What was society like in the 1950s

Tuning a Family Radio, Circa The s family home was also very different from our own. Housework was much more difficult, as for example people did their washing by hand, instead of in a machine, and with refrigerators being a luxury item for most people, food had to be bought daily.

It was less common for married women to work and many took on the childcare and housework, while their husbands went to work. The film clip below from the Yorkshire Film Archive shows the Watkins family having tea at home in Yorkshire in the early s. It helps to give us an insight into how people lived in this period and what they did in their spare time.

They were tried in an atmosphere of near hysteria and confronted with great legal irregularities engineered by the Justice Department and the judge in the case. They were convicted of treason and sentenced to death. The great fear slowly declined after the disgrace of Joe McCarthy and other anti-communist demagogues.

But the fear of communism remained into the s, and well beyond for those who believed that communism was not just in the Soviet Union, but also in the United States as well. The average family income grew as much in the ten years after World War II as it had grown in the previous fifty years combined.

These years also saw a significant decrease in although not a disappearance of poverty in America. The percentage of families below the official poverty line in was 30 percent. By it had dropped to 22 percent and by the s, it had dropped to under 14 percent. Between and , in other words, poverty declined by over 60 percent. That was not true. There was no significant redistribution of wealth in the s and s, up or down, simply an increase in the total amount of wealth. But significantly—and in sharp contrast to the period since the mids—while there was no downward redistribution of wealth, neither was there an upward distribution of wealth.

Distribution patterns, in other words, remained unchanged—the wealthy and the poor experienced roughly the same rates of growth.

The gap between them remained the same. What caused this remarkable growth? One important cause was government spending, which was clearly the major factor in ending the Depression in the early s.

Government expenditures in were 1 percent of GNP; in , they were 17 percent. The bulk of this increase in the early s came from military spending until the end of the Korean War. After that, highway and home construction picked up much of the slack. Population grew in the s and s at twice the rate it had grown in the s. Increased population was also responsible for increased demand and increased consumption, a spur to economic growth.

The growth of suburbs after World War II was one of the great population movements in American history. Eighteen million people—10 percent of the population—moved to suburbs in the s. The American population as a whole grew 19 percent in s; suburban population grew 47 percent. Suburbs created a vast new market and provided an important boost to several of the most important sectors of the economy: the housing industry, the automobile industry, highway construction, and a wide range of consumer industries.

And another element of growth was the transformation in labor relations. The growing power of unions allowed workers to receive better wages and benefits for their members. Economic growth affected both popular and elite ideas about capitalism. Gradually it became possible to believe that there were few limits to economic growth.

Capitalism, many Americans came to believe, was capable of much greater feats than most Americans had once believed possible. John Kenneth Galbraith, the famous Harvard economist, hardly an uncritical defender of capitalism, published a small book in entitled American Capitalism. In it, he expressed some of the wonder and enthusiasm of this new discovery.

In the United States alone there need not lurk behind modern programs of social betterment that fundamental dilemma that everywhere paralyzes the will of every responsible man, the dilemma between economic progress and immediate increase of the real income of the masses.

By the mids, the belief that Keynesianism worked, that it could provide the key to keeping the economy stable, gained a growing number of economists. Many economists believed they had discovered the secret of permanent growth and permanent stability. It suggested new possibilities for social progress. Keynesianism, some of its disciples argued, made it possible to turn capitalism into a genuinely revolutionary force. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Wall Street knows it. Main Street. You can bet that the statisticians in the Kremlin know it.

If one word could describe American society during the Eisenhower era, it would be "restless. We tend to imagine the '50s as a tranquil decade, but in fact, Americans spent the years moving and searching. By , a third of the country's population lived in the ' burbs.

Many people were content, but many others felt ill at ease because of the speed at which the world was changing. Searching for new ways of coping, they embraced religion and visited psychiatrists in unprecedented numbers. Americans were well on the way to becoming a motorized society before the s, but the Depression and the halt in auto production during World War II slowed the growth of America's car culture. During the '50s, though, the number of cars in the U.

By making radical year-to-year design changes, Detroit automakers encouraged consumers to scrap older cars to buy the latest models, even as often as once a year.

On average, 4. By , Americans owned more cars than all the rest of the world put together. Others are more critical of all the waste involved. Cars were becoming more aerodynamic before the s, but with the advent of fins and lavish grilles, most cars of the decade only appeared streamlined. As cars became heavier and their engines more powerful, they required more and more gas to operate. Safety, efficiency, and durability were all sacrificed on the altar of automobile fashion.

Eisenhower was an opponent of extravagant federal spending, but one of his most enduring legacies is the Interstate Highway System, which his Secretary of Commerce called "the greatest public works program in the history of the world.

The journey of 81 trucks and autos took two months to cross the United States—at an average of only 50 miles a day. Roads were "from average to non-existent," Second Lieutenant Eisenhower noted. When he saw the modern autobahns of Germany after World War II, he again grew enthusiastic about the possibility of a new high-speed U. It was a monumental undertaking to build 41, miles of four-lane roads.

The nationwide construction project, which involved building more than 16, entrance ramps and 55, bridges, wouldn't be fully completed until the early s. To satisfy urban interests, sections of highway were constructed into and around cities. The historian Lewis Mumford predicted that Americans would regret "all the damage to our cities and our countryside [ No one listened.

Americans were delighted with the ability to drive from place to place at high speed, with no stoplights or intersections to worry about. Mumford's warnings began to resonate with more Americans by the s, when oil shortages left Americans waiting in long lines to fill up at the gas station. The nation's growing dependence on the automobile proved to be a mixed blessing.

Many Americans wanted to escape the cities and live in surrounding suburbs, and the automobile allowed them to do so. Of the 12 largest cities in the United States, 11 lost population during the s. The one exception was Los Angeles, which became a kind of car-culture mecca.

The cities suffered economically and culturally as a result. Situation comedies and variety shows were formats that were borrowed from radio. US History: Politics of the During the s , a sense of uniformity pervaded American society. Conformity was common, as young and old alike followed group norms rather than striking out on their own. Though men and women had been forced into new employment patterns during World War II, once the war was over, traditional roles were reaffirmed.

How did American society change in the s? During the s, a sense of uniformity pervaded American society. Were the s Happy Days? Nevertheless, the notion of the s as happy days lived on. Perhaps when measured against the Great Depression of the s, the world war of the s, the strife of the s, and the malaise of the s, the s were indeed fabulous.

What was popular in the s? If you wanted a cold, refreshing drink or ice cream back in the 50s, soda fountains were the new answer. Poodle Skirts. Sock Hops. The Conical Bra. Drive-In Theaters.