1950s Culture and Society

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1950s Culture and Society
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Did you know that this came out in the 1950s?
Silly putty
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(No Transcript)
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TV Changes American Life

• Scientists worked on TV since 1920s
• By end of WWII, ready for home use
• Between 1945-1950, 5 million TVs were sold
• In 1959, 40 million were sold

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Use of TV

• Politics
• V.P. Candidate Nixon used TV to appeal to public
• Checkers Speech
• 1954 Senate-Army Hearings
• Altered career of Senator Joe McCarthy

• Advertising
• Combination of picture sound had more
  persuasive potential than radio
• By 1960, TV major method of advertising
• Commercials developed

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Programming

• I Love Lucy
• Texaco Star Theater with comedian Milton Berle
  1st big hit
• Nicknamed Mr TV
• American Bandstand appeal from cultural movement
  of 1950s
• Rock roll
• Hosted by Dick Clark gt forum for artists but also
  showed fashion/trends
• On TV until 1987

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Programming Continued

• Introduction of Daytime dramas (soaps), crime
  drama, game show
• TV guide helped keep track
• Some questioned effects on kids
• Scandal in 1950s with rigged games (Quiz Show)
• 1954 CBS NBC begin color broadcast

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Technology

• Computer
• 1951 available for commercial use
• Called UNIVAC (universal automatic computer)
• Weighed 30,000 lbs
• Cost 50,000
• International Business Market (IBM)

• Polio -Most contagious disease
• Worst year on record 1952 with 57,000 cases
• Scientist Jonas Salk developed vaccine

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Children

• Baby Boom
• Peak in 1957
• Baby born every 7 seconds
• Extra-curricular
• Additional opportunities in Boy/Girl Scouts,
  music lessons, toys
• 1st generation raised with TV
• Dr. Benjamin Spock
• Child Care women stay at home
• Not spoil, use discipline
• Family dynamics

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Boom

• Economically
• Threats of nuclear war but economic success
• Worlds greatest economic power (yet just 67 of
  worlds population)
• Socially
• Baby boom
• William Levitt created community of homes
  (Levittowns)
• Stocked with appliances

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New Communities

• Levittowns affordable gt GI Bill
• Not diverse (wouldnt sell to African Americans)
• Cookie cutter
• Suburbs because crowding in cities
• Sunbelt warmer S.W. part of US
• Air conditioning
• CA major destination
• Highways
• Ike favored highway development
• 1956 Congress approved funding for 40,000 miles
  of highway system

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1950s Rebellion

• Many rebelled against sameness conformity
• Marlon Brando James Dean (actors)
• Jack Kerouac Beat Generation took position of
  outsiders gt borrowed language from jazz music
  rejected social norms

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50s Music

• Music rebellion of youth
• Rock n Roll combo of bluegrass rhythm
  blues
• Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
• Doo-Wop bubble gum music
• Angels My Boyfriends Back
• The Penguins Earth Angel
• The Five Stains In The Still of the Night

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Women

• In general, maintained a traditional role
• Marriage
• Average age for women to marry in 1940 21.5,
  drops to 20.1 in 1950
• 1950 60 of women 18-24 are married
• Working
• Women 50 of workforce but earn only 60 of
  what men do jobs are temporary few in
  upper-management
• Rights
• Betty Friedan begins womens rights movement
• Activist vs. Housewife (June Cleaver)