The 1950s were a great decade..... (greatest, bomb, economic, slaves)
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As Granstander said, in all fairness we have to acknowledge the downsides as well, and although I am white, I would be amazed if any black people looked on the 1950's as any sort of utopia. So although some in that "brigade" may be intemperate as you suggest, their basic point is valid.
And I say that as someone who remembers the 1950's with affection and regret. (I was six years old in 1950). Our schools were not raging out of control, recreational drugs other than alcohol were almost unknown in most communities, we kids could play outdoors after dark in our neighborhoods without any fear, it was common for families to live within their means, the father could provide for his family without the wife needing to work, divorce was rather rare, we knew our neighbors, the Big Brother/nanny state was not nearly so far advanced, and so on.
One downside was the widespread use of tobacco - SO many people smoked. And certain useful practices had not yet been instituted - the provision of seat belts in cars for example.
I am 70 and overall I am not convinced we have made any progress in living better lives. Notice the "overall". I readily admit to the advantages of medical advances, for example. Dental implants are wonderful, except perhaps for the costs. Car tires last longer and go flat less. But our actual lives as human beings are more impoverished, it seems to me.
IIRC smoking increased during the 1950's as a direct result of WWII. Apparently the US military basically handed out cigarettes on the theory smoking clamed nerves, reduced hunger pangs, and so forth. No one thought about the addictive properties of tobacco it seems and or they didn't care. So when servicemen returned home many were "hooked"
Cannot remember how smoking took off for American women but again IIRC it was a product of WWII as well. Previously such behavior at least in public was limited to "fast" or "loose" women, but privately that sex has been smoking tobacco for ages. You did see lots of advertising starting in the 1940's showing women smoking as well it as in films and movies.
You can say one thing about the 1950's; the high rates of smoking and heavy consumption of meats, fats and other artery clogging foods had a direct relationship to the high rates of cancer and coronary disease you saw in America from around the 1960's onwards.
Standby for the "except for women and black people" brigade. They'll be here shortly to crucify you.
And for kids. One of my classmates used to come to school with strips of skin flayed off his back from the beatings his dad gave him. Nobody called the cops. The teachers weren't much better. They thought barking military orders was the way to interact with kids, calling us weaklings, losers and cowards. Then there was the chiropractor who liked to perform "bloodless operations" on the girls between 12 and 14. What he was really doing was having anal sex with them, but their vision was obscured by the rack he had them in, and most of them never even realized what was happening.
Yeah. The '50s. Lots of car wax with a rusty chassis.
And for kids. One of my classmates used to come to school with strips of skin flayed off his back from the beatings his dad gave him. Nobody called the cops. The teachers weren't much better. They thought barking military orders was the way to interact with kids, calling us weaklings, losers and cowards. Then there was the chiropractor who liked to perform "bloodless operations" on the girls between 12 and 14. What he was really doing was having anal sex with them, but their vision was obscured by the rack he had them in, and most of them never even realized what was happening.
Yeah. The '50s. Lots of car wax with a rusty chassis.
Yes, it is important not to get too carried away with nostalgia. Nothing we see today in terms of various societal "evils" or whatever is new, but occurred in the 1950's as it had for hundreds of years before. As usual however rank, status and or privilege may have offered perpetrators some protection.
Rape, child abuse, wife beating, drug use, homosexuality, rape of children/minors, etc.. all of it went on in the 1950's, but how things were handled was quite different than today. In general it often came down to who was doing the accusing versus who was accused.
Scores of young women and boys for instance ended up in mental institutions or deemed "problems" because of behavior no one could understand, or rather didn't want to know about. Long story short it was sexual abuse by an adult and usually someone close to the family or member.
The 1950's was about conformity and to accuse one's own father, a respected teacher, physician or anyone else that was a "pillar" of the community of doing such an unspeakable thing wasn't just on. The book and later film Peyton Place rattled many cages because it broke the myth of 1950's America, especially those small towns.
Women and children in such cases always got the same reaction "what did *you* do? Long story short it must have been their fault because they "wanted" it to happen or some such. For women/girls you had better have been the most virginal, respectable and so forth female in the area without one single foot wrong. Otherwise your rape would be blamed on the fact you went out without a girdle on, or went with Johnny to "lover's lane" and "lead him on".
Oh please. My mother had a master's degree from Juilliard and went bonkers staying home with two children in the 50s because it was an insult to men's egos to have working wives. Women couldn't even have some jobs - heck, I'm just old enough that I was turned down for jobs in the early 70s during summers in college because "we don't hire women," and it was legal.
And it wasn't just hard on women. Men were trapped in just as stultifying, rigid gender roles as women were. Because women were virtually shut out of most careers besides teachers and secretaries, the entire financial burden of a family fell on men. That must have been a real picnic for them, too.
Children suffered, too. It was very common for parents to physically punish their children in ways that would have CPS after them today. When my mother finally did go back to work, the neighbor who babysat me after school for 2 hours used to beat the crap out of the boys with an electrical cord when they misbehaved. I was well-behaved, so she never hit me, but it was pretty traumatic to see other children hurt like that for normal childhood stuff.
And for kids. One of my classmates used to come to school with strips of skin flayed off his back from the beatings his dad gave him. Nobody called the cops. The teachers weren't much better. They thought barking military orders was the way to interact with kids, calling us weaklings, losers and cowards. Then there was the chiropractor who liked to perform "bloodless operations" on the girls between 12 and 14. What he was really doing was having anal sex with them, but their vision was obscured by the rack he had them in, and most of them never even realized what was happening.
Yeah. The '50s. Lots of car wax with a rusty chassis.
Don't know about all that. But here, the swings in the park were locked on a Sunday. All cinemas were closed too as were swimming pools etc. Terrible some may say, but the other side of the coin was that there were only two murders in a 20 year period. Now there is one at least every week. Senior citizens are attacked on a regular basis, drug taking and drug dealing is a part of daily life.
You can thank him for our highway system
Eisenhower copied the idea from him
Aye, OK your right, but I was thinking more of his superior race attitude and America's answer to it after the war had been won. They took the opposite road and promoted multi-racialism. So Nazism, and America's reaction to it has played a big part in the world we live in today.
We were the only industrialized nation that wasn't digging itself out of the rubble of WW2.
I think that's a real important point and it no doubt affected the psychology of us here in the States during that time. The thing is we didn't so much actually experience the destruction of Europe and their institutions but but saw it viscerally and emotionally through the eyes of war where our GIs came back to tell us of it. It had to affect us. And it did to the extent that arguably we are one of the few nations on earth who can afford the luxury of freedom because we've seen how precarious it can be and how it can be taken away. We know now that in order to have peace we must alwaysbe vigilant prepare for war. Some object to it but really it's the only way to be...if you want be a free-people.
You can thank him for our highway system
Eisenhower copied the idea from him
Actually Super Highways were being built in America at the same time as Nazi Germany. In the 1930s work began on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, New Jersey Turnpike, LA Southern CA Freeways and Robert Mosses Expressways in the NYC-Downstate LI region and Tom Dewey's New York State Truway (Today called the Thomas E. Dewey New York Thruway) was started in the 40s when Dewey was NY Governor. In the Futurama Exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair in NYC the vision of 1960s America "Democracity" had a nation crisscrossed by Freeways connecting cities with suburbs and other cities now featuring glass and steel highrises. They were too far off the mark!
IIRC smoking increased during the 1950's as a direct result of WWII. Apparently the US military basically handed out cigarettes on the theory smoking clamed nerves, reduced hunger pangs, and so forth. No one thought about the addictive properties of tobacco it seems and or they didn't care. So when servicemen returned home many were "hooked"
Cannot remember how smoking took off for American women but again IIRC it was a product of WWII as well. Previously such behavior at least in public was limited to "fast" or "loose" women, but privately that sex has been smoking tobacco for ages. You did see lots of advertising starting in the 1940's showing women smoking as well it as in films and movies.
You can say one thing about the 1950's; the high rates of smoking and heavy consumption of meats, fats and other artery clogging foods had a direct relationship to the high rates of cancer and coronary disease you saw in America from around the 1960's onwards.
And yet, those rates were much lower than today, when there's far less smoking going on.
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