Suburbs of the 50s
Suburbs in the 50s and 60s were put together in a specific order. When World War ll ended more and more developers started to become famous for their symbols in the suburban lifestyle. They would buy land on the outskirts of town and build inexpensive and modest homes. Soldiers that returned from the war, they used their G.I. Bill to lower the mortgages because it was often cheaper to buy one of these suburban homes than to rent an apartment in the city. These houses were perfect for young (small) families because they had family rooms, open floor plans, and backyards. Suburbs often got nicknames like, "Fertility Valley and "The Rabbit Hutch." They were often not so perfect for the women who lived in them. In fact, the booms of the 1950s had a particularly confining effect on many American women. Advice books and magazine articles (“Don’t Be Afraid to Marry Young,” “Cooking To Me Is Poetry,” “Femininity Begins At Home”) urged women to leave the workforce and embrace their roles as wives and mothers.
The Civil Rights Movement (50s-60s)
The Civil Rights Movement was about a growing group of Americans spoke out against inequality and injustice during the 1950s. African Americans had been fighting against racial discrimination for centuries; during the 1950s, however, the struggle against racism and segregation entered the mainstream of American life. They are many events that lead to this movement. For example, the Murder of Emmett Till. Emmett Till, a teenager at the time, was taken from his home because earlier that day he allegedly whistled at a white woman at a grocery store. But Emmett's mother said that he whistles to overcome his stutter. This rumor when this town like a twister, once the rumor was heard by the white woman's husband, around 2:00 am, the white woman's husband and his half brother drove to Emmett's house and dragged him out his house. Then at 6:00 am, a local farm man heard the screams of Emmett. Three days later, a young boy was fishing in the Tallahassee River, and that's where they found Emmett Till's body. Emmett had been tied to a fan from a cotton gin, weighing around 75 pounds. He had been tortured before being shot. Till was so unrecognizable that his great-uncle Mose was only able to identify his body from the ring he was wearing.
Perhaps no phenomenon shaped American life in the 1950s more than TELEVISION. At the end of World War II, the television was a toy for only a few thousand wealthy Americans. Just 10 years later, nearly two-thirds of American households had a television. Television forever changed politics. The first president to be televised was Harry Truman. Americans loved situation comedies sitcoms. In the 1950s, I LOVE LUCY topped the ratings charts. The show broke new ground by including a Cuban American character Ricky Ricardo. There were lots of popular shows to watch in the 50s and those included, Leave It To Beaver,The Donna Reed Show, Father Knows Best, and etc... Then, America's fascination with the Wild West was nothing new, but television brought Western heroes into American homes and turned that fascination into a love affair. Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Rin Tin Tin, Davy Crockett, Rawhide, The Lone Ranger, Zorro, and etc... Then came, Variety Shows were made up of short acts, musical numbers, comedy sketches, animal tricks, and these shows are usually centered around an engaging host. With more and more American families owning televisions, manufacturers now had a new way to sell their products, and the TELEVISION COMMERCIAL was born. By late 1948, over 900 companies had bought television broadcast time for advertising. By 1950, sponsors were leaving radio for television at an unstoppable rate. In 1950, Coca-Cola launched its first television ad campaign using a combination of animation and celebrity endorsement. By 1954, television commercials were the leading advertising medium in America. The life of the American consumer would never be the same. Most Americans still got their news from newspapers in the 1950s, but the foundations for the modern television newscast were established as early as 1951 with EDWARD R. MURROW's SEE IT NOW, the first coast-to-coast live show. Television producers developed a host of children's programs. Shows such as THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB and HOWDY DOODY. During the 1950s, few households owned more than one television, so viewing became a shared family event. Even the American diet was transformed with the advent of the TV dinners, first introduced in 1954.