1. BABY BOOM Teens and Rock Well Defined Gender Roles TV 1950'S CULTURE
Society of the 1950s
BABY BOOM
Teens and Rock
Well Defined
Gender Roles TV
1950'S CULTURE
SUBURBS
CONFORMITY
Automobile
Cold War
Paranoia
Consumerism

2. 1957  1 baby born every 7 seconds
Baby Boom
It seems to me that every other young housewife I see is pregnant British visitor to America, 1958
1957  1 baby born every 7 seconds

3. $7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.
Suburban Living
Levittown: “The American Dream”
1949  William Levitt produced houses per week.
$7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.

4. Suburban Living: The New “American Dream”
1 story high
12’x19’ living room
2 bedrooms
tiled bathroom
garage
small backyard
front lawn

6. SHIFTS IN POPULATION DISTRIBUTION, 1940-1970
Suburban Living
SHIFTS IN POPULATION DISTRIBUTION,
Central Cities % % % %
Rural Areas/ % % % %
Small Towns
Suburbs % % % %

7. Well-Defined Gender Roles
The ideal modern woman married, cooked and cared for her family, and kept herself busy by joining the local PTA and leading a troop of Campfire Girls. She entertained guests in her family’s suburban house and worked out on the trampoline to keep her size 12 figure Life magazine, 1956
The ideal 1950s man was the provider, protector, and the boss of the house Life magazine, 1955

9. Television Truth, Justice, and the American way!
1946  ,000 TV sets in the U. S.
1950  50,000,000 TV sets in the U. S.
TV caused U.S. to become a more homogeneous, conformist nation.
Mass Audience  TV celebrated traditional American values.
Truth, Justice, and the American way!

10. Television – The Western
Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier
Sheriff Matt Dillon, Gunsmoke
The Lone Ranger (and his faithful sidekick, Tonto): Who is that masked man??

11. Television - Family Shows
Glossy view of mostly middle-class suburban life.
I Love Lucy

12. Suburban Living: The Typical TV Suburban Families
The Donna Reed Show
Leave It to Beaver
Father Knows Best
The Ozzie & Harriet Show

13. 1950’s TV & Popular Culture
Popular entertainment, like a TV situation comedy, reflects the social trends and values of the era when they were produced. What do these 1950’s “sit coms” tell us about social attitudes common in American culture during the 1950’s?

14. 1950  Introduction of the Diner’s Card
Consumerism
1950  Introduction of the Diner’s Card

15. Consumerism

16. The Culture of the Car Car registrations: 1945  25,000,000
1960  60,000,000
2-car families double from
1958 Pink Cadillac
1959 Chevy Corvette

17. Interstate Highway Act 1956
Largest public works project in American history!
41,000 miles of new highways built.
Cost $32 billion.

20. The Culture of the Car Drive-In Movies First McDonald’s (1955)
Howard Johnson’s

21. The Culture of the Car
The U. S. population was on the move in the 1950s.
New Engl. & Mid-West  South & SW (“Sunbelt” states)
1955  Disneyland opened in Southern California (40% of the guests came from outside California, most by car.)
Frontier Land
Main Street
Tomorrow Land

22. The “Beat” Generation
In the midst of the increasing affluence, social critics expressed a growing sense of unease with American culture in the 1950s.
Rejection of materialism
Rejection of conformity
Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), and Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature.
The Beat Generation was a group of American post-World War II writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired. Central elements of "Beat" culture included rejection of received standards, innovations in style, experimentation with drugs, alternative sexualities, an interest in Eastern religion, a rejection of materialism, and explicit portrayals of the human condition.[1]
Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959) and Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature.[2] Both Howl and Naked Lunch were the focus of obscenity trials that ultimately helped to liberalize publishing in the United States.[3][4] The members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists, who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity.
The original "Beat Generation" writers met in New York. Later, in the mid-1950s, the central figures (with the exception of Burroughs) ended up together in San Francisco where they met and became friends of figures associated with the San Francisco Renaissance.
In the 1960s, elements of the expanding Beat movement were incorporated into the hippie and larger counterculture movements.