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American Dream Revisited: Affluence & Turbulence in 1950s America
Often hailed as the Golden Age of American Capitalism, the 1950s was a decade of economic boom in the United States. It was characterized by minimal inflation, low unemployment rates, and high consumerism—a stark contrast from the unstable and turbulent war years prior. The 1950s also marked the start of the baby boom, as people were generally eager to have children. Amid the optimism of the American dream, however, were undercurrents from the growing Civil Rights Movement as racial tensions were becoming too intense to turn a blind eye to.
The American Dream: Entering the Booming 1950s
Victory Over Japan Day celebrations in Times Square, New York, United States, 1945. Source: Library of Congress
As part of the Allied Powers, the United States emerged from the horrendous days of World War II victorious. The post-war economic boom that followed saw Americans ushering in an era of unlimited promise and exponential growth. Throughout the decade, the economy grew 37% with unemployment rates kept at below 4.5%. Between 1945 and 1960, the United States’ gross national product leaped from $200 billion to a whopping $500 billion.
Government spending was at an all-time high as the White House poured billions into accelerating military spending, constructing interstate highways and schools, and facilitating the distribution of veteran’s benefits. With increased wages and income stability, the middle class boasted a formidable purchasing power and enjoyed consumer goods of greater variety and higher quality. Attributed to the expanding federal wallet and a burgeoning consumerist culture, the 1950s were characterized by the twinned forces of the baby boom and the suburban boom.
OK (Baby) Boomer, It’s Your Time Now
The Admitting Nursery at a Houston-area hospital with listed times for baby showings, circa 1960. Source: Smithsonian Magazine
The postwar baby boom refers to a remarkable increase in birth rates from 1946 through to the early 1960s. A combination of factors contributed to this unprecedented demographic phenomenon. For the men who had come home from fighting on the frontlines, the US government made sure that their sacrifice was well worthwhile. With the GI Bill, these men were provided a series of veteran benefits such as specialty care, education, as well as re-employment training. More importantly, the bill made for favorable home loans with little-to-no down payment required, prompting a migration from the city to the new suburbs.
Office workers in the Lever Brothers office building, New York, United States, 1959. Source: National Archives
The peacetime economy also promised ample job opportunities and higher wages with an overall mood of optimism and stability. As the economy and technology advanced, industrial blue-collar jobs gave way to more white-collar positions. With higher education, people could afford to apply for clerical, managerial, and other professional positions that promised higher salaries. In a thriving business-friendly climate, conglomerates continued to expand and enjoyed spectacular profits.
The positive economic growth encouraged many couples to get married and start a family, fuelling marriages and leading to a spike in the birth rate. In 1957, the birth rate stood at a whopping 25.3 births per 1,000 people. Less than two decades ago, it was 19.4 births per 1,000 people according to the 1940 statistics. Between 1946 and 1964, the United States welcomed more than 77 million babies who later came to be known as Baby Boomers.
Living the Suburban Dream
A picture-perfect scene of a 1950s family in the United States, 1958. Source: National Archives
In tandem with the baby boom was the suburban boom as suburban living quickly became a physical manifestation of the American dream in the 1950s. The famous Levittowns—the brainchild of real estate developer William Levitt—sprouted in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, attracting newlyweds and new parents to call the suburbs home. Complete with built-in television sets, family rooms, and backyards for barbeque and kids to frolic, these suburban homes sold like hotcakes. Best known for the construction of a house every 16 minutes, the Levittown project was initiated in 1947 as a postwar planned community. It was built on the belief that every man returning from the frontlines would require a home as he began rebuilding his life. Levitt and Sons quickly bought up vast swathes of land in Long Island that were once potato and onion fields and embarked on an extensive construction project between 1947 and 1951.
A Culture of Conformity
A street in Levittown, New York, 1958. Source: Library of Congress
While these new suburbs architected a picture-perfect community of promise and stability, they were nonetheless infamous for their lack of racial integration. With a 100% white population, these dream dwellings were not open to racial minorities for fear of driving down home values. It would appear that the American Dream had conspicuously excluded people who were not white. Levittown’s highly rigid social atmosphere and almost antiseptic air, as noted by TIME magazine, would contribute significantly to an era of conformity in the 1950s. Prolific writers such as Jack Kerouac and Richard Yates wrote extensively about this mid-century obsession with conformity and fitting into the mold.
The Rigidity of Gender Roles
A print advertisement for Batchelors, a company specializing in dried food products, 1950s. Source: Flashbak
With conformity came the rigidity of gender roles. While the men focused on being the sole breadwinners, the women remained at home. In the 1950s, women mostly stayed at home after marriage and did not pursue higher education or better job prospects. The 1950s housewife was supposed to be an expert at prioritizing men’s needs, keeping the house spick and span, and taking care of the children—all while looking impeccable and appearing to be leading fulfilling lives. Print advertisements of the 1950s often marketed products such as canned soups, ready-to-eat meals, and electronic appliances that made things easier for housewives.
Sexism Prevailed
A collection of sexist ads in the United States approved for public consumption, 1950s. Source: The Daily Mail
The image of the stay-at-home mother of the 1950s has become so iconic it is still a subject of fascination and, at times, mockery. While doing a good job at maintaining the house was once celebrated as an amazing feat, feminists have for decades decried its oppressive nature, arguing that it reduced women to a housekeeping and childbearing machine. The power imbalance often became a prerequisite to domestic violence that largely went unreported in an era where articulating one’s marital troubles was frowned upon. It did not help that the mass media of the 1950s were unabashedly sexist, with many advertisements promoting the power imbalance. From belittling women to outrightly glorifying domestic abuse, these advertisements aged like milk.
Long-simmering Racial Tensions Threaten to Boil Over
An African American boy drinking at a “Colored” water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, United States by Russell Lee, 1939. Source: Library of Congress
While racial tensions had long characterized American civil society, it was in the 1950s that the Civil Rights Movement gained serious momentum. Deeply troubling events such as the murder of Emmett Till (1955) and the Montgomery bus boycott (1955–1956) had galvanized Black people to rise up against the longstanding discrimination and racism facing their community.
Demonstrators marching in the street holding signs during the March on Washington, 1963. Source: Library of Congress
While slavery had been abolished since the 19th century, the Black American community continued to be treated as second-class or even third-class citizens as segregation persisted. In the South especially, the infamous Jim Crow laws barred Black people from using the same facilities and attending the same schools as White folks. The heightened racial tensions in the 1950s would eventually culminate in the intensified Civil Rights protests characteristic of the turbulent 1960s.
American Dream and Bearing the Heat of the Cold War
United States paratroopers flying to the drop zone in Korea, 1951. Source: National Archives
It was clear that while the American economy was doing great overall, its political scorecard was far from ideal in the 1950s. Not only was the government unable to contain the explosive racial tensions, but it was also confronted with a slew of political troubles beyond its shores. In the context of the Cold War, America, representing the Free World, was engaged in a political, ideological, militaristic, and economic struggle with the Soviet Union. This saw the two superpowers asserting their respective influences in proxy wars along the Korean peninsula, as well as later in Vietnam and Cuba. In the 1950s, American soldiers were sent to the Korean peninsula to support the pro-democracy South against the North, which was backed by communist China and the Soviet Union. American war involvement was built on the Truman administration’s containment policy—a geopolitical strategic foreign policy aimed at preventing the spread of communism.
Senator Joseph McCarthy (middle) was best remembered for propagating the Red Scare in the United States in the 1950s, 1954. Source: Library of Congress
Back at home, the fear of communism was constantly being stoked throughout this period, which was known as the Second Red Scare. Characterized by hysteria and heightened paranoia over the perceived communist threat, an atmosphere of fear and repression pervaded American society. Federal employees would have their loyalty tested and investigated to weed out any subversive elements that were thought to have penetrated the government. Celebrities, politicians, and intellectuals were not spared from this either. U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy was known to have used these scare tactics and accusations whenever he was met with an opinion different from his. In such a coercive climate that was increasingly conservative, numerous alleged communist sympathizers were harassed by law enforcement. Some were even terminated from their jobs and alienated from their close relations.
As a prelude, the events of the 1950s laid the fundamental groundwork for the troubling 1960s that soon followed. The relative stability of the 1950s decade would give way to a decade of heightened violence, tensions, and divisions in American society. Nonetheless, the 1950s are often remembered for their short-lived peace and placidness, likened to an uneasy calm before the raging storm.
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