Perfect 1950's Family example essay topic

Spanning Two Decade's: The 50's to the 60'similar? Or Distinctly different?" The postwar years are remembered as a time of affluence, consumerism, conformity, and stability, a time when American enjoyed an optimistic faith in progress and technology". (Heretta, pg. 779) These words best describe the decade that Americas experienced in the 1950's. It was age of dad's always-right attitude and a culture that was family centered. The standard of living for American's was the best in the world.

The times just looked to perfect lives were lived to privately. This private enjoyment was centered on the family, leisure, and consumerism. Soon everyone tried to become to "Leave it to Beaver" type of family and culture exploded. The explosion is what everyone considers to be the 1960's.

Kids that grew up in the fifties were becoming teenagers. The pressures from their parents turned the sixties generation onto conceptual thoughts and radical behavior. This affected the ideals of politics, racial / gender discrimination, and family values. The differences between the fifties and the sixties are extremely evident but you must closely sort through the decade to find the definite similarities. The similarities and differences come in many political values, and behaviors.

What does the word "consensus" refers to? "It is the conformity to social norms, authority, and the status quo". (Henretta, pg. 790) It best refers to the decade of the 1950's, where families were attempting to escape into "old home grown" households, away from the Red Scare, and out of the corporate jungle. To do this, these families flocked to the suburban area. Early in the fifties a massive "Baby Boom" occurred. With the high birth rate the need for churches caused the ideas affluence, consumption and conformity to swell in importance.

With the war in the past, the fifties generation looked towards the church. Families started to make Sundays a priority in their lives. "Church membership rose from 49 percent of the population in 1940 to 69 percent in 1960" (Henretta, 792). All denominations from Catholics to Jews rose in membership. Even separation between church and state became less define when in 1956 they added "In God We Trust" to coins and "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance. One of the major use of religion was not only to reach savior but also to help deal with the stresses of everyday life.

The church also instilled good values into families. This created marriages that were very stable. In turn the divorce rate was at a constant low. The Reverend Billy Graham used television and other media outlets to increase the popularity of the Evangelical religious experience.

The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists grew in moderate numbers during this time also. "Although critics suggested that middle-class interest in religion stemmed more from conformity then spirituality, the revival nonetheless spoke to Americans's earch for spiritual meaning in uncertain times" (Henretta, pg. 792) The Average life span rose with better federal and local medical assistance. Parents were becoming more aware of health problems and where to go to get help. They were also socially forced to keep certain gender roles that were consistent with the media. With religion playing an important role in the average Americans lives, consumerism began to grow in the white and blue-collar workers. Their families started to spend extra cash instead of saving it.

Washing machines, dryers, and new cars became commonly bought items. The Homeowner who needed some extra cash, but couldn't work enough hours to purchase that item when he needed it, started to use personal credit. This began the craze of credit cards. "The Diner Club" introduced the first credit card in 1950: By the 1970's the ubiquitous plastic credit card had revolutionized personal and family finance" (Henretta, pg. 790). The awareness of addition free time was aware to consumers and also to the market place initiating such companies as McDonald's, Disney and Holiday Inn to begin business. Also one of the most popular T.V. shows during the decade was "Leave it to Beaver" which depicted a perfect 1950's family.

Other popular television shows were "The $64,000 Question" and "Gunsmoke". With consumerism on the rise new types of consumers were introduced into the marketplace, particularly geared towards the teenagers of the era. To attract the attention of these young buyers advertisements were directly aimed at them. "In 1956 advertisers projected an adolescent market worth 9 billion for items such as transistor radios (first introduced in 1952), clothing, fads such as Silly Putty (1950) and the Hula-Hoops (1958) " (Henretta, pg. 795). Rock and Roll symbolized the want to rebel against parent's values. As Elvis Presley and James Dean became more popular, so did the parents dislike.

Elvis Presley embodied cultural rebellion against the conservatism and status quo of adult life in 1950's. The Strongest economic standards in the world were the norm of the United States during the 1950's. World War II's victory for the United States gave inflation a blow and caused wages to rise. American's were ready to spend over $140 billion dollars in savings. "The result was stable prices, a flexible domestic market, a powerful American dollar, and reduced tariffs and trade barriers -- -all of which served the United States' global economic interest" (Henretta, pg. 780). Certain political views and ideas became apparent in the 1950's.

Many American's believed that the 1950's were time of affluence for all. But this was not the case. Not everyone prospered during this time. Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and women were left to wonder why not them also. That led to an overall generalization that white males were receiving all the bounty.

The misleading belief that everything was perfect would later lead to times of protest and social upheaval. The world became very immoral in the eyes of many Americans. Places such as the Soviet Union, Cuba, and China became center-points of their attention. Communism was the factor of this scrutiny. The main struggle was with the Soviet Union. As America became a global Powerhouse after the war, so did the Soviets.

Soon ensued the cold war. Both countries stocked up on nuclear bombs to return an attack from the other. The threat of a nuclear holocaust caused the nation to develop McCarthyism. McCarthyism is the fear of communism causing people to seek out communists and persecute them. It was named after Senator Joseph R. McCarthy who was the U.S.'s most known anti-communist. McCarthyism is "the great fear built on the longstanding distrust of radicals and foreigners that exploded in the Red Scare after World War I. Worsening cold war tensions intersected with those deep-seated anxieties and with partisan politics to spawn an obsessive concern with internal subversion" (Heretta, pg. 765).

In the 1960's the baby boomers graduated from high school and entered college. This became a new life for these young adults with many choices to make on their own for the first time. College enrollment grew rapidly, providing people for civil rights movements, feminism protests, and political standpoints. As the war against communism spread so did the rationalizations of social injustice. More and more students began to join protest groups for civil rights. With the pursuing Vietnam conflict ahead for America, people start to ask "why?" .

This created the anti-culture called "the Hippies". They did everything they could to contrast their parents: drug experimentation, sex revolution, and religious exploration. The moral ideals of the 50's were broken within a few short years. The crusade for Black rights looked dismal in 1964, until a man by the name of Lyndon B. Johnson took the seat of President after the Assassination of former President Kennedy. Kennedy took what looked like a serious attempt at the black civil rights issue. On June 11, 1963, Kennedy went on television to promise major legislation banning discrimination in public accommodations and empowering the justice department to enforce desegregation".

(Henretta, pg 816) Johnson took it as his duty to continue the effort put forth by Kennedy for the fight for civil rights. His first act as president was to help blacks in their struggle to get civil rights by the passing of The Civil Rights act of 1964. This act became significant to the black movement because it initialized one of the first steps taken by the gov't to allow the black community to be equal in the work place and in public workings. The blacks civil rights movement also helped the feminist movement to grow. This was mostly due the social inequities at the workplace. By 1970, 42.6 percent of woman were working, and four of ten working woman were married.

American woman could only be expected to work if they were not married in the fifties. This was not the case in the sixties. Gender barriers began to fall allowing a woman to work across the previous gender lines. The roll of birth control played a big part in the development of job opportunities for woman, because if they could control the pregnancy rate, then they could have more time to work rather then raise children.

This also created a larger divorce rate, which caused states to liberalize divorce laws. (Henretta, pg. 829) The initial reasons for U.S. involvement in Vietnam seemed logical and compelling to American leaders. This was to "Stop the spread of communism by helping the South Vietnamese". Following its success in World War II, the United States faced the future with a sense of moral rectitude and material confidence.

From Washington's perspective, the principal threat to U.S. security and world peace was monolithic, dictatorial communism emanating from the Soviet Union. Any communist, at home or abroad, was, by definition, and enemy of the United States. Drawing an analogy with the unsuccessful appeasement of fascist dictators before World War II, the Truman administration believed that the United States and its allies must meet any sign of communist aggression quickly and forcefully. This reactive policy was known as containment.

The idea of containment was very similar to the McCarthyism. The fifties and sixties signified two decades of affluence, consumerism, and conformity while wading through the changing of society. Teenage counter-culture, religion, politics, communism, and social views became pivotal views of expression during this time. You must observe all these assets to draw a valid conclusion of your own, but to collected facts that have been presented have graciously swayed one way.

The difference between is the fifties and the sixties are extremely evident, but you must closely sort through the decade to find the definite similarities.