Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm part of the Advanced Guard of the true Postwar Baby Boom - those who were conceived after V-J Day. I was born in early June of 1946 (do the math), so I remember the 1950s and 1960s quite well.
It was an entirely different world back then. We had recently emerged victorious from WWII, and were the only industrialized nation with an intact economy and manufacturing base. Our goods and services were in world-wide demand, and anything we did was met with success. Unemployment (of men, anyway) was at an all-time low. So, in some ways, good times prevailed.
Now, as the late Paul Harvey would have said, for the rest of the story.
First, American women whose work as Rosie-the-Riveters during the War had created a new sense of self-confidence, self-assurance and independence, were unceremoniously shoved back into their pre-war roles, and they weren't happy about it.
Second, there was rampant racial/ ethnic/ religious/ economic/ political discrimination, and the police methods in everyday use would make most of us modern-day folk cringe.
Third was the supposed Communist infiltration of all that Americans held dear. In its heyday, McCarthyism rivaled the Spanish Inquisition in terms of its paranoia, social/cultural impact, and figurative blood-letting. The fight against the spread of Communism led us into Korea in the early 1950s, and into Vietnam shortly thereafter.
Fourth, the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November of 1963 changed everything. I consider it to be THE pivotal point of my life, because I was a senior in high school at the time. I graduated in June of 1964 and completed my Army training (Basic, AIT, Jump School, etc.) just in time to go to Sunny Southeast Asia courtesy of then-President Lyndon Baines Johnson. It was there that I realized virtually everything I had been taught, about life and about the United States, was a lie. I spent the next three decades sorting things out, and working things out.
=============================
So, to quote from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair..."
Could it be possible that Dickens had a window into the future --- into the 1960s? H-m-m-m...
Don't think so, too vague. A much earlier observation: What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9
Don't think so, too vague. A much earlier observation: What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
-- Ecclesiastes 1:9
Heh-heh-heh! I knew Dickens must have gotten it from somewhere!!!
I bet the blacks were happier when they could live in their own communities, shop in their own stores and not be forced to integrate with whites.
Actually, Blacks were the ones trying to integrate, trying to get the same rights and privileges as everyone else in those days. So, I disagree with your sentiments. Blacks were living in their communities in the 1950s because they were not welcomed to live in most other places. Blacks were the ones forces to live in a limited selection of areas. Blacks were quite happy to be able to live anywhere they want to live, which came with anti-discrimination laws that took place in the late 1960s-early 1970s.
Happier; well yes. but you have to release that parents had been children of great depression ; the WII. Experiences none of us have gone thru. So of course they saw the world has a piece of cake. Basically that had ambitions on what type world they wanted and had joy of it compared to their past. I am a child of the 50 and teen of the 60's.Happiness is often just perception of the world based on experiences and peace having seen war are good times. I always said no peace time job was better than a fighting job in Vietnam.Its all in what bad times you have experienced and the level.
Funny was talking about this just last night , as my grandaughter age 12 says she would love to have been back in my days as a wee girl, out playing games, skipping ropes. roller skates. chases, peever. whip and peery, hula hoops, kick the can.. doublers with two bouncy balls against a wall.... she said her friends are dull and want to stay in playing games on the computer... so yes I loved back then.. even with our poor Glasgow housing and not much money.. maybe it was just being young that makes it seem rosey now but Id do anything to spend just one day back then..
The answer depends entirely on which people you're talking about, especially up through the early '60s.
If you were a woman, probably not. Your role in life was heavily proscribed and if you decided not to become Susie Homemaker, as most women did back then, you were seen as weird, neurotic, at best a troublesome freethinker, but more often a frustrated gal who couldn't get a man. The booming economy didn't help much with any of that.
If you were black, probably not happy either. Odds were that you were shut out of almost all mainstream American activity unless you could sing dance, or play ball.
If you were gay, you probably weren't very happy either. You couldn't tell anybody and had to live your sex life secretly. If you did let it be known whom you loved, chances are you were either persecuted, hounded, disowned by your family or arrested at some point.
If you were a native American, for all practical purposes, you just didn't exist. You had little to no interaction with a booming, mainstream economy, there weren't any casinos to lighten a tribe's economic load, and your whole history was reduced to being target practice in mediocre Westerns.
But if you were a white guy during the fifties and early sixties yes, you might be a LOT happier than you would be now. No one else competed for your jobs -- and they were YOUR jobs not anyone else's -- and even if you were poor you could feel superior to everyone else, knowing that you were "free, white, and 21."
Don Draper's heyday is over, and millions of Americans are glad it is.
Yes, people in the 50's and 60's were much happier, in general. Studies have already shown that women are less happy today than years ago. People generally had health care, SS wasn't in trouble, the nation wasn't in debt, people generally had jobs that could support a man and his family without needing for wife to work. Now we are a nation loaded with problems, crime is higher, schools don't teach like they used to, more immorality, broken families, drug problems. Its a no brainer. Things are not as good and getting worse in general for our citizens. Optimism for the future is gone. That was not at all true in the 50's and 60's.
Even for blacks, some things were better. Children were more likely to be raised with a mother and father. And in the north, lots of blacks had good paying jobs.
The answer depends entirely on which people you're talking about, especially up through the early '60s.
If you were a woman, probably not. Your role in life was heavily proscribed and if you decided not to become Susie Homemaker, as most women did back then, you were seen as weird, neurotic, at best a troublesome freethinker, but more often a frustrated gal who couldn't get a man. The booming economy didn't help much with any of that.
And the irony is that the whole "Rosie the Riveter" thing was pushed in the 1940s as part of the war effort. Once the war was over, women were sent back to the kitchen.
Quote:
If you were black, probably not happy either. Odds were that you were shut out of almost all mainstream American activity unless you could sing dance, or play ball.
I would put being Black in the 50s in this perspective. Let's just say one's quality of life would not be as good if Black, as it would be for a White person. Black people faced much discrimination, and it was legal to do so in those. If you could sing, dance, and play ball, of course you would be popular, and even then, you still had alot of problems. You could still be refused entry into certain hotels. You would face this as a citizen of the USA. Many places, you couldn't vote, live wherever you want to live, eat where you wanted to eat, and in many places, who you dated was determined by law(the South particularly). Yes, there were Black teachers, Black doctors, and Black lawyers, and some Blacks who were middle class. However, for the average Black person, life was hard.
If you were White and had some Native American ancestry, you could still be considered White. If you had one drop of African blood in you, you were Black. Derek Jeter could pass for White(his father is African-American, his mother is White). He really could pass for Italian, or claim part Native American. However, had he lived in 1950, he would have caught so much crap. In those days, interracial relationships were not welcomed, particularly between Black men and White women(same combination as Jeter's parents). It's kind of hard being biracial now, but it would have been much worse back then, and Jeter grew up in Michigan. Imagine if this had been 1950 Georgia. Jeter, his sister, and his parents would have been hounded out of the South.
Quote:
If you were gay, you probably weren't very happy either. You couldn't tell anybody and had to live your sex life secretly. If you did let it be known whom you loved, chances are you were either persecuted, hounded, disowned by your family or arrested at some point.
This is my perspective. I don't agree with the lifestyle. That being said, I don't think a person should be disowned or arrested for being gay. A person should not be put through that.
Quote:
If you were a native American, for all practical purposes, you just didn't exist. You had little to no interaction with a booming, mainstream economy, there weren't any casinos to lighten a tribe's economic load, and your whole history was reduced to being target practice in mediocre Westerns.
And some of the persons who played Native Americans in westerns were not even Native American themselves, so that is another form of irony. One thing to consider was this. In Oklahoma, Native Americans and Whites could marry one another. However, this did not mean Native Americans would not be discriminated against. It was bad, but there were some differences. A person could have a certain amount of Native American ancestry and still be considered White. If you had one drop of African blood in you, you were Black, no matter what. Still, there were other things.
Quote:
But if you were a white guy during the fifties and early sixties yes, you might be a LOT happier than you would be now. No one else competed for your jobs -- and they were YOUR jobs not anyone else's -- and even if you were poor you could feel superior to everyone else, knowing that you were "free, white, and 21."
Don Draper's heyday is over, and millions of Americans are glad it is.
I look at the 50s the way you do. It depended on who you were. If you were White, male, and didn't live in Appalachia, your life would be quite easier compared to the rest of the population. If you didn't fit that mold, your life would be harder, or at least not as happy.
If you were happy to "know your place and stay in it", then of course you would be happy. If you were a woman and desired more than just being a housewife with children, then you wouldn't be as happy. If you were a minority and content to not have the same rights and privileges as everyone else, then of course you would be happy. If you wanted to be treated as an equal, be able to live anywhere you wanted, eat, stay where you wanted, vote, and basically have a say, you wouldn't be so happy.
That is why as a Black man, I'm glad I live in this time, and not in the 1950s.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
