Post War AMERICA

 Dad is the bread winner  Mom is the happy homemaker

 In the 50’s, it was said that women went to college for a “Mrs.” degree, not a B.A. › Women were not thought of as ambitious and weren’t encouraged to be  Women became dissatisfied with cleaning and baking  Betty Friedan – The Feminine Mystique › Women who want a career are ambitious and motivated - they are not flawed or unfeminine

Birth of television Shows like I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners were the most popular TV shows of the ’50s By 1957, there were about 40 million television sets in use and TV became an important source of information

Pop Culture of the 1950s Father Knows Best The Ozzie and Harriet Show Leave it to Beaver

Hollywood: apex of the biblical epics. It’s un-American to be un-religious! -- The Christian Century, 1954 The Robe The Ten Commandments Ben Hur The Robe The Ten Commandments Ben Hur Pop Culture of the 1950s

First McDonald’s (1955) America became a more homogeneous nation because of the automobile. Drive-In Movies Holiday Inn The Automobile Culture

Birth of Rock ’n Roll In the 1950s, many teenagers rebelled against the middle-class suburban values, particularly conformity and wanted to be unique.  It was during this period that many youths turned to new and unconventional styles of music  Soon white artists began making music that was based on African American rhythm and blues  This form of music became known as rock ‘n’ roll and it became wildly popular with the nation’s teenagers

Elvis Presley The King of Rock ’n Roll Presley’s extraordinary popularity established rock ’n’ roll as an unprecedented mass-market phenomenon His reputation as a performer endured up to his death in 1977 at the age of 42. Graceland, his home in Memphis, is now a public museum visited by upwards of 600,000 people annually.

The Generation Gap  Many parents viewed rock ’n’ roll as loud and dangerous.  The music was banned in some communities.  The music united teens in their own world and helped to create what became known as the generation gap.  The generation gap was the cultural separation between children and their parents.

The Beat Generation The major works of Beat writing are Allen Ginsberg's Howl, William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch and Jack Kerouac's On the Road Members of the Beat Generation were referred to as “beatniks” and set the stage for the rise of the counter- culture and hippies during the 1960s The Beat Generation was the cultural movement of the 1950s when young people – often writers – ditched society’s normal standards for new ways of thinking

Juvenile Delinquency Another problem facing the nation was juvenile delinquency, which was antisocial or criminal behavior by teenagers Juvenile crime rose 45% between 1948 and Car thefts by juveniles increased and more teenagers joined street gangs Many attributed this rise in teenage rebellion to movies such as “Rebel Without a Cause” and books like J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye”

Pop Culture of the 50s The Lone Ranger TopTVShows The Honeymooners Father Knows Best

Pop Culture of the 50s Top in Movies