American Life
and Culture
of the 1950s:
Politics
Election of 1948:
• Harry Truman (Democrat)
• Thomas Dewey (Republican)
• Strom Thurmond
(States Rights Party Dixiecrats)
Outcome: Truman Wins!
Fair Deal:
• Truman’s economic
policy
• An extension of FDR’s
New Deal
Politics
Election of 1952:
• Adlai Stevenson (Democrat)
• Dwight D. Eisenhower(Republican)
Outcome:
• Eisenhower wins!
• Modern Republicanism
Changes to the Family
Cause:
• Gender Roles Cause Conflict
• Tradition Men Work & Women
Stay at Home
Effect:
• High Divorce Rate
• Women Challenge
Traditional Gender Roles
The Baby Boom
Cause:
• By 1946, 10 million men and
women have returned home
from active duty and released
from the armed forces.
Effect:
• Baby Boom: increase in
American births resulting in
a U.S. population explosion
“It seems to me that every other young
housewife I see is pregnant”.
-- British visitor to America, 1958
Ex: 1957  1 baby born every 7 seconds
Dr. Benjamin Spock:
• author of Common Sense
Book of Baby & Child Care
• parents used as guide to
raise their children
Dr. Jonas Salk:
developed a
vaccine for polio
Effects on Schools:
• Increase in school enrollment
• Overcrowding in Schools
• Teacher Shortages
Suburban Living
Issue:
Solution:
• Returning veterans
• Mass Produced Housing
face housing shortage • Built in the Suburbs
•
Ex: Levitttown on Long Island
$7,990 or $60/month with no down payment.
SHIFTS IN POPULATION
DISTRIBUTION,
1940-1970
Central Cities
Suburbs
Rural Areas/
Small Towns
1940
31.6%
19.5%
48.9%
1950
32.3%
23.8%
43.9%
1960
32.6%
30.7%
36.7%
1970
32.0%
41.6%
26.4%
- Source: U. S. Bureau of the Census
Americans Hit the Road
• In the 1950’s Americans buy cars in record numbers
• Suburban living required cars for mobility
Outcomes:
• Interstate Highway Act (1956): authorized the
creation of a nationwide highway network
• Rise in family vacations (national parks,
amusement parks, historic sites, etc.)
Led to the establishment of:
The Drive Thru
Freedom for Teens
The Drive-In Movie
Family Vacations
Consumerism
Consumerism: the buying of material goods
Cause:
• By mid 1960’s 60% of Americans
were part of the “middle class”
• Buying consumer goods = success
Effect:
• New products hit the market place
All babies were potential consumers who spearheaded
a brand-new market for food, clothing, and shelter.
-- Life Magazine (May, 1958)
Planned Obsolescence:
• Marketing strategy in which manufacturers design
products to become outdated in a short amount of time
to encourage consumers to purchase the newest design
Examples:
• cars
• televisions
• washing
machines
• kitchen
appliances
Advertising Age:
• Billboards, Newspapers, Magazines, Radio,
Television, and Catalogs
• Appeal to people’s desire for status to buy things they
didn’t really need
A Changing Workplace
Cause  Automation
• 1947-1957  factory workers decrease
blue-collar jobs eliminated
• By 1956  more white-collar than
blue-collar jobs in the U. S.
Ex: Computers  1st IBM mainframe computer (1951)
New Corporate Culture:
- The Company Man:
The 1950’s: Mass Culture
• The 1950’s is the beginning of modern day “pop culture”
• Mass Culture: culture that is widely spread via mass
media (radio, magazines, newspaper,
and starting in the 1950’s………
Television
1946  7,000 TV sets in the U. S.
1950  50,000,000 TV sets in the U. S.
The 1950’s is called the
“Golden Age of Television”
TV celebrated traditional
American values.
Truth, Justice, and the American way!
The Typical TV Suburban Families
TV portrayed stereotypes of the
family, women, and minorities
The Donna
Reed Show
1958-1966
Father Knows Best
1954-1958
Leave It
to Beaver
1957-1963
The Ozzie & Harriet Show
1952-1966
Television - Family Shows
Glossy view of mostly
middle-class white suburban life
I Love Lucy
The Honeymooners
Television – The Western
Davy Crockett
King of the Wild Frontier
Sheriff Matt
Dillon, Gunsmoke
The Lone Ranger
(and his faithful
sidekick, Tonto):
1950’s Movies
1954: Rear Window
by Alfred Hitchcock
1951: The Day the
Earth Stood Still
(Golden Age of Sci-Fi)
1956: Ten Commandments
starring Charlton Heston
1951: A Streetcar Named
Desire starring Marlon Brando
1959: Ben Hur wins
11 Academy Awards
1950’s Music
Rock ‘n’ Roll:
• Form of American music that began in the 1950’s & is a
mixture of rhythm & blues, country, jazz, gospel, and pop
• Term coined by Alan
Freed a Cleveland, OH
radio disc jockey in 1951
Rock n Roll Musicians
Elvis Presley
Chuck Berry
Bill Haley & the Comets
Buddy Holly
Little Richard
Teen Culture
In the 1950s  the word “teenager” entered
the American language.
Causes:
• Booming economy allowed
students to stay in school vs.
work to support family
• Business's target this new
consumer group
Juvenile Rebellion
J. D. Salinger’s
A Catcher in the Rye (1951)
1950’s Advertisement
James Dean in
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Marlon Brando in
The Wild One (1953)
1950’s Cultural Norms
• Obey Authority.
• Control Your Emotions.
• Don’t Make Waves  Fit in
with the Group.
• Don’t Even Think About Sex!!!
1950’s Counterculture
Beat Movement:
• Social & artistic movement stressing unrestrained
literary expression and non-conformity with 1950’s
mainstream culture
“Beatnik”
“Clean” Teen
• Centered in San Francisco,
L.A., and NYC
• Artists, Poets, & Writers
• Nicknamed “Beatniks”
Religious Revival
Church membership: 1940  64,000,000
1960  114,000,000
Bishop
Fulton Sheen
Reverend
Billy Graham
Minister Norman
Vincent Peale
Today in the U. S., the Christian faith is back
in the center of things. -- Time magazine, 1954