America & the ‘Great Society’ Flashcards
All 14 cards in this deck
What were President Kennedy's social policies (the 'New Frontier')?
Plans to tackle poverty and improve education and health care, including raising the minimum wage and aid to deprived areas — but Congress blocked much of it.
What was President Johnson's 'Great Society'?
His programme of social reform to end poverty and racial injustice, investing in education, housing and health care (Medicare for the over-65s and Medicaid for the poor).
What did the Equal Pay Act (1963) do?
It made it law that men and women must receive equal pay for doing the same job.
What was the National Organisation for Women (NOW)?
A group founded in 1966, led by Betty Friedan, which campaigned peacefully for sexual equality in US law by lobbying politicians and taking employers to court over unequal pay.
What did the Supreme Court rule in Roe v Wade (1973)?
That women had the right to a safe, legal abortion, despite opposition from some states.
What was the 'Stop ERA' campaign?
Phyllis Schlafly's campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment, arguing full equality would harm women by, for example, having them drafted into combat. It succeeded: not enough states ratified the ERA.
True or false? The feminist movements of the 1960s won laws that made women's average pay equal to men's.
False. New laws increased opportunities in education and reproductive rights, but in practice women's average pay remained lower than men's.
What was The Feminine Mystique (1963)?
Betty Friedan's best-selling book arguing that many middle-class housewives felt trapped and unfulfilled by lives limited to home and family; it helped launch the 1960s women's movement.
What was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)?
A proposed change to the Constitution, passed by Congress in 1972, saying that equal rights under the law could not be denied because of a person's sex.
What was the Women's Liberation Movement ('Women's Lib')?
Younger, more radical feminists who used direct action, such as the 1968 protest at the Miss America beauty contest, to draw attention to women's inequality.
What did the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) do?
Banned sex discrimination in any school or college receiving federal money, opening up courses and especially sport to girls and women.
What did the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965) do?
Johnson's law giving major federal funding to schools, aimed especially at those serving poor children.
What was Head Start?
A Great Society programme from 1965 giving pre-school education, meals and health checks to children from poor families.
Give one limitation of Johnson's Great Society.
The rising cost of the Vietnam War took money away from the programmes, so poverty was reduced but not ended.