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Surveys the social, cultural, and political history of the United States during the decade of the 1950's.
- Sales Rank: #1176552 in Books
- Published on: 1977-05
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 2
- Binding: Hardcover
- 444 pages
- Douglas T. Miller
- Marion Nowak
- 1950s
Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Reveals the Age of Conformity for What It Really Was
By David Valentino
Currently out of print, though available used and in libraries, even smaller local ones, here's a comprehensive, interpretive history of a period viewed by some as peaceful, prosperous, and all together pleasant, especially when compared to what followed, and life today. This history, putting aside its sometimes strident liberal viewpoint, is often brilliant, always incisive, and continuously thought provoking. It deserves to be reissued with a new chapter by the authors (if they are still with us). It would be interesting to learn what they make of present times, which carry a very apparent fifties' imprint.
Introduction: Provides a succinct overview of the era. The authors partition the fifties as follows: 1948-53, The Age of Fear; 1954-57, The Era of Conservative Consensus; 1958-60, The Time of National Reassessment.
1. Sinister Sweets and More Insidious McCarthyisms: Covers the nation's almost irrational fear of communism, which originated before McCarthy popped onto the scene to really focus the nation on its new Red scare. This fear's "impact on that era can be seen in a variety of ways: the conformity, the search for security, the sizable return to religion, the celebration of the family and middle-class virtues, the absence of an effective left, the docility of labor unions, the 'silent generation' of college students, the widespread political apathy, the cold war, the arms race, the reliance on nuclear supremacy."
2. Learning to Love the Bomb: Delineates the pernicious effect of the ever-present drumbeat of nuclear annihilation on the mentality of Americans, who found themselves encouraged schizophrenically to fear nuclear power and also to love it as a tamed servant. "The psychic consequences were great. Americans in general felt powerless, helpless, nervous. Many other factors had contributed to these emotions: the Red scare, the spread of corporate bureaucracy into their daily lives, mass conformity. But the nuclear threat motivating the cold war was the medium helping these factors succeed."
3. Ain't Nobody Here but Us Protestants, Catholics, and Jews: Explains the return to religion, the causes for and the manifestation of religion in American life. "What most Americans did want from religion was a sense of well-being, the assurance that as members of a church or synagogue they shared an esteemed place in society." In other words, they wanted a secular religion.
4. People's Capitalism and Other Edsels: Details the rise of American oligarchic capitalism, in which a handful of giant corporations dominate industries. Recently, as a presidential candidate promised to put American to work by building military equipment, we find ourselves brought right back to the fifties' frame of mind. "And so, despite a growing national doubt, the decade ended economically as it began--spewing forth an ever-increasing volume of bombs, bazookas, bubble gum, cars and tanks, deodorants, crying dolls, hula hoops, pillows, and pollution. They called it people's capitalism."
5. The Paving of America: Discusses the corporate man and wife, the rise of suburbia, life in these mass-produced retreats from the city, and the people who occupied them. As the authors write, "An advanced technological society demands an increasingly high degree of social organization. It needs people who function smoothly in large groups; people who are willing to be commanded and who fit into the social machine without friction; people who want to consume more and more, and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated. By the 1950s American capitalism in conjunction with other social institutions--family, school, church, state--had produced such socialized individuals in abundance."
6. The Happy Home Corporation and Baby Factory: A potent indictment of the American myth of the male-female mystique as a mentally debilitating straightjacket for both sexes. A chapter clearly influenced by the early more radical wing of the feminist revolution; nonetheless, an insightful view of gender divisions in the 1950s. "The master stroke of the feminine mystique was to be able to explain away ... restless women's discontent ... if a woman was discontented, it was for no reason other than her denial of her own femininity. Yet for her to embrace her femininity, woman had to deny her rationality and many emotional satisfactions."
7. Three-Fifths of a Person: Many intriguing insights into the rising civil rights movement, not the least of which the influence of the cold war on American race relations. A hallmark of the period, one perennial in American history, cited by the authors as a reason for the stagnation in racial understanding that had begun after WWI: "But racial awareness froze at that point for many years. To an extent, this happened because of the way Americans handled many problems in the fifties. A problem is recognized; it is acknowledged to be un-American and wrong; then it is pronounced to be vanishing--because people now care." From amid the turmoil of present day, the assessment rings loud and sharply.
8. Intellectuals: The Conservative Contraction: An interesting argument that you might find helps explain why now, as then in the 1950s, the moderate middle seems lackluster and less effective. Probably the most complex chapter in the book, it's where the authors clearly define their political and intellectual leanings. "The dominant intellectual climate of the 1950s ... was profoundly conservative ... In championing an anti-utopian, hardheaded realism--a wheeler-dealer pragmatism and factionalism with little concern for ideas or morals--they helped lay the groundwork for the amoral policies of the sixties and seventies: Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Watergate."
9. Showdown at the Little Red Schoolhouse: Very familiar, the political and ideological battleground known as the American public education system. While the progressive education movement was failing for any number of reasons, the right assailed it as an organized communist plot to win over the hearts and minds of American children. "The most serious and consistent conservative criticism was that progressive education and communism were one--or nearly so."
10. Growing Up: Delves into the silent youth of the 1950s and the turmoil seething below the surface that contributed to delinquency and, later, rebellion. What it meant to be a youth in the 1950s, as the authors write, was adaptation to conformity. "Security itself was the watchword, for youth as well as for adults. For girls, security meant marrying the right man and mothering a family. For boys, it meant having that family too, plus a nice corporate job."
11. More than a Music: Among the best histories of rock 'n roll, particularly its social significance and impact on youths and adults. Touches on many icons of early rock and the black experience, as it pays special attention to the importance of Elvis Presley in popularizing the music form. As to rock's significance, "It was how adults reacted to rock in the latter fifties that made it more than a music. Because without consciously doing so, the opponents of this music were articulating a cultural stance of inherent contradiction, a cultural stance not so much against the music as against the thing it represented. Entertainment was on the way to becoming polemic."
12. Hollywood in Transition: Covers changes in the film industry brought on by factors including the anti-communist investigations, anti-trust rulings against production companies, and the popularity and challenge of television. The authors highlight creative and technological trends in films, discuss a number of movies and their significance, and provide insight into the effect of communist witch hunts. "The effect of such pressure was to enforce mediocrity. Films dealing with social, political, or psychological problems were reduced to a minimum."
13. TV's the Thing: A comprehensive analysis of the rise and influence of television on American life. In particular, the authors demonstrate how in short order large corporation co-opted the medium. "The shape TV assumed in the fifties was authoritarian, commercial, and monolithic." Includes a look at reality shows of the day, among them "Queen for a Day," a thoroughly disturbing display of personal mendicant humiliation.
14. Beyond Alienation: Fiction in the Fifties: An interesting take on the serious novels of the decade, those featuring an alienated protagonist. Quoting Philip Roth from a 1961 Commentary article: "The American writer in the middle of the twentieth century has his hands full in trying to understand, and then describe, and then make credible much of the American reality. It stupefies, it sickens, it infuriates, and finally it is even a kind of embarrassment to one's own meager imagination."
Among the better histories of the Age of Conformity and highly recommended to those who wish to peek behind the scrim of nostalgia veiling the period.
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
The Hobo Philosopher
By Richard E. Noble
The Fifties - The Way We Really Were
By Douglas T. Miller & Marion Nowak
Book Review
By Richard E. Noble
Well, once again, after I read this book, marked it up with my highlighter, and folded over all the corners, I climb onto Amazon and find out I have a one of a kind, valuable book. Oh well, you almost win one and then you lose as usual.
I have been very busy myself these days writing nostalgia about my time growing up in the 40's, 50's and 60's. I felt that it would be very interesting and refreshing to read about what actually took place rather than the churned up, humorous distortions of my own nostalgic, but inadequate memory.
My mother grew up during the Roaring 20's. Never, at the time, did I think that I would be growing up in a period that would be referred to as the Fabulous 50's, or Happy Days and immortalized on stage and in the movie theaters.
I remember asking my mother when I was a teenager what it was like to grow up in such an exciting time as depicted in books and the movie theaters as the Roaring 20's.
She looked at me as if I was making a joke. I said, "The Roaring 20's, Ma. You know: flappers, Al Capone, speakeasies, prohibition, the Charleston, the Valentine's Day Massacre, Elliot Ness, gang busters, and all the rest. Did you ever go to a speakeasy?"
"The Roaring Twenties didn't roar much around here in Lawrence, Mass. I never drank but I don't remember any such type places. I had one of those hats and a waist less, sack dress. But that was it for the roaring twenties for me. I think I had a couple of very long, imitation pearl necklaces."
I've written three books now with many stories about the fifties. They are all written from a very personal point of view. This book is quite objective and covers lots of areas that don't get much attention from nostalgia buffs.
How could any of us ever forget Mr. McCarthy? He even had a word named after him in the dictionary.
The "bomb" was big too, and all the testing and misconceptions with regards to the after effects of the bomb and the testing going on all over the place. The backyard bomb shelters were big and kids being trained to hide under their desks to avoid flying glass and the bright light that could blind them.
The Edsel and the proliferation of TV, Levitt towns, street gangs, Westside Story, Marlon Brando and the Wild Ones, On the Waterfront - the anti-corrupt businessman story, contorted into an anti-labor union story. Unions bad ... business good. Unions bad ... business good. The all American mantra. And it raises its ugly, lying head again today.
Eisenhower wasn't just playing golf either. Lots of big events, the Suez Canal, the Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss, ending the Korean War. Richard Nixon and all his shenanigans. The big "Checkers" speech. Almost as good as his "I'm Not a Crook" speech a few years later. His checkers speech saved his vice presidency, but his I'm no a cook speech was too much for the public to swallow. He was a crook and everybody knew it.
Truman had an exciting few years too. He dropped the big one in the late 40's. A debate has ensued ever since.
Then came the Korean War, the Berlin Airlift, McCarthy, the firing of General MacArthur. The Commie hearings under HUAC, House on un-American Activities, and the Kefauver investigations.
Estes Kefauver was the chairman of the Senate's Antitrust and Monopoly Committee.
Wow! Whatever happened to that committee?
We could sure use a revival of that today.
Isn't it interesting to think that we once thought monopolies to be a problem? Now we have them controlling newspapers, TV, Manufacturing, Scientific research, Pharmaceuticals, Agriculture, you name it and yet nobody bats an eye. And such monopolies are even being promoted and advanced by the majority of our government on both sides of the aisles and supported by voters.
Unbelievable, isn't it?
What ever happened to the American belief in the benefits of business competition?
We're all for competition when it puts other Americans out of work and into the streets but let the business monopolies and conglomerates roll on.
Economists were writing about an Affluent Society and Conspicuous Consumption all the while ignoring the poverty and squalor building up around our Happy Days Society.
Products were no longer being designed to last forever but made to wear out and be replaced - designed obsolescence. This was considered disgraceful in the 50's but a positive business evolution today.
We had Fulton Sheen and Billy Graham each telling us that God was on their side.
Both were bringing in millions of converts to their side of the god phenomenon. Billy packed stadiums and Fulton captivated listeners on the TV.
Big bucks for Jesus.
We had the Beat Generation with Jack Kerouac and friends. Poetry readings at coffee shops and the return of coffee and hot chocolate as aphrodisiacs. Let's all hit the road and head anywhere.
Juvenile delinquency was a big problem. There were gang fights, with chains and zip-guns in the city streets and bad ass motorcycle tough guys were roaming the county sides intimidating the quivering population. Nothing compared to what's happening in our slums and ghettos today.
Punk kids were taking over the high schools, raping the lady teachers and beating up on the male instructors, all evidenced in movies like "the Blackboard Jungle."
Teenagers were taking over the world.
Poverty, the ghettos and slums were ignored - as they are today. The poor had the problem not society. The kids were drinking and "borrowing" automobiles for joy rides.
The girls were acting up and college students too.
Blacks were going completely out of their minds. Who did they think they were sitting at soda fountains and asking white people to wait on them? Were they nuts?
Martin Luther King the terrorist. Malcolm X., Black Muslim gang leader rapist and murderer. This new equality business must not be tolerated.
And look what it has all lead to today? Our whole society has been corrupted. One of their kind is now our president. It must be stopped. He must be stopped. It's the Jackie Robinson Story all over again but with a political twist.
Speaking of "the Twist," there was Chubby Checker and the Big Bopper, Elvis and the madness of rock `n roll.
Everything was out of control and the teenagers were taking over the world.
The air and the oceans were being polluted while no one was watching. Sputnik appeared in the heavens ready and able to devastate the U.S.
Marilyn Monroe was wanted sexually by every male in the country and if we can believe the press of the day, satisfying most of them.
"The Russians are coming. The Russians are coming" and we must be prepared. It was called the Cold War but it got hot here and there.
Rock and Roll had arrived and it was pernicious. It had to be put down, stopped and destroyed. It was corrupting the youth. It was turning them into hedonistic beasts.
Elvis Presley was an animal, a pied piper that was leading our children off a cliff and into the pits of evil. He was an outrageous sexual demon. And there were others: Bill Haley and his comets, Fats Domino, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers and hundreds more.
It was a black thing. Our young, clean-cut, white children were emulating the blacks and their ghetto values. It was disgusting and a serious moral crisis destructive of American values.
Ezzard Charles defeats Joe Louis. Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays appear on the scene to rock the baseball diamond.
This book is loaded with information and facts about the 50's. How much we forget.
At the end of each chapter are Notes.
These notes are all about where the research team got all their information. They are filled with references to other books, newspapers and periodicals.
There is an excellent chronology at the back of the book.
This is a wonderful source book for anyone interested in the fifties.
It was great for stimulating my imagination and for authenticating my reverie. Great book, I loved it. Hope you can find a copy.
This might be another good book to bring back to life and republish.
The Hobo Philosopher is a writer and author of: "Just hanging Out Ma."
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Great! fast shipping.
By washington
Great!
The book si perfect. Great seller.
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