American Studies
Unit IX: The Fifties
15.3: Poverty and Plenty
Name______________________
1. When we think of the Fifties, what words come to mind?
 Conformity
 Consumerism
 Levittown
 Rock and Roll
 Baby Boom
 Child-Centered Society
You can amend your list on the 15.1 worksheet by adding some of these, but keep your
own if you think they are right. Also, share some words you thought of while watching
the Pleasantville clips and see if your classmates agree.
2. In what ways was the view of 1950s America portrayed in Pleasantville, The
Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, and Leave it to Beaver unrealistic?
It left out most of the people in 1950s America! This included:
• Men with blue collar jobs (still a majority of all workers then)
• Women who worked outside the home
• African-Americans (for that matter, Asian and Latino minorities, too)
• Retired and older Americans
• Rebels who didn’t fit in, like unmarried, childless adults
• Anybody poor
3. Why were the urban poor of the 1950s “invisible”?
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Idea that poverty was nearly eliminated was promoted by historians, magazines
– Time magazine- “nothing less than the elimination of poverty as a fact of
life is in sight.”
Middle class
– White America simply ignored it
• Didn’t fit with the “good life” image of the ‘50s
– Lived in the suburbs (poor usually lived in cities)
Poor lacked a political voice
– Political bosses of the industrial era were gone
4. What do you think middle-class Americans of the 1950s assumed about the
poor and the lives poor people led?
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Must be lazy, dumb
Alcoholics or drug addicts
Moral failures
Racial stereotypes
It’s their own fault!
5. List three reasons for poverty in America in the 1950s:
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Racial prejudice
– African Americans & Hispanics could not get good jobs
Automation
– Jobs replaced by new machinery
– White Appalachians lost coal mining jobs
Elderly
– High medical expenses
• No such thing as Medicare
– Not covered by social security and had no pensions
6. What is the “culture of poverty”?
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Term coined by Michael Harrington and his book, The Other America
Reflects the vicious cycle of poverty
– Said that poor get sick more than middle class
– and therefore miss more work
– and therefore lose their jobs
– and therefore eat poorly
– and therefore get sicker …
(Mention also ‘cycle of poverty’, in which people grow up assuming their destiny is to be
poor: some urban poor today are fourth generation to live in the ghetto, which means it
started in the 1950s or before)
7. Why was there a larger group of poor elderly in the 1950s, which really hadn’t
existed earlier (other than during depressions)?
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8 million (over 65) made less than $1,000 per year
Technology a double-edged blessing
– Helped them lived longer
– But helped leave them unemployed
• In farm, factory, and mining business
Widowed
– At best, one income
– No welfare yet for widows who had never worked for pay
Lacked hope
– Had no hope of getting a job
8. How was the poverty of the 1950s different from that of the Great Depression?
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Harrington called poverty of 1950s “new poverty”
GD affected nearly everyone
Government organized large relief, recovery, and reform program
New poor had no such program