recent past and current U.S. Cold War policies, events, and practices. Once you have completed this letter, you will mail it to your contact in Paris, so he or she, in turn, will forward the message to a KGB agent in Moscow.
Resource: Historical and Scholarly Sources
Review the Historical and Scholarly documen
Complete a thorough investigation on actual Soviet Spies in the 1950s. You may use your textbook, primary and secondary sources, scholarly sources, and newspapers/magazines.
Create a letter of 750 words. You may use the letter template below.
Include at least five of the following events/policies:
NATO
The Marshall Plan
Warsaw Pact
The Truman Doctrine
National Security Council Document Number 68 (NSC-68)
Korean War
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Containment
Eisenhower Doctrine
Hungarian Revolution
American U-2 Spy plan (1960)
Include one source for this assignment.
Format the text of your letter consistent with appropriate course-level APA guidelines.
Option 2: Red Scare and McCarthyim
In this scenario, you are a set designer for a Hollywood movie production company in 1952. You decide to write a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times against Senator Joseph's McCarthy's anti-communist pursuit of the entertainment industry in Hollywood.
Review the required reading on the Red Scare and McCarthyism.
Write a 750 word letter to the editor.
Include many of the following terms in your essay:
Hollywood Blacklist
Ronald Reagan's HUAC testimony (1947)
House Un-American Activities Committee
Senator Joseph McCarthy
Richard Nixon
The Fifth Amendment
Screen Actors Guild
The Hollywood Ten
Screen Writers Guild
Include one source besides your textbook.
Format the text of your letter consistent with appropriate course-level APA guidelines.