POSTWAR PERIOD AND THE 1950s IN POLITICS, ECONOMY, AND SOCIETY POLITICS Key events that created the post-war atmosphere and laid the foundations for everything that happened in the second half of the 20th century: (if you aim at a higher mark, you have to know why they are important; they will be explained in detail in Handout 21; if you aim at a lower mark, you should know they happened): • 1945 – the UN established; the FPRY established • 1947 – Israel established; India, Pakistan, Bangladesh become independent • 1949 – NATO established; Warsaw pact established; Russia exploded a nuclear bomb; China becomes a communist country • 1950 – Korean War started • 1951- China annexed Tibet • 1952 – the USA exploded the hydrogen bomb • 1953 – Cuban revolution • 1955 – Russia explodes the hydrogen bomb • 1956 – the Hungarian rebellion; the Suez crisis; Non-aligned Movement established • 1957 – Russia launches Sputnik • 1959 – Alaska and Hawaii become US states • 1959 – Vietnam war begins The post-war period is characterised by the beginning of the competition between the USA and the Soviet Union in science, exploration, and military development which will lead to the Cold War. It is also marked by the strengthening of the USA’s cultural influence in Western Europe through television, film, and music which is the topic of the next lesson, as well as its economic and lifestyle influence. In addition, new countries were formed whose territories are to this day debated and fought over. In our neck of the woods, Croatia became a part of a new federation which was communist but non-aligned in wider context. On the next page you can find a very plastic example of communism’s influence on fashion but we will talk more about it in the 1960s. ECONOMY • 70% of European industry destroyed after WWII • Marshall plan • West Germany and France • 1957 – European Economic Community established by the Treaty of Rome COMMUNISM AND FASHION • Soviet Union – follow western trends under state supervision, there are frequent shortages • Eastern Europe - forced to reject their own fashion traditions and to officially accept the centralized Soviet model of clothes production and distribution - three styles of clothing coexisted: official, every day, and subversive - all communist regimes initially rejected the notion of fashion as decadent and bourgeois (bur’žoa) • China - 1949 – Mao suit – named after Mao Zedong (picture 1 below), worn widely by males and government leaders as a symbol of proletarian unity and an Eastern counterpart to the Western business suit; the four pockets are said to represent the Four Virtues of propriety, justice, honesty, and shame; and the five buttons the branches of China's government. Picture 2 below is the modern version. MCCARTHYISM • the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence • named after the US senator Joseph McCarthy who lead a government body created to “discover“ communist spies - accusations turned into a witch-hunt for foreign agents in the USA - 1950-1954 = primary targets were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, academicians, labour-union activists, and homosexuals (homosexuality was classified as a psychiatric disorder in the 1950s) - blacklisted (Einstein, Pauling, Oppenheimer, Brecht, Ginsberg, Mann, Miller, etc.) - Hollywood blacklist (Buñuel, Chaplin, Welles, Ball, etc.) THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT - several events during the 1954 and 1955 such as the landmark case of Brown v. the Board of Education, Emmett Till’s lynching, Rosa Parks' arrest and Montgomery bus boycott led to non-violent protests and civil disobedience which gave momentum to the growing Civil Rights Movement which we will discuss in the 1960s. YOUNG REBELS of the 1950s • the Beat Generation - a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era - Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac are the most prominent names, they started the San Francisco Renaissance ➢ beatnik - a media stereotype dominant throughout the 1950s to mid-1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation, or rather, referred to anyone rejecting the mainstream in favour of artistic self-expression - beatnik fashion was considered eccentric at the time as well as their habits of dressing and grooming (beards, pony tails, dirty sneakers, peasant blouses/black turtlenecks and berets for me; leotards, tights and ballet slippers for women; and lots of black colour) - most important of all was the attitude required to pull off such a look – an intense nonchalance and a complete distaste for worrying about how one looks • Teddy Boys and Girls - working-class British teens who created the first truly independent fashion for young people inspired by Edwardian fashion - boys wore: elongated, loose jackets with wide, padded shoulders and velvet collar + narrow trousers short enough to see coloured socks + white shirt, brocade waistcoat and bootlace ties + winkle pickers + longer hair and sideburns and a D.A. - girls wore: long grey jackets + tight, high-necked sweaters+ black pencil skirts/trousers + black stockings + winkle pickers - the clothes were mostly tailor-made at great expense, and paid through weekly instalments - it spread quickly to the USA and became associated with rock and roll music/outfits 1) first outfit promoted by the young, for the young 2) first fashion to begin among the lower classes 3) first fashion as outward evidence of a lifestyle cult
