1. OR
Topic 15
THE 1950s:

2. 1950’s SOCIETY AND CULTURE

7. This Aint

8. :
The postwar era witnessed tremendous economic growth and rising social contentment and conformity. Yet in the midst of such increasing affluence and comfortable domesticity, social critics expressed a growing sense of unease with American culture in the 1950s.
Assess the validity of the above statement and explain how the decade of the 1950s laid the groundwork for the social and political turbulence of the 1960s.

9. ? 2
Not Pleasantville
Pleasantville

10. DUCK
AND
COVER

12. The Cold War
at Home
HUAC
J. McCarthy
Rosenbergs
Duck and cover
paranoia
psyche

13. TV & Movies Baby Boom The Economy Consumer Culture Migration
1950’s Society and Culture
Women
Music
Teen Cuture
TV & Movies
Family Life

14. WELCOME TO LEVITTOWN
                           

15. 1944
GI Bill of Rights

16. 1944
GI Bill of Rights
Perhaps the greatest area, in terms of the federal government's participation in education, was the GI Bill of Rights. The GI Bill, officially known as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was designed to provide greater opportunities to returning war veterans of World War II.

17. 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

18. 1957  1 baby born every 7 seconds
Baby Boom
1957  1 baby born every 7 seconds

19. During the baby boomer years, 1946-1964, 75
During the baby boomer years, , 75.8 million Americans were born. The biggest year of the boom was 1957, when 4.3 million boomers were born.

20. 1B. Baby Boom

21. $6,900
$100 down
LEVITTOWN

23. $7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.
Levittown, L. I.:
“The American Dream”
1949  William Levitt produced houses per week.
$7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.

24. Levittown, L. I.: “The American Dream” BABY Boom – 21 million babies
GI bill
36 houses a day built in Levitt developments
17,000 houses total
1955 ¾ of houses built in US were like Levit’s suburbs .

25. 1 story high 12’x19’ living room 2 bedrooms tiled bathroom garage
small backyard
front lawn
By 1960  1/3 of the U. S. population in the suburbs.

26. $7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.
Levittown, L. I.: “The American Dream”
$7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.

32. TV & Movies Baby Boom The Economy Consumer Culture Migration
1950’s Society and Culture
Women
Music
Teen Cuture
TV & Movies
Family Life

33. Consumerism

34. . Consumerism

35. TV & Movies Baby Boom The Economy Consumer Culture Migration
1950’s Society and Culture
Women
Music
Teen Cuture
TV & Movies
Family Life

36. The Typical TV Suburban Families The Ozzie & Harriet Show 1952-1966
TV and Gender Roles
The Typical TV Suburban Families
The Donna Reed Show
Leave It to Beaver
Father Knows Best
The Ozzie & Harriet Show

37. BABY BOOM
MUSIC
paranoia
WOMEN
Duck and cover
1950'S CULTURE
LITERATURE
CONFORMITY TV
SUBURBS

38. Television
,000 TV sets in the U. S ,000,000 TV sets in the U. S.
Mass Audience  TV celebrated traditional American values.
Truth, Justice, and the American way!

39. :By year's end, the number of TV households grows to 20 million, up 33% from previous year. U.S. advertisers spend a record $288 million on TV time, an increase of 38.8% from 1951

40. 1950: 9% of American households own television sets
1959: 88%
5 million TV’s purchased/year

44.                     
"I Love Lucy," a half-hour filmed TV sitcom, is born. The show, unlike the live TV productions typical of the time, ranks No. 1 in the nation for four of its first six full seasons.

45. Television – The Western
Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier
Sheriff Matt Dillon, Gunsmoke
The Lone Ranger (and his faithful sidekick, Tonto):

46. Television - Family Shows
Glossy view of mostly middle-class suburban life.
But...
I Love Lucy
The Honeymooners
Social Winners?... AND… Losers?

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

48. 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
Marilyn Monroe
The ideal 1950s man was the provider, protector, and the boss of the house Life magazine, 1955

49. Home Economics High School Text Book, 1954
HOW TO BE A GOOD WIFE
Home Economics High School Text Book, 1954
Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal, on time. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal are part of the warm welcome needed.
Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so that you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your makeup, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people. Be a little gay and a little more interesting. His boring day may need a lift.
Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the home just before your husband arrives, gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper, etc. Then run a dust cloth over the tables. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift, too.
Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children's hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair, and if necessary change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part.
Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer, dishwasher, or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet. Be happy to see him. Greet him with a warm smile and be glad he is home.

50. Home Economics High School Text Book, 1954
HOW TO BE A GOOD WIFE
Home Economics High School Text Book, 1954 .
Some don'ts: Don't greet him with problems or complaints. Don't complain if he is late for dinner. Count this as minor compared with what he might have gone through that day. Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or suggest he lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him. Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soft, soothing and pleasant voice. Allow him to relax and unwind.
Listen to him. You may have a dozen things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first.
Make the evening his. Never complain if he does not take you out to dinner or to other places of entertainment. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure, his need to be home and relax.
The Goal: Try to make your home a place of peace and order where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.

53. Let’s not play house

54. Let’s not play house
BETTY FRIEDAN:
The Feminine Mystique
Women could not find fulfillment as housewives and mothers

55. The Feminine Mystique
Initiated a fundamental re-thinking of how women defined themselves, their responsibilities and their choices in the post-war world.

56. Credited with starting the modern women's movement

57. “The new mystique makes the house-wife-mothers, who never had a chance to be anything else, the model for all women .”
“…Fulfillment as a women had only one definition for American women after 1949 – the house-wife mother.”

58. BABY BOOM
MUSIC
paranoia
WOMEN
Duck and cover
1950'S CULTURE
CONFORMITY
LITERATURE
SUBURBS TV

59. BABY BOOM
MUSIC
WOMEN TV
1950'S CULTURE
SUBURBS
CONFORMITY
LITERATURE
paranoia
Duck and cover

60. TV & Movies Baby Boom The Economy Consumer Culture Migration
1950’s Society and Culture
Women
Music
Teen Cuture
TV & Movies
Family Life

62. 1956  Interstate Highway Act  largest public works project in American history!
Cost $32 billion.
41,000 miles of new highways built.

65. The Culture of the Car 1959 Chevy Corvette
Car registrations:  25,000,  60,000,000
2-family cars doubles from
1959 Chevy Corvette
1958 Pink Cadillac

66. . The Culture of the Car Drive-In Movies
America became a more homogeneous nation because of the automobile.
Drive-In Movies
Howard Johnson’s
First McDonald’s (1955)

68. Ray Kroc, at 52 years old, invested his entire life savings to become the exclusive distributor of a milk shake maker called the Multimixer. Hearing about the McDonald's hamburger stand in California owned by Dick & Mac McDonald running eight Multimixers at a time, he packed up his car and headed West. It was Ray Kroc had never seen so many people served so quickly. He pitched the idea of opening up several restaurants to the McDonald brothers, convinced that he could sell eight of his Multimixers to each and every one. "Who could we get to open them for us?" Dick McDonald said. Well," Kroc answered, "what about me?"
                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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

71. BABY BOOM
MUSIC
WOMEN TV
1950'S CULTURE
SUBURBS
CONFORMITY
LITERATURE
paranoia
Duck and cover

76.                         
A History in Pictures
"I could tell something was happening in 1952." So writes Dick Clark in his introduction to LIFE's celebration of 50 years of rock 'n' roll. In 1952 Clark was a young deejay in Philadelphia, and what he sensed was happening, we now know, was that a new kind of music was casting an irresistible spell on America's young.

77. Behavioral Rules of the 1950s:
Teen Culture
Behavioral Rules of the 1950s:
Obey Authority.
Control Your Emotions.
Don’t Make Waves  Fit in with the Group.
Don’t Even Think About Sex!!!

78. Elvis Presley  “The King”
Teen Culture
In the 1950s  the word “teenager” entered the American language. By 1956  13 mil. teens with $7 bil. to spend a year.
Elvis Presley  “The King”

79. Teen Culture “Juvenile Delinquency” ???
1951  J. D. Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye
Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953)
James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

80. Teen Culture The “Beat” Generation: “Beatnik”
Jack Kerouac  On The Road
Allen Ginsberg  poem, “Howl”
Neal Cassady
William S. Burroughs
“Beatnik”

81. Jack
Kerouac

82. JD
Salinger

84. Let's Play House
Answer the questions below based on the video “The Fifties.”
Facts and figures:
Number of marriages in 1946?
How many babies were born between 1945 and 1950?
Average age for marriage?
Describe the expectations for women in the 1950’s.
How did educational films reinforce theses expectations?
What professions were open to women?
Why did many women drop out of college.
What indications were there that women were growing increasingly unhappy with their role as housewives?
Why were many women concerned about being successful in college.
Explain the significance of Betty Freidan’s book The Feminine Mystique

85. Week of 5/29 Tue 5/30 – Assign. #2 and web quest
Th 6/1 - #3 and Regents ques. for practice
Fri 6/2 - #4 (to be handed out on Wednesday). If you are absent get it on Thursday.

86. THE 1950s: OR “Conservatism, Complacency, and Contentment”
“Anxiety, Alienation, and
Social Unrest” ??
Ms. Susan M. Pojer Horace Greeley HS Chappaqua, NY

87. $7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.
2A. Suburban Living
Levittown, L. I.: “The American Dream”
1949  William Levitt produced houses per week.
$7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.

88. 2A. Suburban Living: The New “American Dream”
1 story high
12’x19’ living room
2 bedrooms
tiled bathroom
garage
small backyard
front lawn
By 1960  1/3 of the U. S. population in the suburbs.

89. SHIFTS IN POPULATION DISTRIBUTION, 1940-1970
2B. Suburban Living
SHIFTS IN POPULATION DISTRIBUTION,
Central Cities % % % %
Suburbs % % % %
Rural Areas/ % % % %
Small Towns
U. S. Bureau of the Census.

90. 4A. A Changing Workplace Corporate Consolidation: Automation:
 factory workers decreased by %, eliminating 1.5 million blue-collar jobs.
By 1956  more white-collar than blue-collar jobs in the U. S.
Computers  Mark I (1944). First IBM mainframe computer (1951).
Corporate Consolidation:
By 1960  600 corporations (1/2% of all U. S. companies) accounted for % of total corporate income.
WHY?? Cold War military buildup.

91. A Changing Workplace New Corporate Culture: “The Company Man”
1956  Sloan Wilson’s The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

92. Progress Through Science
First IBM Mainframe Computer
Hydrogen Bomb Test
DNA Structure Discovered
Salk Vaccine Tested for Polio
First Commercial U. S. Nuclear Power Plant
NASA Created
Press Conference of the First American Astronauts

93. Progress Through Science 1957  Russians launch SPUTNIK I
1958  National Defense Education Act

94. Progress Through Science
UFO Sightings skyrocketed in the 1950s.
War of the Worlds
Hollywood used aliens as a metaphor for whom ??

95. The postwar era witnessed tremendous economic growth and rising social contentment and conformity. Yet in the midst of such increasing affluence and comfortable domesticity, social critics expressed a growing sense of unease with American culture in the 1950s.
Assess the validity of the above statement and explain how the decade of the 1950s laid the groundwork for the social and political turbulence of the 1960s.