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The evolution of america
The evolution of america
American history chapter 9
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Happy Days
Were they really the “Happy Days”? No not the television Happy Days staring Henry Winkler, but the 1950s Happy Days. The 1950s was full of important historical events like Senator Joseph McCarthy gains power to become President and start McCarthyism during 1950–1954. Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, Disneyland opened in 1955 at Anaheim, California, America adopted "In God we Trust" as its national motto, and the Korean War ended on July 27, 1953. America was seeing a lot of big key events unfold right before their very eyes every day. With these things occur America rolled into “Happy Days” by bringing families closer to together, the population in the U.S. spick, and life becoming a lot more modern.
The 1950s seemed to have brought families of all different kinds together and spend quality time with each other. Fathers were the head of the home out working all day to supply money for his family while the children were at school and his wife was at home. The children were gone all day just like their father but they were learning and obtaining a good education from school. The mother was a stay at home housewife doing all different chores, maintenances around the house, and preparing food for the
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rest of her family when they would get home (Housekeeping Monthly). Families would spend quality time together by going to a photographer and getting a family picture of all of them smiling enjoying life. They would spend time on the weekends or after week dinners to sit down and read to each other or individually in their living room or play a game together. They would also go on a family vacation to get away from their town and daily lifestyle they would live day in and day out (TV Sitcom photos). The 1950s had a big bomb in babies making the population increase drastically.
Everything was starting to settle down after World War II and the Korean War having all the men return home to either see there beautiful wife or gorgeous women if the men were still single. Men coming home started the baby boom. Even the teenagers and young adults participated in the baby boomed as young as 15 years of age. By the year 1958, 15-19 year olds hit almost 100,000 births in the United States (Teen birthrate chart). From 1945-1965 the population of babies took a huge spick reaching over 4,000 births per thousand. People finally settled down after the two wars and started thinking about their future in having a family hence the baby boom (U.S. Census Bureau
Data). Life became more modern for people now that they were settled down and wanted to have a family. From 1947-1957 ten amazing years happen in America because life was changing right before their eyes. The television, four-engine plane, and house appliances were the three big items to take off in this ten year period. Many people lack having a modern appliances in their house such as an air conditioning, refrigerator, and dish washing machine until food packing was primary and the heat-and-serve dinner. Automobiles became more modern by adding automatic transmissions, power steering, power brakes, and tubeless tires to increase all cars of being safer and a luxury to perform at a high performance (U.S. News & World Report). Families used television, reading books, and playing games as a way to relax after eating supper or finish a long work week to spend quality time with one another. A new modern way of relaxation for men when they came home after a long stressful workday was the TV Stratolounger which was a comfortable recliner chair to take a quick nap in before his wife had finished making dinner. This allow the man who provided for his family to escape the world for a few minutes maybe a few hours to rest and relax and be fresh for his family to enjoyable to be around (Stratolounger ad). Although 1950s might have seemed like the “Happy Days” doesn’t mean people didn’t face hardships in life. Women were treated as if they only useful to be housewives to look after and maintain the house while her husband was out working. Her children were in school too so it would just be her at home and many women suffered from sleeping in and boredom of living a worthless. But nevertheless, the 1950s were actually the “Happy Days” of America because they brought families closer to together, the population in the U.S. spick, and life becoming a lot more modern.
After viewing an episode of I Love Lucy, positive aspects of family and financial issues can be clearly seen in the 1950s. The Ricardo's are middle class, Ricky works as a club band leader and Lucy stays home and `poured all her energies into their nuclear family.' (37) This is a positive side of the 1950s because compared to a few decades before, `women quit their jobs as soon as they became pregnant,' (36) and concentrated more on raising children. These families were much more stable and made almost `60 percent of kids were born into male breadwinner-female homemaker families,' (37) which is a important factor for children to have a good childhood.
With the beginnings of the cold war the media and propaganda machine was instrumental in the idea of the nuclear family and how that made America and democracy superior to the “evils” of the Soviet Union and Communism; with this in mind the main goal of the 50’s women was to get married. The women of the time were becoming wives in their late teens and early twenties. Even if a women went to college it was assumed that she was there to meet her future husband. Generally a woman’s economic survival was dependent on men and employment opportunities were minimal.
Some historians have argued that 1950s America marked a step back for the advancement that women made during WWII. What contributed to this “return to domesticity” and do you believe that the the decade was good or bad for women?
(It should be noted that the following discussion of these social developments is primarily of the general, dominant, white, middle-class American and does not address trends related to race or ethnicity.) Stephanie Coontz does just this in her book, The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families. She addresses the several trends that have been misguidedly converted into the popularized images we hold of the 1950s. Indeed, begins Coontz in her argument, the 1950s was a decade in which “greater optimism did exist…even among many individuals and groups who were in terrible circumstances” (Coontz, 1997: 35). The postwar economic boom was
As mentioned before, sociologists Coontz and Hochschild further elaborate upon Parsons and Bales’ concepts of the American family, but they mostly critique the idea of the male-breadwinner family. One of the main arguments Coontz and Hochschild present is the decline of the male-breadwinner family due to the economic changes of the United States and the arising social norms of consumerism. Because Parsons and Bales never considered how the changes throughout society would affect family, they believed the male-breadwinner family would continue to be a functional type of family for everyone. However, within her text, “What We Really Miss about the 1950s,” Coontz specifically discusses the major expense of keeping mothers at home as consumption norms...
A family has always been expected to be a loving and caring environment with support and communication, but this sometimes does not come naturally to soon to be parents. Some get caught up specifically in bad things, perhaps their upbringings are to blame or maybe the individual could take all of the responsibility. When a society chooses what is to be socially acceptable, that limits relatives to only one kind of family and the object becomes destroying all other kinds. The 1950s was a time when technology wasn’t a big distraction from loved ones. Joyin Shih feels her true self being targeted by others, even her own family, in attempt to destroy her true self in her article, “Chyna and Me”. Alex Williams may also be missing the 1950s an article by Stephanie Coontz called “What We Really Miss About The 1950s” because he finds that families may not be as caring as they used to be in fact he argues that families are becoming more isolated than ever in his article “Quality Time, Redefined”. Good gives people a lot of frustration, more the division than the “good” because not all families coming from different cultures, different religions, and different ideas can fit into one mold that is called “acceptable”. The more connected individuals are to the Internet the fewer individuals are connected to each other. Technology should not be the biggest tool of communication in a family.
Like stated earlier, gender roles in the 50’s were very strict and narrow-minded. That being said, women were extremely limited in their role in society. First of all, women were expected to be homemakers. By homemaker, I mean the women w...
The 1950’s was a time in history when America began to flourish, through its advancements in music, technology, and its emphasis on the individual. The emergence of Rock and Roll contributed to the birth of the ‘rebel’ by giving teenagers an excuse to disobey their parents through the expression of music. Adults of the 1950’s insisted that Rock and Roll corrupted the minds of the youth. This revolution in music not only affected the decade from an entertainment standpoint, but also from a fashion perspective. Teenagers wore leather jackets, poodle skirts, slicked back hair, and beehive hairdos. Through sports and the civil rights act, blacks began to be more accepted into the 1950’s society. Although segregation was still alive, many blacks swore they could see freedom in the near future. Black athletes, like Jackie Robinson, proved that talent outweighed skin color. Existentialism became a popular philosophy during the 1950’s, which emphasized the individual. The true meaning of this movement was vague, but followers believed that society was trying to control their every action. Many authors and philosophers of this decade wrote on the subject of existentialism, including Flannery O’Connor. Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Good Country People,” was published in 1955 and demonstrates the 1950’s view of existentialism through the use of symbolism and irony.
Society in America during the 1950’s was one that portrayed men and women in very different, but rigid roles. Women were housewives, secretaries, and mothers. Men were providers, war heroes, and businessmen. Television, newspapers and magazines played an important role as well in determining ways men and women should behave. Advertisements for real estate were designed to sell to the “All-American” family. For example; Dad would be the returned home veteran who is now running the company, Mom is an ideal housewife who works a couple days a week for extra vacation cash, little Billy likes baseball and his sister Susie plays with dolls. Houses designed with this type of family in mind would prove very effective in luring away many from the city to live in suburbs like this at a rapid pace. Most jobs in the work place were gender divided. Help-wanted ads placed in newspapers in the 1950’s were very gender biased as well. Some ads with attention getting headlines could have read: “Sales Girl,” and “Brides! Housewives!” Occupations offered to women at this time were very limiting.
Conformity was common among all ages in the 1950s. Men were expected to work and support their family financially, while women, even though some worked, were expected to cook, clean, and take care of the family. This is best shown within A & P when Sammy describes how the costumers, he referred to as “sheep”, pushed their carts down the aisles in the same flow of traffic every day. He even refers to them as “house slaves in pin curlers” (Updike 354).
The era of the 1950s was an iconic era in American history. The American dream of freedom, self empowerment, and success was growing. After world war 1, the ideals of american culture changed. The country saw the aftermath of the war in the countries of western Europe where communism was beginning to take hold, and the U.S tried to be the opposite. Marriage was propagated to be the opposite of the war torn families across the world, where women were working in factories and children fending for themselves with no home. The American “nuclear family” strived to be one where the father supported his family, the wife stayed home and provided for her children. Family became a national priority, and women were taught that a happy marriage and home
People that grew up in the sixties experienced different values and morals. Parents were more strict when it came to rules. Children never stayed out past dark and always came home at a decent time on school nights. People would never question their parents and especially not their teachers People then were almost always married before having children. Having a child outside of marriage was very frowned upon and not
The 1950s was a time when American life seemed to be in an ideal model for what family should be. People were portrayed as being happy and content with their lives by the meadia. Women and children were seen as being kind and courteous to the other members of society while when the day ended they were all there to support the man of the house. All of this was just a mirage for what was happening under the surface in the minds of everyone during that time as seen through the women, children, and men of this time struggled to fit into the mold that society had made for them.
The Roaring Twenties was America’s golden age. F. Scott Fitzgerald once said,“The parties were bigger, the pace was faster, the shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the morals were looser, and the liquor was cheaper” (“People” PBS). The cultural undertone of the twenties was very different from the times before and during World War I. “ For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms…people from coast to coast bought the same goods…listened to the same music, did the same dances, and even used the same slang” (“Roaring” History). The Twenties was a time of social and cultural change. During this time, things like the automobile and jazz became more popular and mainstream. These things were possible because America
The roaring twenties were a time of cultural, artistic, and social explosion for the United States of America. This era was distinguished by several inventions and discoveries, rapid industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand and significant changes in American lifestyle. It was a time when people lived life to the fullest and pursued having a good time. The census of 1920 showed that for the first time in American history, more people lived in urban areas such as cities than out in the country. While the amount of modern technology would be somewhat lackluster in comparison to what we have today, I would be glad to live in the 1920’s.