Download The 50`s and the “other” 50`s

The 50’s and the “other” 50’s
Image of the 1950s as a time of great
prosperity, security, peace, religiousness.
Reality – increases in teenage pregnancy,
unwed motherhood, 25% of population
living in poverty, (no food stamps,
Medicare, housing programs), spousal and
sexual abuse.
Why the huge difference between
perception and reality?
• Legacy of War and Depression.
• Efforts to get women out of the workforce
after WWII led to stricter gender roles.
The Man in the Gray
Flannel Suit
(Organization Man)
The Happy Housewife
• Reinforced by ad campaigns, magazines,
books, experts
• Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care
• The Modern Woman: The Lost Sex
• “Mommyism”
• Reinforced by consumption, made possible
by GI Bill and credit
• Buying consumer goods became “patriotic
duty” and a status symbol. (& weapon of
the Cold War)
• You weren’t “A man” unless you could
afford a house in the suburbs, with all the
latest “time-saving” gadgets for the
housewife.
• Suburbanization: urban poor, ghetto-ization
• Suburbanization + shopping malls,
franchises = suburbs full of women &
children. Very isolating.
• Fashion for women reinforced femininity:
padded bras and full skirts, small waists, very
high heels. Functioned to constrict women.
• Sexuality to be controlled, just like communism.
Television
• By 1952, 15 million households had TVs, by 1955,
2/3rd of households had TVs.
• Shows like Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best
and Ozzie and Harriet reinforced the traditional
nuclear family.
• Dad works a white collar job, mom stays home and
cooks and cleans in a skirt, heels and pearls, the kids
look up to and respect their parents (never get caught
stealing or getting pregnant or anything realistic).
• Other shows told you what would happen if you
stepped out of that role.
• I Love Lucy, later I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitchedthe danger of women stepping out of their traditional
roles.
TV vs. Reality
• Most people’s lives were nothing like what
they saw on TV, but they figured that
meant there was something wrong with
them, because everyone was presenting
their lives as a mirror of the TV myth.
• Many men felt isolated and unhappy with the grind
of work-turned to alcoholism and/or domestic
violence, felt like their kids were strangers and their
wives didn’t understand what they were going
through.
• Women-many were college educated, and very
unsatisfied with their lives, but assumed they were
doing something wrong. High instances of valium
use- “mother’s little helper”
• Also, many women had to work outside the home,
for families to be able to afford to keep up the
appearance of a middle class lifestyle. Concept of
“Keeping up with the Jones’”
• Kids-ashamed and embarrassed their families didn’t
live up to the standards on TV.
Fear of the bomb
• More and more emphasis on communist
infiltration and potential nuclear war
scared the hell out of kids.
• Nightmares about Soviet attacks, Duck
and cover drills, etc…
• Will have a profound affect on the “Ban the
bomb” movement in the 1960s when these
kids reach college and learn just how
useless the duck and cover drills were.
• Emphasis on religion as a contrast against
communism.
• As long as you fit the right image-religious,
heterosexual, nuclear family, etc…, could
avoid communist label.
• “under God” added to pledge.
• Additionally, most minorities couldn’t even
pretend to fit these stereotypes.
• GI Bill gave opportunities to African American
men, but still experienced discrimination from
private institutions (banks, real estate, etc…)
• The majority of African American women had
to work outside the home, usually as
domestic servants.
• South still segregated. De Facto segregation
in the North as well.
The “Other” 50’s
• Underneath this façade,
existed another America.
• Jazz had been popular since
the 1920s, but experienced
a resurgence w/the youth in
the 50s
• Jazz and blues clubs with
integrated audiences. (often
seen as a precursor to rock
and roll).
The Beats
• Youth subculture
• generally is big cities (like
Greenwich Village in NY)
• hung out at jazz clubs, wrote poetry, wore
all black, smoked pot.
• Challenging their stereotypes and
trappings of their parents’ generation.
• Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Allen
Ginsberg’s Howl, America, etc…
Science Fiction
• Underground movement, considered “pulp”
• Used as a metaphor for Cold War fears
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Blob,
etc…
Also a way for people
to be critical of Cold
War propaganda and
repression.
Satire
• another way to attack status quo and
repression.
• Mad Magazine
Playboy
• Gave men an alternative gender role, other
than that of father/breadwinner.
• Focus on consumerism for oneself,
centerfold to avoid homosexual (and
therefore communist) stigma.
• Also gave women other opportunities
besides homemaker, nurse, teacher,
stewardess, and secretary.
• Celebration of female sexuality outside
virgin/whore binary
The Kinsey Studies
1948 Sexual Behavior of the Human Male
1953 Sexual Behavior of the Human Female
Alfred Kinsey
Scientific, factual study
Both were best-sellers
Betty Page and the Klaw Studios
• Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka
Kansas, 1954
Civil Rights
• NAACP had been
working on finding a way
to overturn Plessy v.
Ferguson for years.
Finally found their case.
• Thurgood Marshall,
lawyer for NAACP.
• In the middle of the case,
Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court died.
George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall, and James M. Nabrit
• Ike replaced him with Earl Warren
• Previously had a very conservative record.
• As soon as he got on the bench (appointed for
life) completely flipped his position and became
one of the most activist justices ever, ushered in
era of activist supreme court.
• Pushed for necessity of a
unanimous decision.
• Found separate but equal
inherently unequal and
unconstitutional.
• Ordered the states to
desegregate with
“all deliberate speed.”
• Marshall appointed to Supreme Court by
President Johnson in 1967.
• Huge victory for African Americans.
• Problem-Supreme Court has no enforcement
power.
African
Americans have
to keep fighting
the system,
but this victory
hardens their
resolve.
1955 – The Emmit
Till case
• From Chicago, visiting family in Mississippi
• “Reckless eyeballing”
• His body was found in the Miss. River,
so badly mutilated he had to be identified by
a ring.
1955 – The Emmit Till case
• His mother insisted on an open casket funeral
so “the world can see what they did to my
baby.”
Images in papers
world-wide.
Horrified people in
the North who didn’t
really realize what
was going on in the
south (if I can’t see
it, its not happening,
NIMBY)
1955 – The Emmit Till case
• Also seen as an international relations
nightmare.
• Segregation + Till case + Independent African
Nations = bad publicity for U.S., especially
when trying to convince the 3rd world that the
U.S. are the “good guys” and the Soviets are
the “bad guys”
• USSR had been condemning U.S. racism and
segregation since WWII.
• Example from Yalta: FDR-”What about
Poland?” Stalin-”What about Mississippi?”
1955 – Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Rosa Parks, NAACP
• SCLC – Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
1957 - Desegregation of Central
High School, Little Rock, AK
Gov. Faubus used national guard to keep
the nine black teens from entering.
Ike had to send in an division of the army
and nationalize the state guard to
guarantee their safety.
1960 – The first Sit-in
• Greensboro, NC, Woolworths.
• Student initiated and student led.
• CORE (Congress On Racial Equality) helped
out, then SCLC.
• Sparked interracial sit-ins across the country.
• Student activists eventually forms SNCC
(Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee).
• Many of these images received international
attention as well.
• David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell
Blair, and Joseph McNeil
• Harlem, N.Y.
• Orangeburg, S.C., 1960
• Woolworth sit-in, Jackson, MS. May 28,
1963
• Joan Trumpauer (now Mulholland), and
Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi
The Student Movement
•
•
•
•
•
SDS-Student for a Democratic Society
Port Huron Statement
objection to “parentals”, Free Speech.
Cross over w/civil rights.
Adopt non-violent
resistance tactics.
• Continues
throughout the 60s.
Eisenhower’s Admin
• 1956-Interstate Highway Act, as a military
necessity, 41,000 miles of highway.
• 1954-Housing Act-slum clearing, no
alternative housing for poor
• More conservative than FDR/Truman.
• Less government intervention in economy,
regulation, balance budget, increase military
spending.
• Lower taxes, especially for businesses,
corporations
• Government-business cooperation.
Eisenhower’s Farwell Address
• Warns of the dangers of the “militaryindustrial complex”
• Alliance between government and industries
building for the military.
• Basically warning that if we develop a sector
of the economy that is dependant on us
having a ever-increasing military (especially
with reference to technology), then it will be
in the best interest of that sector to promote
war.
Election of 1960
VP Richard Nixon (R) vs John F. Kennedy (D)
• Issue of Religion
• Ike’s “endorsement”
• TV debates
• African American vote
• Kennedy wins by a
narrow margin