50’sMidcentury

Post WW II: expansion Auto Govt.

◦ Infrastructure, military

GROWTH

41k miles

$$$

INTERSTATE HIGHWAY ACT

5 in Anaheim

133 Irvine

Depression War

Population

An aerial view of 1950s tract houses in the suburban development of Levittown, New York. Mass production techniques were key to providing affordable housing in the new postwar suburbs—but they required a “cookie cutter” approach to architecture, with little or no variation among the houses. SOURCE:Getty Images,Inc/Hulton Archive Photos.

Conformity: ◦ Housing

◦ Culture Disneyland, McDonalds, Holiday Inn

SUBURBAN LIFE

A 1950s family watching “I Love Lucy,” one of the most popular situation comedies in the early days of television. Manufacturers designed and marketed TV sets as living room furniture and emphasized their role in fostering family togetherness.

A crowded commuter train in Philadelphia, ca. 1955. The rapid growth of suburbs in the postwar era made commuting to work, either by mass transit or auto, a routine part of life for millions of Americans. SOURCE:Getty Images Inc./Hulton Archive.

Consumers $$$

Credit: 1950, Diner’s club◦ Visa, etc.

$8 bil – 1946 $45 bil – 1958

Ads $$

T.V. dinner: 1954

Good life=endless spending

T.V. CULTURE

FIGURE 27.1 The Growth of the Suburbs, 1950–70 Suburban growth, at the expense of older inner cities, was one of the key social trends in the twenty-five years following World War II. By 1970, more Americans lived in suburbs than in either inner cities or rural areas.SOURCE:Adapted from U.S.Bureau of the Census,Current Censuses, 1930 –1970 (Washington DC:U.S.Government Printing Office,1975).

FIGURE 27.2 L. A. County Population 1920–80

Suburbs: no minorities

VA, FHA segregation

Private banks◦ “red lining”

CLASS/RACE

REBELS

Rock n Roll◦ Black R&B

Diverse◦ Ritchie Valens

MUSIC

This photo of Elvis Presley singing at a 1956 state fair in Memphis captured his dramatic stage presence. Performing with only a trio, his sound was spare but hard driving. Both the music and Presley’s stage moves owed a great deal to African American rhythm and blues artists. SOURCE:Getty Images,Inc.(C422).

Erotic power

Rock pioneer Chuck Berry and one of his many younger disciples, Bruce Springsteen, played together at the grand opening of the Hall in September 1995. Berry was among the inaugural class of inductees in 1986. Terry Knerem/Corbis/Sygma.

Boring, dull, middle-class male

MEN

Hugh Hefner Playboy “good life” Sexual pleasures, consumerism

What does this magazine tell you about life in the 1950’s?

Compare and contrast to our world today?

PLAYBOY

Writers, artists Non-conformity, jazz, drugs

BEAT

Consumers◦ Music, magazines

Parents?

TEENS

Economic growth: middle, upper classes The rest: poverty

POVERTY

Signs designating “White” and “Colored” rest rooms, waiting rooms, entrances, benches, and even water fountains were a common sight in the segregated South. They were a constant reminder that legal separation of the races in public spaces was the law of the land.SOURCE:(left)Photo by Dan McCoy.Black Star;(right)Segregation Trailways.CORBIS.

ORIGINS? WWII experiences

◦ Double V

Harlem Renaissance

Lemon grove Mexican-American children

◦ Separate school

Latinos=“White”

Roberto Alvarez, 1931

Mendez vs. westminster Orange County 1947 Felicitas and Gonzalo

“Separate but Equal”

BROWN VS. BOARD (1954) Plessy v. Ferguson Segregation “separate but inherently unequal”

Hernandez vs. texas (1954) Texas, Southwest Law: Mexicans=White Reality: discrimination, racism

Hernandez vs. texas ???

◦ Mexican-American civil rights◦ Expansion of equal protection

Beyond Black/White

EMMETT TILL 14 Brutally murdered

Dr. King