The Changing Values Of The 1950's

Out of some of the most turbulent times in history have come the greatest ages of success and prosperity. The 1920’s and 1950’s are two eras that exemplify the spirit of triumph and wealth. In both decades, a nation thrilled by the victorious conclusion of war and the return of their loved ones from war entered into an age of capitalism and materialism, bolstering the economy and with it national pride. Some of features most common to the 20’s and 50’s were consumerism and the accompanying optimistic mindset, the extent to which new ideas entered society, and discrimination in terms of both sexism and racism.

“The official poverty rate is 13.5% based on the U.S Census Bureau’s 2015 estimate”. (http://povertyucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-united-states). In the 1950s more than 23% of Americans were living in poverty. (Excerpt from “The Fifties”: Fifties society). The average poverty rate in the US has gone down since the 1950s, that is a good change for the society. The poverty rate in the US has gone up by 1.3%. This is a bad change for the US society. “The average unemployment rate in the U.S today is 4.3%”. (Google). “The average unemployment rate in the 1950s was 3%”. (Google). The unemployment rate has gone up which is a bad change. The society had changed also since the 1950s for example, in the 1950s you didn’t have to lock your doors or lock your car because the crime rate was so low that people didn’t have to worry about other people breaking into their house, stealing, robbing them, or break into their cars. Now today when people leave their house they lock their doors right away because how high the crime rate is. “The average income for a family in 2014 is $65,751”. (https://www.ustoday.com/story/money/personalincome/2016/11/24/average-american-household-income/93002252/.) “The average income for a family in the 1950s was between $3,319 and $4,418”. (https://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/yi/yi/16.pdf). The average income for families has drastically changed for the better witch shows that the American society in some aspects is changing for the

Life today is very fast-paced. Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere and will push you out of the way to get there, like it's some kind of race. In our personal lives, we have our cell phones, and maybe a home phone, scheduled play dates for our kids, microwaves, satellite TV, home security systems that don't involve dogs, solar landscape lighting, automatic underground sprinkler systems for our lawns, and compact fluorescent lights to replace the incandescent bulbs that waste energy. In the business world, you have meetings that you can attend by using a video phone, PowerPoint presentations to help you get your point across at the meetings you can't get out of, instant messaging to speak to clients and other businesses around the

The 1920’s were a very important era in America for better or worse. There were many issues in relation to race and how people of different ethnic groups were treated. African American had a cultural rejuvenation that being the Harlem Renaissance. The advent of the Ford Model T change the way how people traveled. Many may say an era like the 1950’s were highly comparable. Race related issues were on a decline as America as whole sought to be more accepting and the oppressed started to speak out on it. While some may argue that the 1920’s and the 1950’s were similar time periods, you can say they were different due to how the way minority ethnic groups were treated and the new consumerist lifestyles of people in the 1950’s. I believe that

Life in the 1950s was a time where when a women was married and has kids she would stay home taking care of the meals, and children. Men would be the ones to go out and find a good job that helps with money problems. Also sometimes married women would hire a nanny to also help around the house. In the 1950s men respected women more than they do today because women were supposed to be beautiful and elegant. Also men were able to be a gentleman around women.

The central aim of space exploration and its chief inspiration during the 1960s was the landing of instruments and men on the moon and planets, in particular to search for any sign of life.

The 1950’s in the United States of America were characterized by a strong fear of communism, growing consumerism due to a healthy and fast growing postwar industry and the belief that the nuclear family is the heart of the American society. If we examine these three ideologies closer and oppose them to Stephanie Coontz opinion expressed in her essay “Leave It to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet: American Families in the 1950s,”, we see that many myths existed about the 1950’s.

The 1950s were characterized as a prosperous and conformist decade for many reasons. The first and most widespread of these reasons was the development of the suburbs. As masses of Southern blacks migrated northward to the big cities, more rich and middle-class families left to live in the suburbs to escape the crime, redlining, and blockbusting of the cities. This mass migration later became known as the “white flight” (Document A). The white families that moved into the suburbs were the perfect picture of conformity—living in row upon row of identical “Levittown” houses, with little individuality or distinction. Furthermore, American families of the time often took the form of the “nuclear family” with two parents, two children, and often a pet like a dog or cat. This new “middle class” earned between $3,000 and $10,000 a year and included 60 percent of the American people by the mid-1950s. Fortune magazine described Americans as “a great mass…buy[ing] the same things—the same staples, the same appliances, the same cars, the same furniture, and much the

The 1950s, especially in the United States of America and the United Kingdom, is often described as a time of complacency as it was after the Second World War and people were sure there could be noting worse that could happen and they were slowly adjusting to post-war life. In contrast, the 1960s were a time of great change and activity. These changes include cultural, social, political and economic changes. These changes started in Britain and the United, and they then spread to the rest of the world after some time. Urban planning as a profession has also been affected by the cultural, social, political and economic changes that affected the world in the 1960s and as such it responded in a particular way to these changes.

Conrad Phillip Kottak has visited the small village of Arembepe numerous times over the years. His visits were frequent, but spaced out over a couple years, which caused him to begin to notice some very dramatic changes from the Arembepe he came to know. The development of a more stratified society caused for some major changes coming to the small community. This essay is going to address the major cultural changes from the 1960’s to the 1980’s and whether or not the suburbanization of this village community was good or bad.

Question: “To what extent were the 1950’s the most important turning point in the development of African-American rights in the period 1865-1992?” Whilst the 1950’s were undoubtedly pivotal in developing the course and future tactics of the Civil Rights Movement, it would be hyperbolic to suggest that the 1950’s were the most significant turning point in the development of African-American rights in the period 1865-1992. The lack of political and social progress for African-Americans, even when evaluating the impact of relative successes, highlight the minimal impact the 1950’s had on African-American life. It should still be stressed that the 1950s laid the significant groundwork and established the nature of the Civil Rights Movement.

During the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s various aspects of the United States society changed tremendously. These three decades were times of extreme evolvement amongst culture in an unusual brisk manner. Nowadays it is easy to forget that current people involved in our life actually were witness to these revolutionary events.

In the early 1960’s there were many changes and challenges for America. This time period was led by two completely different types of men. President Kennedy was a younger man from Massachusetts and was more about solving America’s problems foreignly. This was made clear in his New Frontier policy. Lyndon Johnson came from humble beings and was more of an in your face kind of president. Johnson focused on the war on poverty and did everything he could to limit that gap between the rich and poor. Johnson was also led America into a war in Vietnam and Vietnam was the major conflict of the early 1960’s.

The decade of the 1950s represents an era where life was balanced, simple, and innocent. A time in the American history where a high school education promised a comfortable living and where family values were presented to audiences through television shows. In the article, Coontz argues that the simplicity and innocence that the people who lived in this time period enjoyed came at a high price. Coontz claims that generally those who felt that the 1950s was the "best time for children to grow up" would show their dislike for the treatment of women. They also would add that they would not particularly enjoy living with the most "of the fathers they knew in their neighborhoods." She also points out the economic and social reasons why the 1950s is so appealing to quite a lot of people. There were lower divorce rates, federal economic expansion programs, corporate tax programs, and

When a country can fluently distribute it’s money through hands and make sure there is a flow is occurring of that money, it will have a successful economy. Consumerism, which is the theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable, has provided that flow of money through poor and rich families in the U.S. Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987) once articulated about the simplicity of U.S consumerism as “What's great about this country is America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a