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This general era I'm thinking of is from 1956-1963, the heyday and final years of the "Fifties" before the turbulence of the 1960's. My aunt often times tells me stories of draggin' main in my grandfather's '51 Chevy during this time.
For those who do remember, was it anything like what "American Grafitti" showed? What are your personal recollections of it?
I'm interested in this too, stories make out the 50s to be some sort of idyllic paradise. I say they were just better at covering up their problems without the mass media back then.
Last edited by Spudcommando; 05-21-2011 at 06:13 PM..
Note: The exodus from the cities and suburbanization of America began during this time period...the beginning of large scale urban woes. I guess it just did not become that apparent or widespread until the mid-1960s.
Note: The exodus from the cities and suburbanization of America began during this time period...the beginning of large scale urban woes. I guess it just did not become that apparent or widespread until the mid-1960s.
And the so called "Depression of 1958", the first postwar recession - quite mild compared to what we're going through now, but the beginning of the troubles of America's industrial heartland. The Great Lakes region was hit harder than anywhere else. (The term "depression" was used mainly because all adults at the time had lived through the 1930s Depression, and there had been nothing like it since before WW2.) While the country and the region recovered by the end of 1959, it was the first sign that something was wrong in the Midwest. And in retrospect it could be seen as not only marking the beginning of the decline of urban America in general, but particularly the beginning of the decline of cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, etc. Even if the effects weren't felt until later....
Economic troubles also had major political effects. 1958 was a great Democratic year, as a reaction against the Eisenhower administration - everywhere but New York, that is, where Nelson Rockefeller was elected governor (as the voters took out their economic frustrations on the Dem incumbent Harriman, and Rockefeller ran a very nonpartisan campaign that deliberately targeted Harriman, Tammany Hall, and Tammany's leader Carmine DeSapio, rather than targeting Democrats per se.) Dem majorities in Congress increased. The Dems swept the California state elections, which began the state's change from a red state (in today's terms - in the '50s a "red state" would have had a totally different meaning) to the reddish tinged purple state it would be for the next 30 years before becoming a blue state.
I was very young so I can't say if the "American Graffiti" portrayal of teen life in California was accurate. I will tell you what I do remember, where I lived and what it was like.
My parents bought their first house when I was two years old in 1959. It was a cedar and brick split level home - pretty much the prototypical home on the era. My parents were middle class but upwardly mobile. In our sub-division there were so many children. There was always someone to play with.
Everyone's dad went to work in the morning in a suit and tie with a little white handkerchief folded in the top left pocket. All of the dads seemed to come home from work at the same time - between 5 and 6. At this time of year, especially on weekends, the smell of barbecue filled the air and many people ate on their patios.
We watched TV at night - sitcoms like "Leave It to Beaver" "Dennis the Menace" and "Lassie." My parents watched "Twilight Zone" which is still a classic show of that era. It was on late and they thought it was too scary for me.
There was great music on the radio, Rock n Roll! My parents had a twist party once and I watched from the wrought Iron balcony on the second floor as all of these grown ups did this strange dance.
On Halloween the streets were filled with children. Kids as young as 4 or 5 would go trick or treating with older siblings or neighbors. Parents did not tag along. No one was afraid of their neighbors.
My mom had a metallic green 1959 Chevy Impala with flaring fins that looked like eyes to me. My dad drove a Corvair a sporty two door call that later in the decade would be recalled for safety reasons.Sometimes we went to drive in movies in our pajamas. That was lots of fun!
Hardly any people wore seat belts and many adults smoked.
At school from Kindergarten through first grade we had civil defense drills. This was to prepare us for nuclear attack by the Russians, who every one seemed to fear.
I think that the 50s actually ended around 1965. After the British Invasion, (the arrival of the Beatles and other English rock bands) and after the assassination of President Kennedy. Many Sociologists would agree with this.
My late 1950s early 60s were those of a white, middle class, Protestant on Long Island NY. All of the people I knew were white. ALL. Most were some form of Christian and some were Jewish. I did not know anyone who was Hispanic, Black, Asian, Muslim or East Indian. When I got to school there were a few black kids, but they were quiet and kept to themselves.
Things would have been quite different if I had been a black child living in the segregated south, with the Klan an ever present danger. My life was pretty segregated too. But I did not live in fear of my church being bombed on a Sunday morning.
I'm a tad younger than you, Sheena, but I remember much of the same. In good weather, everyone was outside all the time -- adults on their patios, with beer and martinis, and kids out in the streets or in the yards or playgrounds. There were very few organized activities for kids beyond scouts, Little League for boys, and the craft hour at the playgrounds. We didn't need them. There were kids everywhere in my working/middle-class suburban neighborhood, and if the neighbors didn't have children, they had grandchildren who'd join in when they visited. Kid-O-Rama!
My parents bought their first (and only) house in 1964; we'd lived in a series of apartments before that. It was a 3-bedroom ranch on a good-sized lot; my parents paid 16K for it, and as my dad told me when they paid off the mortgage (and their final monthly payments were less than my rent!): "We weren't sure we were going to be able to make the payments each month." So even then people had a tendency to overextend themselves ...
I was very young so I can't say if the "American Graffiti" portrayal of teen life in California was accurate. I will tell you what I do remember, where I lived and what it was like.
My parents bought their first house when I was two years old in 1959. It was a cedar and brick split level home - pretty much the prototypical home on the era. My parents were middle class but upwardly mobile. In our sub-division there were so many children. There was always someone to play with.
Everyone's dad went to work in the morning in a suit and tie with a little white handkerchief folded in the top left pocket. All of the dads seemed to come home from work at the same time - between 5 and 6. At this time of year, especially on weekends, the smell of barbecue filled the air and many people ate on their patios.
We watched TV at night - sitcoms like "Leave It to Beaver" "Dennis the Menace" and "Lassie." My parents watched "Twilight Zone" which is still a classic show of that era. It was on late and they thought it was too scary for me.
There was great music on the radio, Rock n Roll! My parents had a twist party once and I watched from the wrought Iron balcony on the second floor as all of these grown ups did this strange dance.
On Halloween the streets were filled with children. Kids as young as 4 or 5 would go trick or treating with older siblings or neighbors. Parents did not tag along. No one was afraid of their neighbors.
My mom had a metallic green 1959 Chevy Impala with flaring fins that looked like eyes to me. My dad drove a Corvair a sporty two door call that later in the decade would be recalled for safety reasons.Sometimes we went to drive in movies in our pajamas. That was lots of fun!
Hardly any people wore seat belts and many adults smoked.
At school from Kindergarten through first grade we had civil defense drills. This was to prepare us for nuclear attack by the Russians, who every one seemed to fear.
I think that the 50s actually ended around 1965. After the British Invasion, (the arrival of the Beatles and other English rock bands) and after the assassination of President Kennedy. Many Sociologists would agree with this.
My late 1950s early 60s were those of a white, middle class, Protestant on Long Island NY. All of the people I knew were white. ALL. Most were some form of Christian and some were Jewish. I did not know anyone who was Hispanic, Black, Asian, Muslim or East Indian. When I got to school there were a few black kids, but they were quiet and kept to themselves.
Things would have been quite different if I had been a black child living in the segregated south, with the Klan an ever present danger. My life was pretty segregated too. But I did not live in fear of my church being bombed on a Sunday morning.
Hope that this helps! - Sheena
I lived in socal up until a few years ago, and yet my memories are very similar. We had one car. My dad paid for it with savings. Men didn't work a lot of overtime and did consider it important to come home on time. Both my parents chain smoked and both died from it, my mom at 62. But I remember that early suburban culture well with a nice mushy feel. Yes, I was just a kid but I felt secure and that I was safe in my world. Even later in the 60's, I walked to my friends house a few blocks away without my mom going into worry mode, and my mom actually knew all the parents of my friends. It wasn't the paranoid culture we have now, especially in regards to children.
The difference with suburbs then and now is that so many were brand new. Everyone moved in at the same time. They were used to knowing the neighbors. They did watch out for the neighbors kids. I find the atmosphere where I live now, with 9k population and open land around the town, so much more like that of what I remember growing up in in Los Angeles than it is now. Suburbs have become the place you go in your door and see nobody, but they used to be far more social.
I loved all those shows. Didn't everyone want to have Beaver's mom as their own? Thing is, it was also a time when parents who had lived through a major depression and a horrible war and wanted their kids to have a chance to grow up peacefully without suffering. I loved my parents but I think they would have helped with more exposure to the real world for me, like when my dad lost his job. My life never really changed. Today there is perhaps too much "reality" in kids lives. Back then I think that maybe there wasn't enough.
You think terrorists are scary? My parents were afraid I would get Polio, and the constant dread of that was palpable. Every summer, the police would nail polio quarantine signs up on the front doors of several kids I went to school with.
In those days, people knew how to live with fear, without getting all squirrelly and going into hysterics, and blindly lashing out at imaginary bogeymen, although with McCarthy, the 21st century was just rearing its ugly head.
You think terrorists are scary? My parents were afraid I would get Polio, and the constant dread of that was palpable. Every summer, the police would nail polio quarantine signs up on the front doors of several kids I went to school with.
In those days, people knew how to live with fear, without getting all squirrelly and going into hysterics, and blindly lashing out at imaginary bogeymen, although with McCarthy, the 21st century was just rearing its ugly head.
The year I was born, 1952, the largest number of polio cases were reported of any year before or since. I remember the lines when we got the first vaccine, standing in line for a shot at a park in Reseda. And the first oral vaccine. And I'm fascinated by the whole boogyman of McCarthy and how words and insinuations can spread terror.
But the thing was, my parents wrapped me in cotton batting to keep me safe since neither had grown up that way. I read about both as a teen. My best friend in Jr. High had had polio and I guess it never connected until that time.
But I also remember the Missle crisis, dad and I staying home that day, just incase. I was old enough to understand *why*. After that there was a palatable fear that the bomb could drop one day and all of my world would be over.
I think what has come of this for me is an appreciation of the way life goes, especially after a personal life crash or two, for we only imagine that things will go on as they are and we'll have what we have forever. It can drop down the chute tomorrow, or in a minute. I've learned to appreciate and remember and treasure those times which I'd like to have again but might now. And to see the little pleasures even if around then its not.
I tried to raise my son with an appreciation of the good things but without the blinders of the cotton wool since it was not a kindness. I think it was far more than me that had that kind of upbringing.
Well, it did seemed to be a "safer" time for children. Parents let their kids roam about more freely then than they dare to today--at least in the larger cities. I was a "child of the 50's" and started my own family in the early 1960's. I had boys and I actually didn't worry about them too much, the way parents did for their girls. Nowadays, boys are in equally as much danger from sexual predators as are girls. I live in a tiny, rural town today and my DIL keeps pretty close watch on her children because we have known pedophiles in this area.
In the 1950's America was still riding the high of the WWII win and we were well respected around the world. All that began to fade in the late 1960's and it's been downhill ever since.
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