American Decades Primary Sources: 1950-1959

The Red Scare, the Rosenbergs, and Rosa Parks all made their mark on the United States of the 1950s. Senator Joseph McCarthy waged a domestic war against communists with his hearings and had everyone looking suspiciously for communists in their communities. At the same time, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were tried and convicted of espionage, under evidence that they had passed secrets from the U.S. nuclear facility in Los Alamos to the Soviet Union; they were subsequently executed. Segregation was ruled by the Supreme Court to be illegal, and while African American children began integrating schools, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. The civil rights movement had begun. Culturally, color television was introduced, Disneyland opened, and hula hoops hit it big.

The following documents are just a sampling of the offerings available in this volume:

Brown v. Board of Education landmark Supreme Court Decision
Situations Wanted employment classifieds from The New York Times
Overtime at the Stadium, Arthur Daleys column covering December 12, 1958, game between the Baltimore Colts and the New York Giants Loving Your Enemies, sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Isamu Noguchi and his Akari light sculptures Why the Edsel Laid an Egg, journal article discussing Fords flop She Walked Alone, memoir of the experience of one of the Little Rock Nine Sti