The Fifties

The Fifties

The 1950s were a time of rapid change and lock step conformity, of new forms emerging out of old, and technical innovations proceeding at a breakneck pace. For all the talk of traditional American values, the country was shedding its past as a snake sheds its skin. By the decade's end, so much had changed—internationalism replacing isolationism; rampant consumerism replacing thrift; the extended family network, once the social glue binding the country, superseded by the suburban nuclear family—that the country was scarcely recognizable. Yet, the 1950s continues to be perceived as the ultra-American decade. Nostalgic for a time when America was without question the most powerful nation on earth, and, like the biblical land of milk and honey, overflowing with bounty, America has projected its anxieties back to this supposedly Golden Age. This perception does not bear scrutiny. At the time, it seemed as if overnight a familiar way of life had been replaced by shopping malls and prefabricated suburbs, the atom bomb and television sets—especially television sets.

It is almost impossible to calculate the effect television had in the first decade of its usage. Television intruded into every aspect of American life, leaving almost nothing untouched. Book sales declined; radio listenership slumped precipitously; the film industry, already in shambles, was dealt a staggering blow.

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