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I would rather live in the 50's, which I did, than in the 2000's which I do. Times were much simpler and laid back then. No crap music, leave your doors unlocked, people had manners and respect for each other. Cars, TV and telephone were all that was necessary. Anyone living that era would tell you that it was the best of times, least of worries, non processed fresh foods, doctors made house calls, service people were prompt and reliable, movies were family fun, the list goes on and on.
If you didn't live that era you don't know what good you missed.
As long as you were white and male.
Then it was utopia.
I would rather live in the 50's, which I did, than in the 2000's which I do. Times were much simpler and laid back then. No crap music, leave your doors unlocked, people had manners and respect for each other. Cars, TV and telephone were all that was necessary. Anyone living that era would tell you that it was the best of times, least of worries, non processed fresh foods, doctors made house calls, service people were prompt and reliable, movies were family fun, the list goes on and on.
If you didn't live that era you don't know what good you missed.
I was six years old in 1950 and I agree with you, except for the part you left out, namely that blacks and certain other groups were not able to participate in the paradise which you otherwise accurately describe. And of course there is no earthly paradise anyway. One small but not trivial example would be the prevalence of smoking in the 1950's.
Unfortunately we do not get to pick and choose to retain the good elements of the past and combine them with the good elements of change. The perspective of constant "improvement" (which is the perspective of scientific, engineering, and medical advances) cannot be applied to our lives overall. The situation of our lives overall is much more ambiguous.
I would rather live in the 50's, which I did, than in the 2000's which I do. Times were much simpler and laid back then. No crap music, leave your doors unlocked, people had manners and respect for each other. Cars, TV and telephone were all that was necessary. Anyone living that era would tell you that it was the best of times, least of worries, non processed fresh foods, doctors made house calls, service people were prompt and reliable, movies were family fun, the list goes on and on.
If you didn't live that era you don't know what good you missed.
I very much doubt that.
If you were black, gay, female (to a lesser extent) or held alternative political views then the 1950s were pretty damn crappy. Especially with all the Communist witch hunts going on. Hell, you didn't have to be a Communist. Even just the suspicion was enough to ruin someone's life and/or career.
As long as you were white and male.
Then it was utopia.
I was born in 1950 (white) and, looking back, I agree with you. However where I grew up(not where I am now), I was isolated from the knowledge of the issues that non-whites were going through. There just weren't that many blacks around. It wasn't until I went to high school before I encountered fellow students(2) that were black.
Sometimes I wish I could go back to the times of ignorance of the issues and not have to worry about keeping the doors locked, and seeing the news on TV with all the violence.
Back to the OP, I voted for 1950 being more like 1900, mainly due to the fact that most families were single breadwinner families. It seems to be a chicken versus egg argument as to what caused the sea change after 1960. Was it the sudden addition of women to the workforce that caused wages to drop so that a family needed two people working or did the wages drop first, requiring the women to start working for the sake of the family?
The technology of today is pretty nice and all, but one low tech improvement of today over 1950 that I really like is the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables year round. When I grew up we could only get blueberries in the summer, strawberries in late spring, etc. Everything was seasonal back then.
Not having been around in 1900 I would not speculate. From 1950 to 2014 big changes. How many of you youngsters have picked up the phone and told the operator the number you wanted to call?Made a phone call for a dime from a phone booth? It was a different world.
<<waves hand high>> I did! We moved to a farm that was in another county, and that town still used the local operator to put through calls for several months after we moved there in 1960. Somebody from the telephone company came into the schools to teach how to use a phone with a dial and explain that you had to actually know phone numbers rather than just asking Sally the Operator to put you through to Mrs Jones!
I would rather live in the 50's, which I did, than in the 2000's which I do. Times were much simpler and laid back then. No crap music, leave your doors unlocked, people had manners and respect for each other. Cars, TV and telephone were all that was necessary. Anyone living that era would tell you that it was the best of times, least of worries, non processed fresh foods, doctors made house calls, service people were prompt and reliable, movies were family fun, the list goes on and on.
If you didn't live that era you don't know what good you missed.
^^^
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hesster
I very much doubt that.
If you were black, gay, female (to a lesser extent) or held alternative political views then the 1950s were pretty damn crappy. Especially with all the Communist witch hunts going on. Hell, you didn't have to be a Communist. Even just the suspicion was enough to ruin someone's life and/or career.
One thing that was better in 1950 was that there were lots of jobs for the uneducated and unskilled in the days before automation. They were frequently hard and usually tedious and most paid a pittance but they were to be had for those without much education or skill. Even after the entire nation switched to dial phones, there were still millions of jobs for telephone operators, almost all of whom were women. Then there were all the clerical jobs. Businesses and governments hired millions of clerks and typists, again, almost all of whom were women, to type, file, answer phones, etc. Then there were industrial jobs where steelworkers operated open hearth coke ovens; autoworkers churned out cars by the millions on huge assembly lines; textile workers turned raw cotton into cloth or cut and sewed clothing at piece work rates.
In 1900, small towns and rural living still dominated the culture and were still the majority of the population.
By 1900, most small towns were electrified, but not on a 24 hour basis. The countryside was non-electrified except for the closest outskirts of a town.
In the average home cooking was still done with cast iron stoves using wood and coal, heating was accomplished with a parlor stove and air circulation vents throughout the house. The water supply was still accomplished by hand pumps in the kitchen only in most areas, but towns were building the first water towers to pressurize the water.
There was no running hot water; the kitchen stove very often had a 3-4 gallon tank built in next to the firebox that required manual filling. There were hot water heaters, however, that were sometimes electrified. They were usually placed in the kitchen.
There was very little indoor plumbing. Bathrooms contained only a tub and sink and a vanity.
Outhouses were still very common, and in town, there was often a 'water closet' in the basement that was only an indoor version of the outhouse, mostly found in the cellar. Sanitation for the facilities required a bucket of quicklime that was sprinkled down the hole after every use.
Transportation was all rail. In town, people either walked or took trolleys, and trolley systems were considered a necessity for up and coming communities. Rural trolly lines were often run outside of city limits into the outskirts.
There were commonly several small outbuildings besides the outhouse in a typical residential lot. These could be a stable, where both horse and their horse drawn vehicles were kept, a small shed for coal & wood storage, a chicken coop was common, and other small sheds for tools, and general storage. All were often connected with wooden sidewalks, especially in colder areas that got snowy in the winter.
Within a few years, a lot of this disappeared as sewer systems were developed and expanded. The indoor toilet was one of the first things to be purchased as soon as a sewer run could be dug, and the potty made a huge change in the way people lived.
In both city and country, horses were much more commonly used in all capacities than gasoline powered vehicles. Steam power was used on farms far more than gasoline engines, and horses and mules remained better tractors than tractors.
By 1950, all this was gone. I was young in the 50s. My parents lived on the farm until 1954, when we moved into town, and our home in town is still there. It came with an electric range, refrigerator, central heating (oil furnace), an enclosed garage, a full bathroom, wired for electricity in all rooms, an electric doorbell, and we bought a TV as soon as we moved in. A service station was on the other end of the block, and life was pretty much the same as it is now, except for the internet.
I bought a home that was built in 1906 as an adult. It had a detached small garage in the back yard (a safety measure back then), everything my childhood home in town had, but it had been rewired. The old electric receptacles were still there and still worked, but they all were made like lamp sockets- appliance cords were screwed into them, just like screwing in a light bulb.
I've lived in both the early and later lifestyles. The fact is, life in 1900 was just as comfortable as it is today. The largest difference is much less electric energy was required or needed.
The future changes less than young folks think. A lot of the past always surrounds us everywhere.
In 1900, small towns and rural living still dominated the culture and were still the majority of the population.
By 1900, most small towns were electrified, but not on a 24 hour basis. The countryside was non-electrified except for the closest outskirts of a town.
It depends on where. Overall, the country was majority rural or small town. Most Massachusetts residents were already town or city dwellers, rural living was a small fraction (< 20%) of the population by 1900. A number of other Northeastern states were similar. So the change from 1900 to 1950 was smaller here.
PBS had a series called "The 1900 House" where a modern family re-enacted living in the 1900's in London. An old house was retrofitted to resemble a 1900 home. Gas lights, an outside toilet, an inside bath but bath water had to be heated on a big stove. The housework was sheer drudgery. It took all of a day or more to do the laundry basically by hand or with some crude appliance (with harsh chemicals) wearing a very uncomfortable corset. And the next day there would be a different household chore that took much of the day and that was exhausting. You can't compare 1900 to 1950 with all of it's "modern" conveniences. And this was in London. The father seemed to have it a little better as he went to his office 10-12 hours a day six days a week - although I seem to remember that he had a few domestic chores. I can't even imagine how hard life was in rural areas in 1900. Of course I think PBS covered that when they showed "Frontier House" in Montana.
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