The American Dream in the Fifties
& Popular Culture
Essential Question:
Between consumerism, medical
advancements, the baby boom, pop
culture icons, and white flight, explain
which two you think had the greatest
impact on American families in the 50s?
The Organization and the
Organization Man
• The 1950s saw a great expansion in business
• The majority of Americans went from having
Blue Collar jobs to having White Collar jobs
– Sales, advertising, accounting, managers, bankers,
insurance, communication
• Conglomerates – major corporation that
includes a number of smaller companies in
unrelated industries
• Franchises – company that offers similar
products or services in many locations
• Standardized what people ate
McDonald’s
Social Conformity
• The new work place was
said to create “company
people”
– Loss of individuality
– People (men) were given
personality tests before they
were hired to see if they “fit
in”
– Employees rewarded for
teamwork, cooperation, and
loyalty
The Suburban Lifestyle
• Most Americans worked in cities, but they no
longer lived there
• New highways, affordable cars, accessible
gasoline
• The most significant factor in suburban
growth was the expanding interstate system
• 13 million new homes were built in the 1950s,
85% in suburbs
• This was the definition of the American Dream
The Baby Boom
• As soldiers settled back into homes after the
war, there was an unprecedented explosion in
the amount of babies being born
• In 1957, one baby was being born every 7
seconds
10 million new students
enrolled in elementary
school in the 50s
There was a major need
for educational resources
A new school opened
every 7 days
Advances in Medicine & the Miracle
Drugs
 Drugs to fight and prevent childhood disease
 Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine for the crippling
effects of polio
 MMR vaccines given to children
 Parents were strongly encouraged to have their
infants receive these shots to prevent these
diseases
 What would the increasing use and availability
of these drugs have on a population?
 It would increase the population because people live
longer
Leisure in the 50s
• 40 hour work weeks with several weeks paid
holidays/vacations
• New household appliances like the washing
machine, and dish washer meant less time
spent doing chores
• Americans had more leisure time than ever
before
– More than $30 million spent on leisure goods and
activities in the 50s
Leisure Activities of the 50s
Automania! The Automobile Culture
 Because gas had been
rationed during the war,
there was a plentiful
amount of petroleum
making gas extremely
cheap
 In addition, easy credit
terms and low interest
loans encouraged people
to buy cars
 People had to travel to
work in the cities from
their suburbs
The Interstate Highway System
 Shopping Centers, schools, cities to suburbs, all had
to be linked together but how?
 The Interstate Highway System was signed by
Eisenhower in 1956 – 41,000 miles
 Made high-speed long haul trucking possible
 With money, cheap gas, new highways, more leisure
time, and available cars, it is no surprise that
Americans took to the road in the 50s
 What is one downside of increased cars and road
activity, despite new miracle drugs?
 Accidents and deaths
 Jobs move out of cities and into the suburbs
 Smaller towns were bypassed and cut off from consumers
Consumerism Unbounds
• Consumerism – the increased spending in
consumer products
• Any idea what the major new product that
everyone had to have was?
– The TV!!!! – over 90% of homes had at least one tv by
1970
– Also swimming pools, lawn mowers, grills, record
players
– Planned obsolescence – when manufacturers purposely
designed products to become outdated in a short
period of time
– New models of products every year – kept spending up
– Turned American into a “throwaway society”
Popular Culture
• Mass Media – communication that reaches
large audiences
• Television had reached 90% of American
homes by 1960
• The Rise of Television – the Federal
Communication Commission (gov’t agency
that regulates and licenses tv, radio, and other
broadcasts allowed 500 new stations to
broadcast by 1956
Popular Television
 Show like father knows best
showed women in inferior roles
 Rarely were any races other
than white shown
 And western shows were feared
to increase violence in youth
Radio and Movies
• Radio:
– Did not want to compete with tv
– Turned to local programming of news, weather, music,
and community issues
– Advertising rose by 35%
• Movies:
– Had to compete with tv also
– In 1948, 18,500 movie theaters drew in 90 mil
admissions per week
– This number decreased by half because of tv
– But this all changed with the introduction of COLOR!
• The first full length film to use three-strip Technicolor was “The
Wizard of Oz” (1939)
Top Films of the 50s
1. The Ten Commandments
2. The Greatest Show on
Earth
3. Lady and the Tramp
4. The High and Mighty
5. Abbot and Costello Meet
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
6. High Noon
7. Sunset Blvd.
8. On the Water Front
9. Dial M for Murder
10. Mister Roberts
Top Songs of the 50s
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
‘51 Mocking Hill – Patti Page
‘52 Unforgettable – Nat King Cole
‘53 That’s Amore – Dean Martin
‘54 Shake Rattle and Roll – Bill
Haley and The Comets
‘55 Cherry Pink And Apple
Blossom White – Perez Prado
‘56 Don’t Be Cruel – Elvis Presley
‘57 All Shook Up – Elvis Presley
58’ At the Hop – Danny and the
Juniors
59’ Mack the Knife – Bobby Darin
He’d just burst onto the stage from anywhere,
and you wouldn’t be able to hear anything but
the roar of the audience. He’d be on the stage,
he’d be off the stage, he’d be jumping and
yelling, screaming, whipping the audience on .
. . Then when he did finally hit the piano and
just went into di-di-di-di-di-di-di, you know,
well nobody can do that as fast as _____. It
just took everyone by surprise.
- anonymous
Who is this person referring to???
Little Richard!
A Subculture Emerges
 The beat movement was a counterculture that
existed from the 40s-60s and expressed the social and
literary nonconformity of artists, poets, and writers
 The word “beat” originally meant “weary” but came
to refer as well to a musical beat
 Followers of this movement were called beatniks and
they shunned regular work and sought guidance
through music and Zen Buddhism
 Many mainstream Americans found this lifestyle
annoying and defiant
African Americans & Rock ‘n’ Roll
 African music was only played on the African radio
stations
 It took the interest of both gospel and jazz by some white
men to blend and introduce a new style of music to the
American people.
 Elvis Presley lived in Memphis and was exposed at an
early age to gospel, he attended a black church. He also
would follow some of the members of the congregation
to bars at night where he fell in love with jazz and rhythm
and blues.
 These influences all blended to form a type of music no
one had ever heard – and he would be known as the King
of Rock & Roll
Elvis’s Influence on American Pop
Culture
• Read through the article
about Elvis’s influence on
American History
• This was his first tv
appearance and resulted in
a frenzy of girls
• His return appearance was
conditional – only shot from
chest-up.
• Aloha from Hawaii is a
music concert that was
headlined by Elvis Presley,
and was broadcast live via
satellite on January 14,
1973.
WSM Radio and Memphis Sun
Records
Exposure of National Event from
TV
• Not only did tvs and radios influence American
popular culture, it also influenced politics and
exposed major media events that changed the
world
– Ex: Some blame the televised debate between
Nixon and Kennedy for Nixon’s loss
– Ex: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap
for mankind” (who said this and what is it in
reference too?
• Neil Armstrong in 1960, landing on the moon
Billy Graham’s Influence in Popular
Culture During the 50s and 60s
• We all know that Elvis was from Memphis
• But there was another person who became the
father of evangelicals from Tennessee and his name
was . . .
– Billy Graham
– His revival meetings drew in hundreds of thousands to
make “decisions for Christ”
The Other America
Just as some people were prospering
in America, it did not mean that
there was an absence of poverty and
struggle for some.
The Urban Poor
• For many people, despite what pop culture may
display on the outside, life did not live up to the
“American Dream”
• In 1962 – nearly one in every four Americans
were living in poverty
– Mainly elderly, single women and their children, and
members of minority groups
• White Flight – the process of middle class whites
migrating to the suburbs taking with them part of
the economy, and isolating minority groups in the
inner cities
– At the same time, African Americans filled the void
migrating to the inner cities
The Inner Cities
• Each year, the federal government calculates the
minimum amount of income it takes to raise a
family of four – the poverty line is below this
amount
• In 2000 it was $17,601
• Can anyone guess what it was in 1959?
– $2,973
• Urban Renewal – Was passed in 1949 to provide
a “descent home and a suitable living
environment for every American family”
– Tear down rundown poverty stricken areas and
redevelop them
– As good as this may sound, the redevelopment was
for shopping centers and other businesses and usually
left families displaced
Poverty Leads to Activism
• Mexicans Seek Employment
– During WWII, there was a need for Agriculture
workers, congress establishes a program in 1942
that allowed Mexicans into the US to help harvest
crops
The Longoria Incident
– Felix Longoria was a
WWII hero – but he
was MexicanAmerican
– When his body was
returned, the only
undertaker in his
hometown refused
to provide funeral
services
Native Americans Continue Their
Struggle
• In 1944, Native Americans established the
National Congress of American Indians
• Had two main goals:
1. Ensure the same civil rights that whites had
2. Enable them to retain their own customs
• In WWII over 65,000 Native Americans joined the
service, and how were they repaid?
– They stopped receiving family allotments and wages
– Land that was taken while they were gone was not
given back
The Termination Policy
• In 1953, the federal government announced that
it would give up its responsibility for Native
American tribes – termination policy
– Eliminated federal economic support, discontinued
the reservation system, and distributed tribal lands
among individual Native Americans, and helped them
settle in cities
– Despite this, many Native Americans were
discriminated against and were not given any jobs,
medical care
– In the end, the Termination Policy was terminated
The American Dream in the Fifties
& Popular Culture
Answer the Essential Question:
Between consumerism, medical
advancements, the baby boom, pop
culture icons, and white flight, explain
which two you think had the greatest
impact on American families in the 50s?