American+Pathways

1. How did the Erie Canal ancourage the growth of agriculture in the West?
 * American Pathways**
 * Science & Technology**
 * Continuity and Change**
 * The Canal made transpotation, travel, and trade much easier, much quicker, and much more efficient. (added by **Courtright**)

It made it easier because the transportation was easier, faster and cheaper. It was the first transportation system between the East, New York and the West, the Great Lakes in the United States.The Erie canal fostered a population surge in the West of New York and opened regions farther the West to settlement, it also helped New York City become " the chief " of the U.S. port.

2. How did the assembly line improve productivity in the automobile industry?

The assembly line improved the productivity in the automible industry by having assembly lines that would go in order of making the automobile's. Also workers, machines, and equipment in which the product being assembled passes from operation to operation until completed.
 * In addition, the assembly line was an efficient method of getting a job well-done! This is because everyone had a specific job; the "parts" to get to the final outcome were alligned in an order, which allowed a job to be finished more efficiently, allowed people to recognize a problem once they appear, and used less time. (added by **Courtright**)

3.Why would more people have acquired TV sets in the 1950s t5han in any other decades shown in the book?

It's becaus that's the time the TV came out, so it was something special and new for everybody, it actually already came out in the late 1920s but because of the war the Tv stalled

. It also was the tim after war, where a lot of people just wanted to relax at home and enjoy their time with their families, and how could that be better than sitting together on the couch and watch TV?!
 * Also, the 1950's (especially to the youthful) was a decade of letting loose of problems, enjoying themselves by having the best time that they could, and just living life for the moment; the TV did just that! It also allowed new trends to accumulate, introduced advertisement, and new family-time choices (such as family movies). (added by **Courtright**)

1. What is per capita icome? Per capita icome is the avergae annual income per person.
 * Section 1 Assessment**
 * The numerical quotient of national production by population, in monentary terms. (added by **Courtright**)
 * Measure of the monentized production per personan economic aggregate such as a country, not of the actual distribution of income or current net wealth in that aggregate. (added by **Courtright**)
 * What each individual //would// receive if the periodic income were divided equally among everyone. (added by **Courtright**)

2. How did conglomerates and franchise evolve in the postwar economy?
 * Conglomerates defended against economic failure relying on savings. Franchises expanded, bringing services to parts of the country. (added by **Courtright**)

3. What is the purpose of a transistor and how did it contribute to other developments?
 * The transistor is an influential invention that changed the course of history for computers. The first generation of computers used [|vacuum tubes]; the second generation of computers used transistors; the third generation of computers used [|integrated circuits]; and the fourth generation of computers used [|microprocessors]. (added by **Courtright**)

4. How did the baby boom and the GI Bill of Rights affect suburban growth?

Baby Boom.
The 1950s was a decade of unprecedented economic and population growth for the United States, The baby boom that had begun in the years immediately following World War II continued well into the decade. From 1948 to 1953 more children were born than in the previous thirty years, and in 1954 the country experienced the largest one-year population gain in history. Some experts worried about society's ability to handle the added burden of so many new Americans. But each new American was also a new consumer, and most people thought optimistically that the high birthrate would help to support the expanding economy. (added by **Courtright**) > It was common that the young wives of virtually entire suburban neighborhoods were pregnant at the same time. In short order, new schools had to be built. Farm and ranch land became seas of similar-looking homes without town centers, jobs, or city amenities. Eventually, many isolated suburban tracts, numbering in thousands of homes, did become legal communities, albeit on a different model from traditional communities with a core downtown business center. Interspersed throughout those new communities were "strip malls," businesses lined up in a row along roadsides, usually in common and architecturally uninspired buildings fronted by a large parking lot with little or no greenery. > Malls began to offer basic commodities, then became prime community meeting places, especially for the younger crowd. The famous quote, "There's no there there," uttered by Gertrude Stein about her birthplace, [|Oakland, California] (a suburb of San Francisco), applies to most of America's suburbs — seemingly isolated, cultureless, boring tracts of sameness. Suburbs were relatively safe, and suitable for children, perhaps, but a breeding ground for discontentment and mischief among teenagers. (added by **Courtright**)
 * With growing incomes and families,many Americans left the cities for the suburbs,buying homes and depending on cars to carry more. (added by **Courtright**)
 * **The move to the suburbs.** With veterans benefits, including VA loans, the 20-somethings found suitable housing in the new tracts sprawling on the outskirts of America's cities. Documentaries on the topic indicate that the postwar suburban housing boom began in a suburban "planned community" called “Levittown,”* in New York and Pennsylvania. In fact, large-scale, planned communities and housing tracts were being built on the outskirts of all major American cities, especially in California.