1950s: Myths and Realities
I. Consensus and Contentment
 A. Myths:
1. economic expansion improved life for all Americans
2. consumerism and technological advancements made
life better for all Americans
3. suburbanization made life better for all Americans
4. Consensus, or a general agreement about values,
likes, and dislikes, reflected a more happy, unified
America
 B. Realities:
 1. economic expansion did not improve life for all Americans
 a. overall, the economy did improve and programs like the GI Bill, which
allowed veterans to go to college and buy a home, expanded the middle
class.
 b. poverty rate in 1950s was over 20% in some areas and wages for the
working class remained low
 c. white flight, or movement of middle-class Americans to the suburbs, left
inner cities with poor schools, public transportation, and police/fire
departments
 2. consumerism and technological advancements were a mixed blessing
 a. facing higher prices and lower wages, many workers went on strike
 b. technology led to layoffs in some industries
 c. credit cards and installments led to private
debt growing from $73 billion to $179 billion
B. Realities, cont.
 3. suburbanization did not make life better for all Americans
 a. suburban sprawl and the creation of the interstate highway
system led to bad traffic and the destruction of nature
 b. many suburbs discriminated against minorities (i.e. “track
housing” like Levittown required people to sign contracts
agreeing not to sell to African Americans).
 c. urban renewal projects, which included tearing down old
housing and constructing new low-income housing, could not
accommodate for all the poor. “Project” housing led to
increased crime in some areas.
Levittown, PA
"As a Jew, I have no room in my mind or heart for racial prejudice," Levitt insisted in 1954.
"But, by various means, I have come to know that if we sell one
house to a Negro family, then 90 to 95 percent of our white customers will not buy into the
community. That is their attitude, not ours."
B. Realities, cont.
 4. there was no real consensus in the 1950s, and the country was
divided through racism and segregation
 a. the South still had segregated facilities
 b. changes such as school desegregation in the South caused an
increasing divide over race issues
 c. racial violence continued in the North and South
 d. In the West, Mexican immigrants that came over through the
bracero program in WWII faced segregation and discrimination.
 e. The termination policy, which eliminated federal support to Indian
reservations, left many Native Americans without jobs and medical
care (the government abandoned this policy in 1963)
The Longoria Incident
Army Pvt. Felix Longoria, a
native of the small South
Texas town of Three Rivers
whose remains were
returned from the
Philippines for burial four
years after World War II
started when Mr. Longoria’s
widow, Beatriz, had been
denied use of a hometown
funeral chapel because the
Longorias were MexicanAmerican. She was told that
the "white people would not
stand for it." The funeral
home had indicated that it
would handle the arrangements for burial (in the
segregated "Mexican"
cemetery separated by a
barbed wire), but would not
allow the use of the chapel
for the wake.
II. Women and Domesticity
A. Myths:
1. all women were happy to return to the
domestic sphere and focus on child rearing
after WWII
 B. Realities:
1. most women did return to the home after WWII
 A. Baby Boom: late 1940s through early 1960s; led to the largest
generation in the nation’s history
 2. many women continued to work or obtain a higher education after
WWII
 a. over 25% of women worked outside the home in the 1950s
 b. many working class women could not afford to stay home
 2. not all women were satisfied with homemaking
 a. Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique discussed “the problem that
has no name”
 b. some women complained about boredom and unhappiness
III. Youth Rebellion
A. Myths:
1. the youth of the 1950s were the more
rebellious and dangerous than ever before
2. Beatniks, artists that expressed social and
political non-conformity, were dangerous
subversives
B. Realities:
1. Youth were not more rebellious and
dangerous
a. Crime rates and youth offenses went down in the
1950s
b. fear of youth stemmed from music, movies, and
pop culture
2. Beatniks merely illustrated the darker side of
the decade
a. fear of the atom bomb
b. fear generated by McCarthyism and the Red Scare