Project 2 - Macro View

Doing some research, I have found that Colonel Robert R. McCormick (mentioned on page 14) died April 1, 1955. This leads me to believe that the play itself cannot take place anytime after that. However, the explicit line says, “Say Colonel McCormick is sick.” I have found that Robert McCormick had a fight with pneumonia the last three years of his life (contracted sometime in 1953). For the purpose of this research, I will look up information more so for the year 1954; particularly around September, or early winter, because there are lines referencing that it’s getting cold outside, et cetera.

General Facts
The population, as taken by the 1950 census, concluded that there are 150,697,361 resident people living in the continental US. In a land area (sq. mi.) of 2,974,726, which makes a population per square mile of 50.7. Census.

Average Cost of a New House: $10,250 ($82,176.95* today)

Average Monthly Rent: $85 ($681.47* today)

Yearly Inflation Rate: .32%

Average Cost of New Car: $1,700 ($13,629.35* today)

Cost of a Gallon of Gas: 22 cents (which equals $1.76* today)
The People History. * calculations provided by Inflation Calculator.

Brown v. Board of Education
On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education repealed the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 'separate but equal.' They declared that it was unconstitutional for children to be denied access to school based on the sole discrimination of race. The entire decision and aspects of this case can be found at National Center.

Jim Crow Laws
Statutes enacted by Southern states and municipalities, beginning in the 1880s, that legalized segregation between blacks and whites. The name is believed to be derived from a character in a popular minstrel song. The Supreme Court ruling in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate facilities for whites and blacks were constitutional encouraged the passage of discriminatory laws that wiped out the gains made by blacks during Reconstruction. Railways and streetcars, public waiting rooms, restaurants, boardinghouses, theaters, and public parks were segregated; separate schools, hospitals, and other public institutions, generally of inferior quality, were designated for blacks. By World War I, even places of employment were segregated, and it was not until after World War II that an assault on Jim Crow in the South began to make headway. In 1950 the Supreme Court ruled that the Univ. of Texas must admit a black, Herman Sweatt, to the law school, on the grounds that the state did not provide equal education for him. This was followed (1954) by the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans., declaring separate facilities by race to be unconstitutional. Blacks in the South used legal suits, mass sit-ins, and boycotts to hasten desegregation. A march on Washington by over 200,000 in 1963 dramatized the movement to end Jim Crow. Southern whites often responded with violence, and federal troops were needed to preserve order and protect blacks, notably at Little Rock, Ark. (1957), Oxford, Miss. (1962), and Selma, Ala. (1965). The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 finally ended the legal sanctions to Jim Crow. InfoPlease.