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I wasn't born yet in the 50's but what I've read and heard about that era is pretty great. The US had the market cornered on appliances, automobiles and almost anything else manufactured. We were a single culture of patriotic people who loved their country and didn't waste time on PC and other garbage. People's feelings were not hurt so easy and they had the ability to laugh at themselves.
In the 40's and 50's my 90 pound granny raised 11 kids and twice as many grandkids. She also raised enough on a little plot of land to feed them. We had whatever was in season. She canned the rest for the winter. She had chickens enough to trade eggs for dairy with a friend. We ate better than anything you could buy at any price these days.
The big treat was oyster stew every Saturday. That was because it was easy to do on her afternoon off.
They had to boil water and do the washing by hand. No one was fat. We walked a lot.
Everybody lost a close relative in the war. And worried about the ones who were MIA, and the ones who were not. We did have drills, in the halls, heads down.
But, it never entered anybody's head that a kid could get shot at school, or at the movie.
The politicians came home and spoke at the Lion's or the Rotary Clubs. They had to be knowledgable about and speak about all sides of an issue, not just the party line. That made compromise much more attainable. That is the only thing about the sixties I miss.
strong govt laws that gave working class people more leverage against the wealthy, most people could get a good jobs with great benefits without even a HS degree, though non Whites had fewer of those good jobs due to discrimination.
I think the above is the biggest part of the desire to return to the 1950s. In the 1950s there was a far better balance of power between labor and capital, and living-wage jobs didn't require 4-8 years of college education and 50-100k of student loan debt.
Unfortunately, most of those living-wage jobs were off limits to women and non-whites, so it wasn't all sweetness and light.
The jobs and manufacturing power of the US were a direct result of WWII. Most of Europe was destroyed and we were the only country able to re-supply the world.
That's not the case today, and hopefully that set of circumstances will never happen again.
The music was horrible...that do wop stuff they currently play at car shows at full volume.
You were listening to the wrong station. Some were forbidden. I listened to them.
That's when we got all that great jazz. I saw Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Paul Desmond, Chet Baker, Stan Getz and a bunch more in Houston, at the Music Hall.
I wasn't born yet in the 50's but what I've read and heard about that era is pretty great. The US had the market cornered on appliances, automobiles and almost anything else manufactured. We were a single culture of patriotic people who loved their country and didn't waste time on PC and other garbage. People's feelings were not hurt so easy and they had the ability to laugh at themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PullMyFinger
People were much more community minded, workplaces were more like big families.
For WASP males -sure. For everyone else - absolutely not.
THE very first thing in the title: Aside from civil rights,
Comprehension problem much?
Pullmyfinger has it absolutely right. The people that I know who grew up as teens in the 50s say it really was "Happy Days". It ushered in the suburbs revolution and the American dream of owning a home. The reason shows like Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver were so popular is because THAT was how the majority of real people actually lived. Dad went to work, mom was a housewife, kids did chores for an allowance. The work ethic was much higher and everyone was raised to want a job. It was a time when employees were appreciated and the bottom line was less important.
I was born in the 1980s. I turned 31 recently. As a kid I did watch Happy Days. I also watched shows that were made in the 1950s. Leave It To Beaver, I Love Lucy, etc. It seemed idyllic enough.
To give a reference, I was never "the cool kid". As a kid, I figured I might fit right in during the 50s. I never lived in the 50s. But based on American History, I would never want to live in the 1950s. Being Black, this is what I know I would have been subjected to in those days.
-Rampant housing discrimination
-Places where I would have been legally barred from living in(restrictive convenants, sundown towns)
-The "No Blacks Allowed" signs
-I live in the South, so I would have been subjected to the horrors of Jim Crow
This is what I know. Recently I hung out with some old friends from high school. Today I can take for granted that I was hanging out with a White female, White male, and Hispanic female. I can take for granted that I can eat, hang out, go where I want. In the 1950s, that would not happen, not in Georgia. It would not be that common in other parts of the USA, but especially in the Jim Crow South. Not in public, and not at a restaurant or a bar.
The freedoms and rights I have today, it would have never been afforded to me in the 50s. For me, registering to vote involved a visit to the public library and filling out a form. In the 1950s it would have been much harder at the least, as there were ways to make sure Blacks could register to vote, at least in Georgia. Oh, that library I registered to vote in, I didn't have to think "go to the colored library". I went where I chose to go. The one closest to my house. In the 50s, I would have to go where it was dictated, and by race. I can live where I want to live. I go where my money takes me, not where "race" takes me.
I never lived back in those days. Knowing what I know from history, and knowing my mentality, I pick today over the 1950s. I can't separate the civil rights issues from the 1950s. Why? Because being Black, that would dictate everything I could do in those days. A quasi-dictatorship. I cannot think "aside from civil rights" because of who I am and what I would have gone through.
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