Let's not forget the alcoholism during the 50's was much higher than today since you had an entire generation of veterans coming back from Europe & the Pacific readjusting to civilian life and there were little or no services for those returning veterans coping with PTSD. The only way to deal with PTSD back in those days was to drink or take pills.
Alcohol was definitely much more the drug of choice in those days but chemicals dependency overall is a much bigger problem today especially if you include prescriptions drugs which most definitely should be included.
50's nostalgia is fine, as long as you are aware that it is just longing for a fictional time. Much like the Victorian era, the pop culture depiction of the 50's as wholesome and cozy is just a pleasant distraction. The trouble starts when people try to use it as a political myth to push their agenda. All in all, the fascination with the past is due to the fact that we came out of it ok and we now know how things turned out. That's the great advantage compared to the uncertainty and anxiety of the present and the unpredictability of the future.
Nostalgia is fine as long as you don't go overboard, thinking negative about the current generation and wishing to go back in time. Thinking things gets worst since the 50's. Personally I find the 50's to be boring but I don't care if people enjoy anything from the 50's. Just don't go overboard about it.
Nostalgia is fine and I'm old enough to know the 50's of TV were fictional fantasies because real life was at the same time pleasant and horrible as it is now. The thing that I long for is when we were a less litigious society and lawyers couldn't advertise.
Thank you so much...my Naval officer father would not allow us to ever watch Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver, etc. He said they would harm family relationships with their icky poo idealism. I was born in 1947 and agree with everything you said here. I only wished you had added the horrible way husbands were transferred by corporations away from the extended families...wives found themselves in strange barbaric modern suburbs without any support system...children suffered the loss of grandparents attention and many other huge assets to their emotional maturity. Husbands were very reluctant to say NO to this because of peer pressure and their value grew to be judged by their financial "worth" and luxuries they could provide for these lonely nuclear families. Many of us remember the horrible screams and alcoholism we heard from the WWII vets...before air conditioning and central heat closed all the windows and left us kids cooped up with the tears, sometime violence, and second hand smoke that were normal for most of us. I find myself telling younger people about the REAL 1950s a lot online....there has been so much BS and negative lies lately about boomers, never mentioning these realities or Vietnam deaths and injuries or other things. Church attendance became ubiquitous for business card exchanges and showing off new clothes, but the church members of my grandparents generation was much more personally charitable. My grandmothers sewed for poor neighbors and knitted for soldiers...my grandfather had a Piggly Wiggly in west Texas and passed dented cans and much food out the back door to local poor black families and Mexicans...back door to avoid any embarrassment. When chain corporate stored took over, this became impossible...another strike against corporate chains mushrooming in the 1950s. The morphing of Christianity from a basic trust in Jesus' manifesting the Love of the Father displayed in action and charity into right wing "traditions" and "family" values not found in the Gospels was accomplished brilliantly by Billy Graham and other 'preachers' puffed by William Randolph Hearst and continue on TH-cam everywhere. I often shorted this with my own joke, "The only Christians that came over on the Mayflower were the crew."
Your father and my own similar grandfather were right and I just wonder why there seem to be so few people that got that education. I had the additional benefit of my great grandmother who was born in (probably) 1881 and saw just about everything happen from an unusual position of being the only surviving sibling of a socially prominent family. It was the initial implementation of mass propagandizing used to erase pre-war America and cover up what was being done while the public was distracted with the campaign against nonexistent threats. Edward Bernays' seminal work was published in 1933 and virtually everything in his system was utilized by the numbers, first to finance the war, and later to hide the crimes committed at home along with the establishment of the American empire.
60 years from now, people will look at 2020's and will have a rosy view of this decade. Every generation always do that. They will ignore the negative aspect of any decade and talk only positive about it and look at the decade they are living in as garbage. Ironically that decade will eventually get a rosy picture.
I frequently bring up some of these topics when older generations start putting down current society, and people look at me like I’m crazy! The Leave It To Beaver and Andy Hardy scenario was only enjoyed by a small handful of Americans. The rest were still struggling. The truth is there is good and bad in each generation, and what is good and bad shifts around a lot. So it all kind of evens out in the end. The only thing you can truly count on is that things change. And being able to adapt to the changes is what allows you to survive! 😁
I don’t think TV shows or movies of that time are an accurate representation but I still do think quality of life was higher for a much bigger % of the population in those days. We don’t need to sugarcoat it.
@@sheLovesG The quality of life was higher for a much bigger (white male) % of the population. Knock it off. You belong in the South...the antebellum south.
Imagine everywhere you went, all of your clothes, every room, the workplace, the home, all furniture absolutely reeking of cigarette smoke. For that reason alone, you couldn't get me back there if you tried to drag me.
The 1950's were horrible! Raised black, dirt poor, and on ADC during this era this video brought back a lot of old and very ugly memories. I'm surprised this video wasn't banned. THANKS FOR TELLING THE TRUTH!
Yes, I loved my early childhood fishing and outdoors and many relatives around...then it all went to crapola after about 1955. Don't assume we were paid just for being white....the culture turned shallow, cold, money mad, and phony for all of us.
Besides TV and films, the Broadway stage premiered West Side Story in 1957, which involved two juvenile street gangs with violence an violence overtones.
First off we are currently living with high inflation which really skews numbers but is clear that you don’t understand the economy of the 1950’s! The economy grew A STAGGERING 37% from 50-59. Let’s go over what you state at @5:20 “Consumer price were far lower in the 1950’s”. While you did show accurate avg prices for gas 1950 27c ($3.11 today) 1959 30c ($2.87) and milk 1950 83c ($9.57) 1959 98c ($9.36) The most significant thing though is the avg wage in 1950 3,300 ($38K) and in 1959 a whooping 5,400 ($51.5K)! As of March 2021 the US median income is $19,306. So with half of the US pop making under 20K seeing folks in 1959 making 2.5x what you make on average would easily lead to nostalgia of a better time with more purchasing power. Also unemployment in 1950 4.3% and 1959 5.3% while in 2020 at 6.7%.
I love fact based arguments giving me the opportunity to learn. I would have never ever guessed that the median income in the USA is ThAT low!! I am perplexed! But it seems to me that with a medium qualified job Americans still make much more money than in my west European country given that people with simple jobs can afford a house, a big car, an interior that looks impeccable, etc.. I assume the taxes are much, much lower so when you have a steady middle class income you can afford much more than in my country that leaves me with a measly 48% of what I really earn in my highly specialised job. Of course debt is for all I know a considerable problem in the lower middle and the working class in the USA but overall the true problem appears to be a large proportion of the population being very poorly educated and therefore stuck in unqualified, precarious, low income jobs.
Good points. Not to mention that the blacks in '50s America saw their highest employment rate, highest earnings, and highest married household rate. America was working their asses off after the war.
Should've mentioned the frequent incidents of domestic violence, back then, as it was almost totally legal for a husband to beat their wives, and police would do very little if anything to intervene, as they considered it to be a family matter, and just a husband putting her in her place.
It's set in 1962 ("Where were you in '62?" was the tagline for the promotional materials), but (as I'm sure you already know), it was an expression of the 1970's "Fifties Nostalgia Fad" since the majority of the soundtrack consisted of mid to late 50s rock and roll as opposed to early 60s Twist-era rock n' roll, and also, the early 1960s from a cultural standpoint is generally considered a continuation of "The Fifties." I'm not denying that the inspiration for the screenplay might have drawn from several years of Mr. Lucas' experiences, including the year 1963. I am saying however, in regards to the movie itself, it is indeed set in the summer of 1962. Here is the trailer to "American Graffiti," with Wolfman Jack, from 1973, with the tagline "Where were you in '62?" th-cam.com/video/SdSb7jVPwyo/w-d-xo.html
@@Mike_The_1950s_Historian "American Graffiti" was filmed in part at Tamalpais HS, where I am a member of the class of 1963. George Lucas lives in my town, and I have met him several times.
@@Mike_The_1950s_Historian The JFK era was the last of the good times, before (IMHO) LBJ masterminded the assassination, and proceeded to divide the country, getting rich off his no-win Viet Nam fiasco at the price of 60,000 deaths of other people's sons. (Hey, Lyndon! Put your pitchfork down. We're talking about you!)
When a time period is romanticized its usuaally viewed from a childs perspective where everything is fine, even if u make a mistake it wont mean much, everyone seems happy, and you havent learned of the complexities of life yet so u think life is simple. Every generation has claimed thr world was better when they were growing up because to them, things were simple and fun and free of problems but when they became adults they started understanding how the world works and they had responsibilities and mistakes could mean losing a lot. I love the 50s aesthetic and i enjoy watching old 50s videos here on TH-cam and when i go to the comments im garenteed to find someone saying how much better things were back then bc they were simple and people stuck to things like gender roles and religion and thats what made society great even though many women back then secretly despised their lives but had no other option so they hid their feelings. Being black back then was a whole nother problem that is conveniently left out of the 50s nostalgia. As people in the present, we should be able to look at the positives and negatives aspects of time periods before us as well as the period were currently in.
I think a big part of why people have such a rosy memory of the 1950’s and even the 1980’s is the lack of 24/7 news channels. I remember what it was like before CNN started the 24 hour news cycle. We didn’t hear about every single thing happening everywhere. We had national news and some local news and that was it. If it didn’t happen within 10 miles of your house you didn’t hear about it. And with such a large percentage of Americans living in small towns spread out over large distances we didn’t hear about all the horrible things happening elsewhere. A good example would be war and how the media covered it. Compare WWII and Korea vs Vietnam which was in our living rooms every single night. And now we have social media which brings the world to us instantly for better and for worse.
The rate of teen childbearing in the United States has fallen steeply since the late 1950s, from an all time high of 96 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 in 1957 to an all time low of 49 in 2000.
Also if abortions were factored in to this statistic I wonder how different it would be, Planned Parenthood is the Genocidal ideal Hitler couldn't achieve.
11:54 -- Actually the last (4th) verse of the Star Spangled Banner reads in part: "And this be our motto - 'In God is our trust,'" So the "In God We Trust" thing didn't exactly just appear out of nowhere in the mid 50s as is impled.
thank you for this. i've tried to tell people the truth about those times and they brush it off. side note: my mother was thrilled about sputnik. she was so interested in astronomy and other worlds.
Nice video and I was intrigued when you mentioned juvenile delinquency, since the study of 1950's youth crime is a particular interest of mine (along with teen fashions, teen dance styles, teen themed movies, and of course, rock and roll.) Actually, nostalgia often portrays 1950's era juvenile delinquency as "harmless" and (relatively) free of "serious" violence. (All one has to do is read the comments in any 1950's nostalgia group on Facebook to verify the existence of those claims, or even the comments in some of the "oldies" music video posts here on TH-cam.) I love the 1950's aesthetics, and the art of that time is very important and relevant, but it's relevancy is because they dealt with a lot of the same problems we deal with today! Violent youth crime did indeed exist, and was a major issue of discussion during that time, particularly in the summers of 1959, which saw several gang related killings ("The Capeman" and the shooting death of 15-year-old Theresa Gee), 1958 (the school shooting committed by Bruce Zator, which was within weeks of the candy store gang-related shooting by Ramon Serra upon Michael Ramos, while up north in the midwest, Charles Starkweather was going about his rampage), and 1957 (the murder of the 15-year-old handicapped polio survivor Michael Farmer by the Egyptian Dragons street gang.) Personally, pointing out that society of the 1950's dealt with a lot of the same problems that we have always dealt with, shows that time period as being relevant and important. If everything was "simple and carefree" and "goody goody," I wouldn't be able to relate to it, (and it would be boring!) Human beings have always been both good, and terrible, to each other (even during the "carefree" 1950's) and I think that's what makes this video important.
Since I'm talking to people who would care, my Dad was born in 46 (headed to see him later today) and has for the last 10 years or so put together an extensive ancestry tree complete with stories (like 2 of my ancestors killing a guy at a barn dance (southern Illinois). It's super cool and really shows how people were always people regardless of era.
@@RemoWilliams1227 I wish I had seen this comment 6 months ago. Hope you see my response.😁 I know it's family, and probably personal, but if you ever decide to do a video on your family stories, that would make an interesting documentary. (I'd watch it )
Yes, there was an increase in population, but there's another factor which someone touched on in another comment. Before I bring that up however, for anyone else following this thread, here are examples of violent youth crime in the 1950's. I bring them up, just so we are clear on what "juvenile delinquency" actually was ('50's JD's were not the "cute lovable pranksters" that we saw in "Grease," "American Graffiti," or "The Lords of Flatbush.") The more notorious examples, which are verified through surviving court documents, include the 1952 San Francisco Civic Center shooting committed by Robert Arthur Ranson, the 1954 "Thrill Kill" murders, the 1956 school shooting committed by 14-year-old Billy Ray Prevatte, the 1957 drive-by shooting committed by 14 year old Clement "Cookie" Macis, the 1957 drive-by shooting of 18-year-old Emily Guzman in Los Angeles, the 1959 gang related shooting of 15-year-old Theresa Gee, followed by the "Capeman" murders a week later, to name just a few (there were many others, and no, such incidents back then were not "rare," despite adamant claims by some very vocal senior citizens, many of whom admit that in their youth, they did not particularly care to follow the current events of that time, though as adult senior citizens, they now watch the news regularly.) Teenagers of the 1950's would have been born in the late 1930's through the mid-1940's. And the late '30's up to the mid-1940's, of course, was World War II. World War II did affect many aspects of post-war life, later on. There were some young fathers who served and saw action in places like Okinawa, Guadalcanal, or the landing at Normandy. Many of them didn't come back, leaving their wives to raise their children alone. Many of them who did come back would have had either physical scars, lost limbs, or emotional scars from undiagnosed PTSD. (That would have been especially true had they served in the Pacific.) Families dealing with PTSD would have been a hard enough situation in upper middle class suburban families, but even more difficult for families from working class inner cities, where youth gangs were growing in the post war period. Those would have been the fathers of young boys who sought role models outside of the home, such as in youth gangs (since their fathers were dealing with their own emotional issues.) Another way World War II would have affected the rise in youth crime after the war was the various shipbuilding and munitions factories that had to spring up in cities, bringing in Americans from one part of the country, into another, with the pre-existing residents in places like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, looking upon the newcomers as "competition" or even "invaders," especially for jobs when the war ended. Some of the newly arrived American migrants who came to work in those munitions plants would have reacted to such attitudes by looking upon the pre-existing population as obstacles. And of course, such mindsets would have been passed on to their children. It's one reason why we had that Chicago race riot in 1951 (Cicero Race Riot on July 11, 1951.) That was in the North, not the South, and the "white" residents who attacked the black family trying to move into "their" neighborhood were not the Scotch Irish descendants that made up the Ku Klux Klan in the South, but in fact, were primarily second generation descendants of Polish immigrants, who themselves had been the victims of bigotry from other more "native" whites a generation or two previously. Both of the factors listed above had an influence on the cases of 1950's juvenile delinquency that involved assault and homicide. Incidentally, in my opinion, the worst year for violent youth crime in the 1950's was 1958, between the months of March through May. That was when the following incidents occurred, one after the other: April 20,1958: The Coney Island gang rumble involving 50 teenagers that spilled over into New York's subway, involving five gangs (The Mau Maus, Corsair Lords, Bishops, Chaplains, and Golden Aces.) April 25, 1958 Beating murder of South Korean foreign exchange student In Ho Oh near The University of Pennsylvania by about a dozen teenagers after they had been ejected from a local Philadelphia record hop a few blocks away from the student's dormitory. The same night that the incident occurred in Philadelphia, Ramon Serra of the Egyptian Crowns street gang murdered 16 year old gang rival Michael Ramos with a shotgun at a Bronx candy store. Coincidentally, or perhaps not so coincidentally, Ramos was a witness in the murder trial of the Egyptian Kings (affiliated with The Egyptian Crowns) for the beating and stabbing murder of handicapped 15-year-old Michael Farmer, which occurred in July of 1957. One week later, a school shooting of 15-year-old Timothy Wall committed by Bruce Zator, also 15, occurred at Massapequa High School in Long Island. One month later at Thomas Jefferson Park, members of The East Harlem Red Wings beat 26 year old Cuban immigrant Julio Ramos to death, in front of his girlfriend, when they mistook him for a teenaged Puerto Rican gang rival. That same month, in San Francisco, drugstore owner Kenneth Outland was dragged from his car on Clement Street by a youth gang who apparently was angry, because he refused to sell them alcohol. (So much for "respect for elders.") Outland was "lucky," because he did not die from the beating, though apparently he suffered brain damage afterwards. All of the above incidents were happening as the trial of teen serial killer Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate was going on in Lincoln, Nebraska. There were a lot of great things about the 1950's. And it would be unfair to blame all of society's ills on that decade, especially since society of that time genuinely tried to make improvements, such as school desegregation (remember Jim Crow did not begin in the 1950's, and the beginning of the end of "legal" segregation actually began in the '50's.) But ever since the 1970's, we have been looking at that time with rose colored glasses, when in fact, human behavior has not changed in thousands of years. There are certain problems that human beings have always had to deal with, in all time periods, including the "carefree" 1950's.
"WHEN THE LEGEND BECOMES FACT, PRINT THE LEGEND." The above is a line from the John Wayne film "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" after Senator "Ransom 'Ranse' Stoddard" (played by James Stewart) tells the town newspaper publisher who really killed the killer Liberty Valance (played by Lee Marvin). Up until this time, it was only known by Ranse Stoddard and 2 other people who the real person to kill Liberty Valance was...John Wayne's character "Tom Doniphon". It was an unintentional lie that ultimately catapulted Ransom Stoddard to marry the woman that "Tom Doniphon" had expected to marry, as well as fame and fortune and a career in politics. This is an Interesting video. There are always some things in a person's life that are better remembered for what they were in one's memory are than re-living in actuality. And many people like to relive their childhoods because they feel the innocence of a childhood is a beautiful thing. But clearly, the 1950's had their dark and troubling times just like we have dark and troubling times in our own 2020's. That's nothing new. If you were affluent, if you were White, if you lived where things were plentiful and readily accessible, if your sports teams always won, your vacations were reachable and enjoyable, your teachers were good and you learned a lot, your income levels and work types were sustainable and without too much stress, then among all these things and other positive concerns you'd have a more favorable memory of your youth, or a time you thought things were better when in general you were much younger. I was born in 1967. No, I do not believe the next 5 to 10 years after I was born were great years. Nixon & Watergate, Vietnam, high oil prices, high interest rates, drugs were big in big cities, and a host of other "negatives" existed including racial tensions. But as a kid, all I know is that my family was together. My relatives lived relatively close by. I enjoyed summers at camp in the late 1970's and early 1980's, school was mostly great, and I enjoyed fishing in a local park. I had nothing to do with all those negative things. So, to make a long story short. Memories fade. Humans like to be nostalgic. History is written by the winners. And revisionists have a nasty habit of either glossing over the facts or forgetting them entirely. That's why people need to read their histories from a variety of different sources, read first-person letters and autobiographies, pay attention to actual source documents and not just media review of these documents. Don't trust politicians or anyone else.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" is a masterpiece of true heroism and civilized BS (Jessica Lynch 'rescue') cooked up by the propaganda liars. It foreshadows 2 wonderful movies with that theme that are full of modern high tech ways of doing the same thing....and starring Dustin Hoffman....Hero (1992) and Wag the Dog (1997). This is not new....Catholicism has been turning pretty good people into perfect angels masterfully for 1800 years and still does it!!
People aren’t happy with this video? Too much truth? Let’s be real, it was good for one race that’s why they are so obsessed with that era. It is what it is!
The vast majority of Americans didn't feel the effects of Jim Crow or racism in general. It wasn't until after the rise of Television and shifts in dynamics that took place after World War 2 that most whites were confronted with what was going on. I'm in my 30s and live in the deep South and have talked to people who were alive during that time who said they didn't realize how segregated things were prior to the mid 1960s. My mom was 15 years old before she actually ever met a black person who was her lifelong friend even though blacks made up about 20% of the community she lived in. They just stayed on the other side of town. In the modern era, I think the rest of America outside the South have a lot of ground to cover on race relations. Not only do I have black friends but have several black relatives through mariage and several bi-racial cousins as a result. That's actually pretty common in the south now.
@@shanejones7906 things was going on in the north and Midwest in and around that time too. It’s wasn’t just the Jim Crow in the south but blatant racism in general. I’ve seen a video from 1973 in queens NY. Some folks just don’t care is all
Good times bad times, it's like that since the civilisation started. We will always be the same-when we solve one problem,the next one is allready there
I don't know for sure but I doubt military spending in the 50's was in the hundreds of Billions. Maybe hundreds of Millions. I find it hard to believe it was almost the some as today, whether adjusted or not.
@@birchtree2274 I believe our country has spent tremendous amounts of money building up the war machine at any cost. We have been out of balance for so long it’s easy to imagine that things used to be different, better, more hopeful and more prosperous. We have a half-hidden, bloody history of Manifest Destiny, War and genocide right on American soil- Humans seem to seek conflict and we, as Americans, remain violent and dangerous. I see very little positive changes over the time I’ve been alive, and I am not young. It all seems like an ugly joke when one wakes up and stops believing the tv lies, and realizes that as human beings, we are the worst: “We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should.” Kurt Vonnegut
@@themoviedealers Military spending in the 50's was probably in the Billions, but not hundreds of billions. In 1950 the entire budget was 42 Billion and the whole budget didn't break even 100 Billion until 1962
@@birchtree2274 I remember the Cold War era. It was something in the periphery, not the focus of life and media propaganda as "climate change" and the Marxism or sexual deviancy BS being forced down our collective throats as being good or normal.
Like the John Trudell song says Father never did know best. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and most people have selective memory of those eras and hate it when someone points out facts that contradict how they have convinced themselves things were back then. I tend to take a pin to that bubble whenever I can. Nothing good ever comes from living in a delusion. Just remember people either we learn from history or we are doomed to repeat it.
I feel the need to disagree with you on one thing. There are people, usually older people, that for whatever reason are in a place physically and financially that they will remain for the rest of their days. Those people sometimes live in a bubble and it doesn’t effect anyone else so they should be left alone and not have their bubble burst. You have no right to decide for them what’s best. You are not God and as such you don’t have the right to burst anyones bubble. You are not judge, jury and executioner and should mind your own business and leave everyone else alone.
"Nothing good ever comes from living in a delusion." First you have to prove it's a delusion. You presented a straw man fallacy, and then proceeded to tear it down. "Father never did know best" Really? Never? Kids/progressives never know best.. would be closer to the truth. And if you're still listening to Trudell, then you are truly living in the past.
You come across as a mean-spirited arrogant lowbrow busybody - & you're evidently *so pleased with yourself* - you can't see how obnoxious & ignorant you come across as - is that because you've felt entitled to stuff & life didn't give it to you instead it "popped your babyish bubble"? So now you are bitter & want to harm or discomfort others? You've convinced yourself you know better than everyone else. If you "grew up" in the 50s & 60s - you were a child & wouldn't have known what the real world was even like - beyond your immediate life ... who are you to pompously decide others experiences are not WHAT THEY EXPERIENCED?
@@marinaknife4595 "you were a child & wouldn't have known what the real world was" Exactly. That's why this CRT crap shouldn't be promoted in schools. The rest of what you said is meaningless drivel.
@@albertj.1813 No, it was not, but I meant that I knew conservative white Americans who looked down on "drug users", although they were often into alcohol, pills and of course cigarettes, themselves. Their drugs of choice were not like the commie-beatknick-race mixing "drugs"
My dad trained pilots in Dafoe Saskatchewan and after the war became a Shop Foreman in the Electrical Hanger of Canadian Pacific Airlines, Calgary Repair Depot. If he had to go to work on a Sat. he would take me and I would play in Sabre jets, DC-3, DC-6 everything that was parked at Lincoln Park Calgary. It gave me the bug to fly so when I could afford it I learned to fly. Sadly my father would never let me 'take him up' on the grounds that he was the man that had to teach me to drive and that's a chance he's not willing to take! I showed him one Saturday what his '57 Ford with a Thunderbird motor could do on the road to Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park. It flew like a thunderbird that day!
I grew up in NYC. One of the joyrides my friends and I used to take as kids was the RT on the subway from the Bronx to Coney Island and back - for only a dime. As a teen, I lived near the AMNH; at least once a week, I would walk across Central Park to visit the Met and check out the art exhibits - all FREE. I remember the Bell Telephone Hour, the Longine Symphonette - FREE at Carnegie Hall; MOMA and RCMH were $1.25 but I had friends of a friend who worked there and would sneak me in. The subway was $.15 at the time, but I walked everywhere: Rockefeller Center or Greenwich Village, it made little difference. Then, in 1957, I moved out to LA where distances were determined in number of traffic lights rather than city blocks . . .
12:41 -- And then along came even greater communication mediums such as the Internet and then places like TH-cam and social media and smartphones. Basically seeing history unfold with your own beady little eyes in real time as opposed to the days when you could only hear about it (radio) or read about it (newspapers/books/magazines) sure does make things MUCH different.
Americans who yearned for the 1950s, or still do, have some basis for doing so. Prosperity was unprecedented; housing was the best up that time in our history; more people had more education, especially higher education, with the passing of the G.I. Bill...there were more goods and services than ever before.
People who yearn for the 1950s are yearning for the 1950s they saw on TV and not the real 1950s. IMO the only thing the real 1950s had over the present is that housing in some areas, for some people, was more affordable. However it was a distinctly racist and discriminatory period that nobody should idealize.
It was a simpler and happier time. We had only a couple of TV stations so all people had lots in common to talk about. One language and absolute prosperity. My patent's first house note was $45 per month for a three bedroom home. Utilities were low. There was not the greed of today by the wealthy business owners.
Simpler and happier for YOU. That's the whole point of the video. It wasn't simpler and happier for everyone. One language? Maybe in your neighborhood. And there was plenty of greed to go around in the 50's.
My parents bought a brand new house in a brand new town, for $10,000. Oh, no homes would be sold to Black people. That was official. My Dad qualified for a GI Bill mortgage. Oh, Black men who served in WWII were not eligible for those benefits. Yeah, swell time, /s
It was simpler. There was no treatment for PTSD so my great grandpa came home from WWII and spent the 50's beating any love for science out of my grandfather. He later became an accountant and spent his life hating it and wishing he was a chemist.
Back then a lot of people didn't have the disposable income to attend public events like football games etc. Public amusements like zoos were usually free and concerts in parks etc. If a guy scored a couple of tickets to a hockey game from a co-worker or someone that was a big windfall!!!
About the idea of Americans’ being more pious in the 1950’s: Sayyid Qutb, an Islamist thinker who influenced bin Laden, visited USA in the late 40’s and early 50’s, and thought Americans weren’t pious enough. (He also thought Americans were promiscuous, something that also contradicts people’s views of the 50’s.) Also, there is a cartoon (from 1939, IIRC) in which Porky Pig recites the Pledge Of Allegiance, and recites it without the words, “under God”.
That Porky Pig cartoon was a history / civics lesson, with Uncle Sam explaining why he the pledge was important. It was really patriotic for the pre-war era.
I was born in 1947 and after my parents bought their first brand new '49 Ford they would go from Calgary to Spokane, WA to shop for school, work clothes, linens and usually the kinds of cotton were better, cheaper, and the money was at par or close. To an 8 yr old kid, Pay-N-Save Drugs was heaven on earth. Every time we went in there I hoped my parents would never find me. America really WAS #1 and we all did what Dinah said: "See the USA in your Chevrolet, America is asking you to call." Nowadays I'd be afraid to get out of my perishing car for fear I'd get shot! Well done, I used to love to dodge bullets in Northern Ireland, but you folks are closer! 😉
At 5:50, can you just imagine what that '53 Ford ambulance would be worth now if it was still in reasonably good shape? Oh, to win a lottery!!! That's what I learned to drive in. A sedan, not an ambulance. 100 hp / 3 on the tree / mechanically perfect for 4 yrs. not one issue whatever. Try that today!?!?!?
I don't disagree with any of the research presented in this video, and I really thank the researchers, but this guy is a robot voice, right? My fellow screen reader users, this is a robot, is it not?
Is it just me or does the narrator sound like a computerised voice reading a script. It doesn’t sound like a real person and has no emotional tones where there should be.
"Racial tensions were high in the 50s." Maybe in a small part of the U.S., but I was born in '50, in central California, and someone's race was never brought up, or thought of as being of any importance (same as I do now). People were concerned about your abilities/skills, character/deeds, and actions. What was an oddity, and rare to see back then, was obesity. And my grandfather had a gas station/auto repair shop. They had 'gas wars' back then, and prices would go down to 17-19 cents a gallon. Some franchise stations, Texaco, Shell, Richfield, Union Oil, etc., gave away prizes for a gas fill-up. Dinner plate sets, pots/pans, silverware, towels, temp/barometer units, etc.. Ph# were from 5-6 digits and you could call up an operator to find a ph#. No seat belts. Cars built like tanks. Smoking commercials. TV had 3 channels in B&W. No stereo. And don't forget the beatniks.
You are insane if you think race was only an issue in a “small part of the country”. I bet black (or other black people) people have a very different recollection of that time period. Shoot I bet they have a different view about racism today.
Never mind. I looked at your channel. I’m not at all surprised by your ridiculous comment. Here’s the thing. You don’t get to say racism isn’t and wasn’t a very big & real problem in this country.
@@armpitification I was there, you weren't. It was southern Dems who were in favor of segregation, and we didn't experience any racism in central CA in the 50s. No segregation. Every race on the planet has been oppressed, enslaved, and treated poorly. And yes, some have a different view of racism now. Because it's promoted.
@@armpitification "You don’t get to say racism isn’t and wasn’t a very big & real problem in this country." Yes I do, but I'm not saying that. I gave you a personal experience. Some people think race is important.. they judge by it and discriminate by that. All races. I'll have no part of that cult mindset. But you do you.
As one born in 1940 I quit watching after 8 minutes as you mix truth with error. The forties and fifties were the BEST TIME OF MY LIFE as well as most all of my friends and relatives from Kindergarten through 12th grade! Sure there were people who had it rough like blacks and Mattew Clark below but that's been true through all history. Everything went to hell in a handbasket with the coming of Rock and Roll which destroyed music with its screamers, pig callers and instrument bashers. The movies turned to crap with movies like Blackboard Jungle and Rebel with a Cause. The moral principles of the Ten Commandments ceased and turned into 'do your own thing'.
It will be interesting to compare if the narratives had their cause in the inglorious World Fair spectacle, wonder and promise of what? A false premise and beleaguered purview of a present that we, and with we I include all of us that still have the wherewithal to realise they, or we for all I know have been kept in the proverbial dark side of disarray. Distracted by his Master's Voice, the gall!
You lost accuracy in the first minute. American Graffiti was set in 1963 not the 50s Happy Days was set in the 50s for half it's run 1955 to 1965. 1972's Love and the Happy Days (pilot) was set in 1952 last year of Truman. Series moved it to the Rock and Roll year of 55 . Beaver is also mostly in the 1960s As is the Donna Reed Show Those shows spanned the two decades. Perry Mason too. Pop culture 50s image for teens is really 1955+ For adults it is post WWII (about 1948 to 1960). Adult fashion changed strongly in 1961 to the Kennedy Look. Remember that shows like The Honeymooners and some other grungy city situations were more common in the early 50s than all the shows filmed on Wisteria Lane that happened when TV moved to California. B&W Dragnet were pretty bleak settings and that was even LA. However there were many places in the 1950s that looked just like Hill Valley 1955 when Marty arrived. That is not unrealistic fantasy... But a fact for people in new or prosperous towns.
Good and thought-provoking film, except when they got to 1954, when the CIA deposed the elected president of Guatemala and installed "a right-wing dictator, Jacobo Arbenz." (about 20:47 spot.) Wrong, Arbenz was the good guy, the elected President that the CIA deposed.
People in general need to accept the reality that any given time is not a monolithic "thing" of one sort or another, but an entanglement between dynamic forces in every era and ongoing influences from even the distant past and the tug of the process of developing factors, advances in all areas and the gravity of unintended consequences. Yet. the desire seems to stubbornly remain to think of time periods as something solidly as a "neat little package" with a label on it that explains all that it is.
Desi Arnaz Sr. & Lucille Ball were a "bi-racial" couple? Where the hell did you get that idea? They were both caucasians ... you know ... white people.
But, the definition of who is white was much more rigid back then. Hispanics, unless completely white washed (like Rita Hayworth), did not count as white. So, Lucy and Desi’s (as he is, like his accent and name) marriage on tv was monumental. Shoot, the Irish and the Italian barely counted as white those days.
I do not agree with most of this video. To me, it seems the writer didn't like the 50's and put they own spin on the facts. Even though the voice is a computer I could "hear" the dislike and a tone of disapproval. Not a fan of this video but a fan of the 50's.
You can be a fan of the 1950's without the "carefree/trouble-free" myth. Acknowledging that they struggled with the same very human conditions that we have always struggled with, makes the 1950s relevant. I like to see how they dealt with street crime, bigotry, substance abuse, etc. Nostalgia, on the other hand, will have us believe that none of that existed back then, that supposedly everything was "goody goody" until the year 1967. Most of my friends who are into the vintage lifestyle however, have the most interesting conversations regarding the mafia's involvement in rock and roll, real-life juvenile delinquency ("The Capeman," the tragedies that befall Michael Farmer, Alvin Palmer, and the South Korean foreign exchange student at the University of Pennsylvania In Ho Oh, the murderous psychopaths Charles Starkweather and Billy Ray Prevatte), as well as the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement, which can be traced to the tragic murder of teenager Emmett Till, as well the effects of the Cold War and, The Payola Scandal of 1959. Nor is exploring that history a "celebration" of those tragedies. It's an acknowledging that society of the 1950's dealt with very real problems, which human beings have always dealt with. That's what makes the work of 1950's gang outreach workers like Chauncey Kilmer Myers, Ben Moring, and David Wilkerson relevant and important, because we see what they had to come up against in order to help inner city teenagers of that time period. (If everything was "goody goody," then the work of the good people of the 1950's had no meaning.) The most interesting stories come from real life struggles.
I have never understood the 50s appeal. The us had given life support to communism at its most critical point which led to its seizing half of Europe - and securing gains in Asia. Europe was rubble. Communists in Soviet employ or collaboration were absolutely infiltrating the US, Britain and France (even south Africa, courtesy of foreign enabling, but to less success - at the time, at least) and even worse was the Trotskyists who were coming into their own - enabled by western intelligence at times even. Even the "family values" were cookie cutter commodified half assery.
How did the U S give life support to Communism ? If anything I remember America was trying hard in the 1950's to drive out the communists out from Hollywood & points East. McCarthy had his foot planted pretty firmly where it belonged. I think to understand the 50's appeal you had to live through it. I found living in America in the 50's the very best time of all the years I was alive. People knew who & what they were back then, Today a woman/girl or man/boy is so confused they cant figure out what gender he or she is. Very sad. I suppose it's because no one told them your either male or female. Its not America that's a mess, Its the occupants.
@@richardbartolo2890 we sent them billions of dollars, equipment, and we officially presented Stalin as "Uncle Joe" and a good guy. We could have stood by and just watched Germany wear itself out fighting communism. Instead we allied with the communists and destroyed western civilization.
@@andysamet4554 Stalin was better than Hitler and the Soviets made sure everyone who had a vague idea of exactly how bad the Soviet Union was hurt by Germany was removed from any position of power in the United States by feeding the FBI false information which was illegally leaked the committee on unamerican activities
What is your definition of the word pious? You post @10:47 Americans were more pious in the 1950’s and claim its false. Well instead of gauging it on how favorable “in god we trust” is on the currency (which is a strawman argument) let’s check church attendance (which is ALOT closer to the description of pious than what’s on the money). On a typical Sunday morning in the period from 1955-58, almost half of all Americans were attending church - the highest percentage in U.S. history. During the 1950s, nationwide church membership grew at a faster rate than the population, from 57 percent of the U.S. population in 1950 to 63.3 percent in 1960 Compared to 2018 at 40%
I am not sure what the purpose of this video is. I am 80 years old, so I grew up during the 1950's. I grew up in a small town in Wyoming. My father was a blue collar worker, and my mother was a housewife, as were the mothers of all my friends an school class mates. Most people didn't lock their doors, and nobody worried about us kids playing till dark in the summer. I don't care where he got his "statistics", the 1950's were completely calmer than now.
@@BlackSheep-83 I don't have to read a book about the 50's. I lived it, remember? Just because there were different living conditions for some people, doesn't mean there is falshood to be stamped out. There was good and bad, just like always.
Church attendance became a time of exchanging business cards and bragging...people talked about their new cars...and personal charity in obedience to the actual COMMANDS of Jesus dwindled into sending little checks to some famous "charity".
You state small business did not thrive. I lived in N Y C , Mom and Pop businesses stayed very strong until some time in the mid 70's when things slowly started to change. The same stores and owners were there for 2 decades & more., Many of them started their stores after WW 2 in the mid to late 40's. In 1967 gas was 25 cents a gallon. You can't believe every thing your hear or even read in todays world. Talk to some one who was in the room at the time and your will get the straight story.
I'll take those days anytime to the PC days of today... Yes some things have been made right such as civil rights but that nearly went astray with TRUMP !!!
I think we can all figure out what this producer's (leftist) political leanings are. He would feel right at home on the campus of UC Berkeley. Didn't say one good thing about the decade, but had plenty of negative things to say.
Paul, did you catch the title of the video? The point was to crack open the mythology and look at the less shiny truth. Also, I fail to see how the subject of this video is a partisan topic.
You should've began the video with how black people were denied homes in the suburbs, instead of presenting it 30 minutes into the video. Because that's the biggest myth of them all.
America ain't Perfect and we NEVER WERE!!! We need to be Better in Every way!!!! Always remember we need to adopt the slogan,"Not Me,Us" to promote solidarity! We are SO BROKEN!!!
Let's not forget the alcoholism during the 50's was much higher than today since you had an entire generation of veterans coming back from Europe & the Pacific readjusting to civilian life and there were little or no services for those returning veterans coping with PTSD. The only way to deal with PTSD back in those days was to drink or take pills.
Alcohol was definitely much more the drug of choice in those days but chemicals dependency overall is a much bigger problem today especially if you include prescriptions drugs which most definitely should be included.
Then there was meth as a weight loss drug.
Now we medicate the living hell out of them and label them as potential domestic terrorists, we've come a long way baby!
And the Korean War, and the start of US involvement in Vietnam... Not remotely the peaceful time it's painted out to be.
50's nostalgia is fine, as long as you are aware that it is just longing for a fictional time. Much like the Victorian era, the pop culture depiction of the 50's as wholesome and cozy is just a pleasant distraction. The trouble starts when people try to use it as a political myth to push their agenda.
All in all, the fascination with the past is due to the fact that we came out of it ok and we now know how things turned out. That's the great advantage compared to the uncertainty and anxiety of the present and the unpredictability of the future.
Nostalgia is fine as long as you don't go overboard, thinking negative about the current generation and wishing to go back in time. Thinking things gets worst since the 50's.
Personally I find the 50's to be boring but I don't care if people enjoy anything from the 50's. Just don't go overboard about it.
Well said
Nostalgia is fine and I'm old enough to know the 50's of TV were fictional fantasies because real life was at the same time pleasant and horrible as it is now. The thing that I long for is when we were a less litigious society and lawyers couldn't advertise.
@@TopCat2021 add prescription drugs ads to that. Different problem but still.
Thank you so much...my Naval officer father would not allow us to ever watch Father Knows Best or Leave it to Beaver, etc. He said they would harm family relationships with their icky poo idealism. I was born in 1947 and agree with everything you said here.
I only wished you had added the horrible way husbands were transferred by corporations away from the extended families...wives found themselves in strange barbaric modern suburbs without any support system...children suffered the loss of grandparents attention and many other huge assets to their emotional maturity. Husbands were very reluctant to say NO to this because of peer pressure and their value grew to be judged by their financial "worth" and luxuries they could provide for these lonely nuclear families.
Many of us remember the horrible screams and alcoholism we heard from the WWII vets...before air conditioning and central heat closed all the windows and left us kids cooped up with the tears, sometime violence, and second hand smoke that were normal for most of us.
I find myself telling younger people about the REAL 1950s a lot online....there has been so much BS and negative lies lately about boomers, never mentioning these realities or Vietnam deaths and injuries or other things.
Church attendance became ubiquitous for business card exchanges and showing off new clothes, but the church members of my grandparents generation was much more personally charitable. My grandmothers sewed for poor neighbors and knitted for soldiers...my grandfather had a Piggly Wiggly in west Texas and passed dented cans and much food out the back door to local poor black families and Mexicans...back door to avoid any embarrassment. When chain corporate stored took over, this became impossible...another strike against corporate chains mushrooming in the 1950s.
The morphing of Christianity from a basic trust in Jesus' manifesting the Love of the Father displayed in action and charity into right wing "traditions" and "family" values not found in the Gospels was accomplished brilliantly by Billy Graham and other 'preachers' puffed by William Randolph Hearst and continue on TH-cam everywhere. I often shorted this with my own joke, "The only Christians that came over on the Mayflower were the crew."
Your father and my own similar grandfather were right and I just wonder why there seem to be so few people that got that education. I had the additional benefit of my great grandmother who was born in (probably) 1881 and saw just about everything happen from an unusual position of being the only surviving sibling of a socially prominent family.
It was the initial implementation of mass propagandizing used to erase pre-war America and cover up what was being done while the public was distracted with the campaign against nonexistent threats. Edward Bernays' seminal work was published in 1933 and virtually everything in his system was utilized by the numbers, first to finance the war, and later to hide the crimes committed at home along with the establishment of the American empire.
Thank you so much for the insight.
Afraid you have Billy Graham wrong.
60 years from now, people will look at 2020's and will have a rosy view of this decade. Every generation always do that.
They will ignore the negative aspect of any decade and talk only positive about it and look at the decade they are living in as garbage. Ironically that decade will eventually get a rosy picture.
I frequently bring up some of these topics when older generations start putting down current society, and people look at me like I’m crazy! The Leave It To Beaver and Andy Hardy scenario was only enjoyed by a small handful of Americans. The rest were still struggling.
The truth is there is good and bad in each generation, and what is good and bad shifts around a lot. So it all kind of evens out in the end. The only thing you can truly count on is that things change. And being able to adapt to the changes is what allows you to survive! 😁
I don’t think TV shows or movies of that time are an accurate representation but I still do think quality of life was higher for a much bigger % of the population in those days. We don’t need to sugarcoat it.
@@sheLovesG The quality of life was higher for a much bigger (white male) % of the population. Knock it off. You belong in the South...the antebellum south.
@@ficialintelligence1869 what are you like 15? You have no idea of what you’re talking about. More like Fecal Intelligence.
Most teenagers back then were either Lumpy Rutherfords or Eddie Haskells.
Imagine everywhere you went, all of your clothes, every room, the workplace, the home, all furniture absolutely reeking of cigarette smoke. For that reason alone, you couldn't get me back there if you tried to drag me.
Please do a video on each decade! You did a great job.
The 1950's were horrible! Raised black, dirt poor, and on ADC during this era this video brought back a lot of old and very ugly memories. I'm surprised this video wasn't banned. THANKS FOR TELLING THE TRUTH!
Yes, I loved my early childhood fishing and outdoors and many relatives around...then it all went to crapola after about 1955. Don't assume we were paid just for being white....the culture turned shallow, cold, money mad, and phony for all of us.
Besides TV and films, the Broadway stage premiered West Side Story in 1957, which involved two juvenile street gangs with violence an violence overtones.
But they danced well.
First off we are currently living with high inflation which really skews numbers but is clear that you don’t understand the economy of the 1950’s! The economy grew A STAGGERING 37% from 50-59. Let’s go over what you state at @5:20 “Consumer price were far lower in the 1950’s”. While you did show accurate avg prices for gas 1950 27c ($3.11 today) 1959 30c ($2.87) and milk 1950 83c ($9.57) 1959 98c ($9.36) The most significant thing though is the avg wage in 1950 3,300 ($38K) and in 1959 a whooping 5,400 ($51.5K)! As of March 2021 the US median income is $19,306. So with half of the US pop making under 20K seeing folks in 1959 making 2.5x what you make on average would easily lead to nostalgia of a better time with more purchasing power. Also unemployment in 1950 4.3% and 1959 5.3% while in 2020 at 6.7%.
I love fact based arguments giving me the opportunity to learn. I would have never ever guessed that the median income in the USA is ThAT low!! I am perplexed! But it seems to me that with a medium qualified job Americans still make much more money than in my west European country given that people with simple jobs can afford a house, a big car, an interior that looks impeccable, etc.. I assume the taxes are much, much lower so when you have a steady middle class income you can afford much more than in my country that leaves me with a measly 48% of what I really earn in my highly specialised job. Of course debt is for all I know a considerable problem in the lower middle and the working class in the USA but overall the true problem appears to be a large proportion of the population being very poorly educated and therefore stuck in unqualified, precarious, low income jobs.
Good points. Not to mention that the blacks in '50s America saw their highest employment rate, highest earnings, and highest married household rate. America was working their asses off after the war.
The median income in the United States in 2019 was $31,133
The percent tax on the rich was also much higher, and the economy continued to grow. Go figure.
The cost of housing was also cheaper
Should've mentioned the frequent incidents of domestic violence, back then, as it was almost totally legal for a husband to beat their wives, and police would do very little if anything to intervene, as they considered it to be a family matter, and just a husband putting her in her place.
"American Graffiti" is not set in the '50s. It is set in 1963.
It's set in 1962 ("Where were you in '62?" was the tagline for the promotional materials), but (as I'm sure you already know), it was an expression of the 1970's "Fifties Nostalgia Fad" since the majority of the soundtrack consisted of mid to late 50s rock and roll as opposed to early 60s Twist-era rock n' roll, and also, the early 1960s from a cultural standpoint is generally considered a continuation of "The Fifties."
I'm not denying that the inspiration for the screenplay might have drawn from several years of Mr. Lucas' experiences, including the year 1963.
I am saying however, in regards to the movie itself, it is indeed set in the summer of 1962.
Here is the trailer to "American Graffiti," with Wolfman Jack, from 1973, with the tagline "Where were you in '62?"
th-cam.com/video/SdSb7jVPwyo/w-d-xo.html
@@Mike_The_1950s_Historian "American Graffiti" was filmed in part at Tamalpais HS, where I am a member of the class of 1963. George Lucas lives in my town, and I have met him several times.
@@charleskelly1887 nice.
@@charleskelly1887 What is he like? Friendly?
@@Mike_The_1950s_Historian The JFK era was the last of the good times, before (IMHO) LBJ masterminded the assassination, and proceeded to divide the country, getting rich off his no-win Viet Nam fiasco at the price of 60,000 deaths of other people's sons. (Hey, Lyndon! Put your pitchfork down. We're talking about you!)
When a time period is romanticized its usuaally viewed from a childs perspective where everything is fine, even if u make a mistake it wont mean much, everyone seems happy, and you havent learned of the complexities of life yet so u think life is simple. Every generation has claimed thr world was better when they were growing up because to them, things were simple and fun and free of problems but when they became adults they started understanding how the world works and they had responsibilities and mistakes could mean losing a lot.
I love the 50s aesthetic and i enjoy watching old 50s videos here on TH-cam and when i go to the comments im garenteed to find someone saying how much better things were back then bc they were simple and people stuck to things like gender roles and religion and thats what made society great even though many women back then secretly despised their lives but had no other option so they hid their feelings. Being black back then was a whole nother problem that is conveniently left out of the 50s nostalgia.
As people in the present, we should be able to look at the positives and negatives aspects of time periods before us as well as the period were currently in.
I think a big part of why people have such a rosy memory of the 1950’s and even the 1980’s is the lack of 24/7 news channels. I remember what it was like before CNN started the 24 hour news cycle. We didn’t hear about every single thing happening everywhere. We had national news and some local news and that was it. If it didn’t happen within 10 miles of your house you didn’t hear about it. And with such a large percentage of Americans living in small towns spread out over large distances we didn’t hear about all the horrible things happening elsewhere. A good example would be war and how the media covered it. Compare WWII and Korea vs Vietnam which was in our living rooms every single night. And now we have social media which brings the world to us instantly for better and for worse.
The rate of teen childbearing in the United States has fallen steeply since the late 1950s, from an all time high of 96 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 in 1957 to an all time low of 49 in 2000.
That's somewhat deceptive though. It was quite common for women to get married young, and a 19 year old married woman would count as a teen birth.
Also if abortions were factored in to this statistic I wonder how different it would be, Planned Parenthood is the Genocidal ideal Hitler couldn't achieve.
11:54 -- Actually the last (4th) verse of the Star Spangled Banner reads in part:
"And this be our motto - 'In God is our trust,'"
So the "In God We Trust" thing didn't exactly just appear out of nowhere in the mid 50s as is impled.
They should have kept the "e pluribus unum" .... it might have influenced modern American attitudes.
thank you for this. i've tried to tell people the truth about those times and they brush it off.
side note: my mother was thrilled about sputnik. she was so interested in astronomy and other worlds.
I grew up in the fifties. Born in '56. Life was not as simple as they try to make it.
We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should.
Kurt Vonnegut
Human beings are a virus.
They have been the Los Angeles Dodgers longer than they were the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Nice video and I was intrigued when you mentioned juvenile delinquency, since the study of 1950's youth crime is a particular interest of mine (along with teen fashions, teen dance styles, teen themed movies, and of course, rock and roll.)
Actually, nostalgia often portrays 1950's era juvenile delinquency as "harmless" and (relatively) free of "serious" violence. (All one has to do is read the comments in any 1950's nostalgia group on Facebook to verify the existence of those claims, or even the comments in some of the "oldies" music video posts here on TH-cam.)
I love the 1950's aesthetics, and the art of that time is very important and relevant, but it's relevancy is because they dealt with a lot of the same problems we deal with today!
Violent youth crime did indeed exist, and was a major issue of discussion during that time, particularly in the summers of 1959, which saw several gang related killings ("The Capeman" and the shooting death of 15-year-old Theresa Gee), 1958 (the school shooting committed by Bruce Zator, which was within weeks of the candy store gang-related shooting by Ramon Serra upon Michael Ramos, while up north in the midwest, Charles Starkweather was going about his rampage), and 1957 (the murder of the 15-year-old handicapped polio survivor Michael Farmer by the Egyptian Dragons street gang.)
Personally, pointing out that society of the 1950's dealt with a lot of the same problems that we have always dealt with, shows that time period as being relevant and important.
If everything was "simple and carefree" and "goody goody," I wouldn't be able to relate to it, (and it would be boring!)
Human beings have always been both good, and terrible, to each other (even during the "carefree" 1950's) and I think that's what makes this video important.
@Cassandra Tafoya lol yeah my family was roughnecks too.
Since I'm talking to people who would care, my Dad was born in 46 (headed to see him later today) and has for the last 10 years or so put together an extensive ancestry tree complete with stories (like 2 of my ancestors killing a guy at a barn dance (southern Illinois). It's super cool and really shows how people were always people regardless of era.
@@RemoWilliams1227 I wish I had seen this comment 6 months ago. Hope you see my response.😁
I know it's family, and probably personal, but if you ever decide to do a video on your family stories, that would make an interesting documentary. (I'd watch it )
3k a year and could afford a house in the suburbs? Try that now even counting the inflation
My Dad was pre-war army, and couldn't get the GI house deals. The ex-GI got the house for $8K, but it would be $16K for anyone else. (mid-'50s).
@@elultimo102 wow
I think the increase of teenagers committing crimes in the 1950's might be linked to there being more teenagers in the 1950's.
Yes, there was an increase in population, but there's another factor which someone touched on in another comment.
Before I bring that up however, for anyone else following this thread, here are examples of violent youth crime in the 1950's.
I bring them up, just so we are clear on what "juvenile delinquency" actually was ('50's JD's were not the "cute lovable pranksters" that we saw in "Grease," "American Graffiti," or "The Lords of Flatbush.")
The more notorious examples, which are verified through surviving court documents, include the 1952 San Francisco Civic Center shooting committed by Robert Arthur Ranson, the 1954 "Thrill Kill" murders, the 1956 school shooting committed by 14-year-old Billy Ray Prevatte, the 1957 drive-by shooting committed by 14 year old Clement "Cookie" Macis, the 1957 drive-by shooting of 18-year-old Emily Guzman in Los Angeles, the 1959 gang related shooting of 15-year-old Theresa Gee, followed by the "Capeman" murders a week later, to name just a few (there were many others, and no, such incidents back then were not "rare," despite adamant claims by some very vocal senior citizens, many of whom admit that in their youth, they did not particularly care to follow the current events of that time, though as adult senior citizens, they now watch the news regularly.)
Teenagers of the 1950's would have been born in the late 1930's through the mid-1940's.
And the late '30's up to the mid-1940's, of course, was World War II.
World War II did affect many aspects of post-war life, later on.
There were some young fathers who served and saw action in places like Okinawa, Guadalcanal, or the landing at Normandy.
Many of them didn't come back, leaving their wives to raise their children alone.
Many of them who did come back would have had either physical scars, lost limbs, or emotional scars from undiagnosed PTSD. (That would have been especially true had they served in the Pacific.)
Families dealing with PTSD would have been a hard enough situation in upper middle class suburban families, but even more difficult for families from working class inner cities, where youth gangs were growing in the post war period.
Those would have been the fathers of young boys who sought role models outside of the home, such as in youth gangs (since their fathers were dealing with their own emotional issues.)
Another way World War II would have affected the rise in youth crime after the war was the various shipbuilding and munitions factories that had to spring up in cities, bringing in Americans from one part of the country, into another, with the pre-existing residents in places like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, looking upon the newcomers as "competition" or even "invaders," especially for jobs when the war ended.
Some of the newly arrived American migrants who came to work in those munitions plants would have reacted to such attitudes by looking upon the pre-existing population as obstacles.
And of course, such mindsets would have been passed on to their children.
It's one reason why we had that Chicago race riot in 1951 (Cicero Race Riot on July 11, 1951.)
That was in the North, not the South, and the "white" residents who attacked the black family trying to move into "their" neighborhood were not the Scotch Irish descendants that made up the Ku Klux Klan in the South, but in fact, were primarily second generation descendants of Polish immigrants, who themselves had been the victims of bigotry from other more "native" whites a generation or two previously.
Both of the factors listed above had an influence on the cases of 1950's juvenile delinquency that involved assault and homicide.
Incidentally, in my opinion, the worst year for violent youth crime in the 1950's was 1958, between the months of March through May.
That was when the following incidents occurred, one after the other:
April 20,1958:
The Coney Island gang rumble involving 50 teenagers that spilled over into New York's subway, involving five gangs (The Mau Maus, Corsair Lords, Bishops, Chaplains, and Golden Aces.)
April 25, 1958
Beating murder of South Korean foreign exchange student In Ho Oh near The University of Pennsylvania by about a dozen teenagers after they had been ejected from a local Philadelphia record hop a few blocks away from the student's dormitory.
The same night that the incident occurred in Philadelphia, Ramon Serra of the Egyptian Crowns street gang murdered 16 year old gang rival Michael Ramos with a shotgun at a Bronx candy store. Coincidentally, or perhaps not so coincidentally, Ramos was a witness in the murder trial of the Egyptian Kings (affiliated with The Egyptian Crowns) for the beating and stabbing murder of handicapped 15-year-old Michael Farmer, which occurred in July of 1957.
One week later, a school shooting of 15-year-old Timothy Wall committed by Bruce Zator, also 15, occurred at Massapequa High School in Long Island.
One month later at Thomas Jefferson Park, members of The East Harlem Red Wings beat 26 year old Cuban immigrant Julio Ramos to death, in front of his girlfriend, when they mistook him for a teenaged Puerto Rican gang rival.
That same month, in San Francisco, drugstore owner Kenneth Outland was dragged from his car on Clement Street by a youth gang who apparently was angry, because he refused to sell them alcohol. (So much for "respect for elders.")
Outland was "lucky," because he did not die from the beating, though apparently he suffered brain damage afterwards.
All of the above incidents were happening as the trial of teen serial killer Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate was going on in Lincoln, Nebraska.
There were a lot of great things about the 1950's.
And it would be unfair to blame all of society's ills on that decade, especially since society of that time genuinely tried to make improvements, such as school desegregation (remember Jim Crow did not begin in the 1950's, and the beginning of the end of "legal" segregation actually began in the '50's.)
But ever since the 1970's, we have been looking at that time with rose colored glasses, when in fact, human behavior has not changed in thousands of years.
There are certain problems that human beings have always had to deal with, in all time periods, including the "carefree" 1950's.
"WHEN THE LEGEND BECOMES FACT, PRINT THE LEGEND."
The above is a line from the John Wayne film "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" after Senator "Ransom 'Ranse' Stoddard" (played by James Stewart) tells the town newspaper publisher who really killed the killer Liberty Valance (played by Lee Marvin). Up until this time, it was only known by Ranse Stoddard and 2 other people who the real person to kill Liberty Valance was...John Wayne's character "Tom Doniphon". It was an unintentional lie that ultimately catapulted Ransom Stoddard to marry the woman that "Tom Doniphon" had expected to marry, as well as fame and fortune and a career in politics.
This is an Interesting video. There are always some things in a person's life that are better remembered for what they were in one's memory are than re-living in actuality. And many people like to relive their childhoods because they feel the innocence of a childhood is a beautiful thing.
But clearly, the 1950's had their dark and troubling times just like we have dark and troubling times in our own 2020's. That's nothing new. If you were affluent, if you were White, if you lived where things were plentiful and readily accessible, if your sports teams always won, your vacations were reachable and enjoyable, your teachers were good and you learned a lot, your income levels and work types were sustainable and without too much stress, then among all these things and other positive concerns you'd have a more favorable memory of your youth, or a time you thought things were better when in general you were much younger.
I was born in 1967. No, I do not believe the next 5 to 10 years after I was born were great years. Nixon & Watergate, Vietnam, high oil prices, high interest rates, drugs were big in big cities, and a host of other "negatives" existed including racial tensions. But as a kid, all I know is that my family was together. My relatives lived relatively close by. I enjoyed summers at camp in the late 1970's and early 1980's, school was mostly great, and I enjoyed fishing in a local park. I had nothing to do with all those negative things.
So, to make a long story short. Memories fade. Humans like to be nostalgic. History is written by the winners. And revisionists have a nasty habit of either glossing over the facts or forgetting them entirely. That's why people need to read their histories from a variety of different sources, read first-person letters and autobiographies, pay attention to actual source documents and not just media review of these documents. Don't trust politicians or anyone else.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" is a masterpiece of true heroism and civilized BS (Jessica Lynch 'rescue') cooked up by the propaganda liars.
It foreshadows 2 wonderful movies with that theme that are full of modern high tech ways of doing the same thing....and starring Dustin Hoffman....Hero (1992) and Wag the Dog (1997). This is not new....Catholicism has been turning pretty good people into perfect angels masterfully for 1800 years and still does it!!
Is there an AI bot reading this script? Some of it sounds so weird, like the person doesn't even know how English is read.
You should have mentioned that two states joined the union in 1959 -- Alaska and Hawaii. That all by itself, makes the 1950s a remarkable decade.
I'm sure Natives of these places were super happy about it
People aren’t happy with this video? Too much truth? Let’s be real, it was good for one race that’s why they are so obsessed with that era. It is what it is!
I was in school during the awful 1950's so you told the truth Ms. McRae; well said!
The vast majority of Americans didn't feel the effects of Jim Crow or racism in general. It wasn't until after the rise of Television and shifts in dynamics that took place after World War 2 that most whites were confronted with what was going on. I'm in my 30s and live in the deep South and have talked to people who were alive during that time who said they didn't realize how segregated things were prior to the mid 1960s. My mom was 15 years old before she actually ever met a black person who was her lifelong friend even though blacks made up about 20% of the community she lived in. They just stayed on the other side of town.
In the modern era, I think the rest of America outside the South have a lot of ground to cover on race relations. Not only do I have black friends but have several black relatives through mariage and several bi-racial cousins as a result. That's actually pretty common in the south now.
@@shanejones7906 things was going on in the north and Midwest in and around that time too. It’s wasn’t just the Jim Crow in the south but blatant racism in general. I’ve seen a video from 1973 in queens NY. Some folks just don’t care is all
@@shanejones7906
"The vast majority of Americans didn't feel the effects of Jim Crow or racism in general"
"Let’s be real, [the 1950s] was good for one race..."
Good times bad times, it's like that since the civilisation started. We will always be the same-when we solve one problem,the next one is allready there
I don't know for sure but I doubt military spending in the 50's was in the hundreds of Billions. Maybe hundreds of Millions. I find it hard to believe it was almost the some as today, whether adjusted or not.
If you find it hard to believe you've forgotten (or never learned much) about the Cold War.
@@birchtree2274
I believe our country has spent tremendous amounts of money building up the war machine at any cost.
We have been out of balance for so long it’s easy to imagine that things used to be different, better, more hopeful and more prosperous.
We have a half-hidden, bloody history of Manifest Destiny, War and genocide right on American soil-
Humans seem to seek conflict and we, as Americans, remain violent and dangerous.
I see very little positive changes over the time I’ve been alive, and I am not young.
It all seems like an ugly joke when one wakes up and stops believing the tv lies, and realizes that as human beings, we are the worst:
“We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should.”
Kurt Vonnegut
Facts don't change whether you choose to believe in them or not.
@@themoviedealers Military spending in the 50's was probably in the Billions, but not hundreds of billions. In 1950 the entire budget was 42 Billion and the whole budget didn't break even 100 Billion until 1962
@@birchtree2274 I remember the Cold War era. It was something in the periphery, not the focus of life and media propaganda as "climate change" and the Marxism or sexual deviancy BS being forced down our collective throats as being good or normal.
Wow you really did your homework. I learned quite a lot. Thanks!
Like the John Trudell song says Father never did know best. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and most people have selective memory of those eras and hate it when someone points out facts that contradict how they have convinced themselves things were back then. I tend to take a pin to that bubble whenever I can. Nothing good ever comes from living in a delusion. Just remember people either we learn from history or we are doomed to repeat it.
I feel the need to disagree with you on one thing. There are people, usually older people, that for whatever reason are in a place physically and financially that they will remain for the rest of their days. Those people sometimes live in a bubble and it doesn’t effect anyone else so they should be left alone and not have their bubble burst. You have no right to decide for them what’s best. You are not God and as such you don’t have the right to burst anyones bubble. You are not judge, jury and executioner and should mind your own business and leave everyone else alone.
"Nothing good ever comes from living in a delusion." First you have to prove it's a delusion. You presented a straw man fallacy, and then proceeded to tear it down. "Father never did know best" Really? Never? Kids/progressives never know best.. would be closer to the truth. And if you're still listening to Trudell, then you are truly living in the past.
You come across as a mean-spirited arrogant lowbrow busybody - & you're evidently *so pleased with yourself* - you can't see how obnoxious & ignorant you come across as - is that because you've felt entitled to stuff & life didn't give it to you instead it "popped your babyish bubble"? So now you are bitter & want to harm or discomfort others? You've convinced yourself you know better than everyone else. If you "grew up" in the 50s & 60s - you were a child & wouldn't have known what the real world was even like - beyond your immediate life ... who are you to pompously decide others experiences are not WHAT THEY EXPERIENCED?
@@marinaknife4595 "you were a child & wouldn't have known what the real world was" Exactly. That's why this CRT crap shouldn't be promoted in schools. The rest of what you said is meaningless drivel.
complain complain complain, you forgot to give your last customer his fries...
I understand that the recreational drugs of choice (in white America) in the 50's were alcohol and pills.
LOL. That wasn't JUST white America
@@albertj.1813 No, it was not, but I meant that I knew conservative white Americans who looked down on "drug users", although they were often into alcohol, pills and of course cigarettes, themselves. Their drugs of choice were not like the commie-beatknick-race mixing "drugs"
My dad trained pilots in Dafoe Saskatchewan and after the war became a Shop Foreman in the Electrical Hanger of Canadian Pacific Airlines, Calgary Repair Depot. If he had to go to work on a Sat. he would take me and I would play in Sabre jets, DC-3, DC-6 everything that was parked at Lincoln Park Calgary. It gave me the bug to fly so when I could afford it I learned to fly. Sadly my father would never let me 'take him up' on the grounds that he was the man that had to teach me to drive and that's a chance he's not willing to take! I showed him one Saturday what his '57 Ford with a Thunderbird motor could do on the road to Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park. It flew like a thunderbird that day!
Very important discussion. Especially the second half of this video is so valuable. The bigger picture of cultural influences.
I grew up in NYC. One of the joyrides my friends and I used to take as kids was the RT on the subway from the Bronx to Coney Island and back - for only a dime. As a teen, I lived near the AMNH; at least once a week, I would walk across Central Park to visit the Met and check out the art exhibits - all FREE. I remember the Bell Telephone Hour, the Longine Symphonette - FREE at Carnegie Hall; MOMA and RCMH were $1.25 but I had friends of a friend who worked there and would sneak me in. The subway was $.15 at the time, but I walked everywhere: Rockefeller Center or Greenwich Village, it made little difference.
Then, in 1957, I moved out to LA where distances were determined in number of traffic lights rather than city blocks . . .
Excellent. So true. Boomer here.
12:41 -- And then along came even greater communication mediums such as the Internet and then places like TH-cam and social media and smartphones. Basically seeing history unfold with your own beady little eyes in real time as opposed to the days when you could only hear about it (radio) or read about it (newspapers/books/magazines) sure does make things MUCH different.
In "I Love Lucy" all bedroom scenes had to have twin beds, and you couldn't say "pregnant" you had to use 'expecting'.
Americans who yearned for the 1950s, or still do, have some basis for doing so. Prosperity was unprecedented; housing was the best up that time in our history; more people had more education, especially higher education, with the passing of the G.I. Bill...there were more goods and services than ever before.
Yes but also... segregation
Yearning for racism
To all of those, please add "for some"
People who yearn for the 1950s are yearning for the 1950s they saw on TV and not the real 1950s. IMO the only thing the real 1950s had over the present is that housing in some areas, for some people, was more affordable. However it was a distinctly racist and discriminatory period that nobody should idealize.
It was a simpler and happier time. We had only a couple of TV stations so all people had lots in common to talk about. One language and absolute prosperity. My patent's first house note was $45 per month for a three bedroom home. Utilities were low. There was not the greed of today by the wealthy business owners.
Simpler and happier for YOU. That's the whole point of the video. It wasn't simpler and happier for everyone. One language? Maybe in your neighborhood. And there was plenty of greed to go around in the 50's.
My parents bought a brand new house in a brand new town, for $10,000. Oh, no homes would be sold to Black people. That was official. My Dad qualified for a GI Bill mortgage. Oh, Black men who served in WWII were not eligible for those benefits. Yeah, swell time, /s
Gawd. You lived a sheltered life.
It was simpler. There was no treatment for PTSD so my great grandpa came home from WWII and spent the 50's beating any love for science out of my grandfather. He later became an accountant and spent his life hating it and wishing he was a chemist.
You sure did cherry picked information about the 1950s.
Back then a lot of people didn't have the disposable income to attend public events like football games etc. Public amusements like zoos were usually free and concerts in parks etc. If a guy scored a couple of tickets to a hockey game from a co-worker or someone that was a big windfall!!!
Telling us to unlearn something is telling us not to be us.
About the idea of Americans’ being more pious in the 1950’s:
Sayyid Qutb, an Islamist thinker who influenced bin Laden, visited USA in the late 40’s and early 50’s, and thought Americans weren’t pious enough. (He also thought Americans were promiscuous, something that also contradicts people’s views of the 50’s.)
Also, there is a cartoon (from 1939, IIRC) in which Porky Pig recites the Pledge Of Allegiance, and recites it without the words, “under God”.
That Porky Pig cartoon was a history / civics lesson, with Uncle Sam explaining why he the pledge was important. It was really patriotic for the pre-war era.
I was born in 1947 and after my parents bought their first brand new '49 Ford they would go from Calgary to Spokane, WA to shop for school, work clothes, linens and usually the kinds of cotton were better, cheaper, and the money was at par or close. To an 8 yr old kid, Pay-N-Save Drugs was heaven on earth. Every time we went in there I hoped my parents would never find me. America really WAS #1 and we all did what Dinah said: "See the USA in your Chevrolet, America is asking you to call." Nowadays I'd be afraid to get out of my perishing car for fear I'd get shot! Well done, I used to love to dodge bullets in Northern Ireland, but you folks are closer! 😉
Thank you for speaking the truth!
At 5:50, can you just imagine what that '53 Ford ambulance would be worth now if it was still in reasonably good shape? Oh, to win a lottery!!! That's what I learned to drive in. A sedan, not an ambulance. 100 hp / 3 on the tree / mechanically perfect for 4 yrs. not one issue whatever. Try that today!?!?!?
I don't disagree with any of the research presented in this video, and I really thank the researchers, but this guy is a robot voice, right? My fellow screen reader users, this is a robot, is it not?
I'm positive it's spoken by a bot, though the writing surely comes from the person(s) who produced the video.
timely video for 2022. No wait, no.
This is really fascinating!
Real good information, excellent presentation!!!🙏👍😷
take it with a grain of salt ..
Is it just me or does the narrator sound like a computerised voice reading a script. It doesn’t sound like a real person and has no emotional tones where there should be.
It is. This is becoming more common on TH-cam.
very good video
"Racial tensions were high in the 50s." Maybe in a small part of the U.S., but I was born in '50, in central California, and someone's race was never brought up, or thought of as being of any importance (same as I do now). People were concerned about your abilities/skills, character/deeds, and actions. What was an oddity, and rare to see back then, was obesity. And my grandfather had a gas station/auto repair shop. They had 'gas wars' back then, and prices would go down to 17-19 cents a gallon. Some franchise stations, Texaco, Shell, Richfield, Union Oil, etc., gave away prizes for a gas fill-up. Dinner plate sets, pots/pans, silverware, towels, temp/barometer units, etc.. Ph# were from 5-6 digits and you could call up an operator to find a ph#. No seat belts. Cars built like tanks. Smoking commercials. TV had 3 channels in B&W. No stereo. And don't forget the beatniks.
You are insane if you think race was only an issue in a “small part of the country”. I bet black (or other black people) people have a very different recollection of that time period. Shoot I bet they have a different view about racism today.
Never mind. I looked at your channel. I’m not at all surprised by your ridiculous comment.
Here’s the thing. You don’t get to say racism isn’t and wasn’t a very big & real problem in this country.
@@armpitification I was there, you weren't. It was southern Dems who were in favor of segregation, and we didn't experience any racism in central CA in the 50s. No segregation. Every race on the planet has been oppressed, enslaved, and treated poorly. And yes, some have a different view of racism now. Because it's promoted.
@@armpitification "You don’t get to say racism isn’t and wasn’t a very big & real problem in this country." Yes I do, but I'm not saying that. I gave you a personal experience. Some people think race is important.. they judge by it and discriminate by that. All races. I'll have no part of that cult mindset. But you do you.
Let me guess, you are Caucasian.
they don't actually say in which god they trust, but it's clear just from where it is written what precisely their god is
As one born in 1940 I quit watching after 8 minutes as you mix truth with error. The forties and fifties were the BEST TIME OF MY LIFE as well as most all of my friends and relatives from Kindergarten through 12th grade! Sure there were people who had it rough like blacks and Mattew Clark below but that's been true through all history. Everything went to hell in a handbasket with the coming of Rock and Roll which destroyed music with its screamers, pig callers and instrument bashers. The movies turned to crap with movies like Blackboard Jungle and Rebel with a Cause. The moral principles of the Ten Commandments ceased and turned into 'do your own thing'.
It will be interesting to compare if the narratives had their cause in the inglorious World Fair spectacle, wonder and promise of what? A false premise and beleaguered purview of a present that we, and with we I include all of us that still have the wherewithal to realise they, or we for all I know have been kept in the proverbial dark side of disarray. Distracted by his Master's Voice, the gall!
You lost accuracy in the first minute.
American Graffiti was set in 1963 not the 50s
Happy Days was set in the 50s for half it's run 1955 to 1965.
1972's Love and the Happy Days (pilot) was set in 1952 last year of Truman. Series moved it to the Rock and Roll year of 55 .
Beaver is also mostly in the 1960s
As is the Donna Reed Show
Those shows spanned the two decades.
Perry Mason too.
Pop culture 50s image for teens is really 1955+
For adults it is post WWII (about 1948 to 1960). Adult fashion changed strongly in 1961 to the Kennedy Look.
Remember that shows like The Honeymooners and some other grungy city situations were more common in the early 50s than all the shows filmed on Wisteria Lane that happened when TV moved to California. B&W Dragnet were pretty bleak settings and that was even LA.
However there were many places in the 1950s that looked just like Hill Valley 1955 when Marty arrived. That is not unrealistic fantasy... But a fact for people in new or prosperous towns.
Talk about manipulating the truth !!!!! Anybody can make crap out of anything!
Good and thought-provoking film, except when they got to 1954, when the CIA deposed the elected president of Guatemala and installed "a right-wing dictator, Jacobo Arbenz." (about 20:47 spot.)
Wrong, Arbenz was the good guy, the elected President that the CIA deposed.
Explorer was ready to go in 1956
The military just for in cough up a booster.
In God We trust
All others pay cash
People in general need to accept the reality that any given time is not a monolithic "thing" of one sort or another, but an entanglement between dynamic forces in every era and ongoing influences from even the distant past and the tug of the process of developing factors, advances in all areas and the gravity of unintended consequences. Yet. the desire seems to stubbornly remain to think of time periods as something solidly as a "neat little package" with a label on it that explains all that it is.
Desi Arnaz Sr. & Lucille Ball were a "bi-racial" couple? Where the hell did you get that idea? They were both caucasians ... you know ... white people.
Desi Arnaz was Cuban
The whole white thing was a little more rigidly defined back then
But, the definition of who is white was much more rigid back then. Hispanics, unless completely white washed (like Rita Hayworth), did not count as white.
So, Lucy and Desi’s (as he is, like his accent and name) marriage on tv was monumental.
Shoot, the Irish and the Italian barely counted as white those days.
@@lizzywizzy3720 I see. Thank you.
HOOVER... now THERE'S a story!
There has never been an easy time to be alive. But id take the 1950s over the current mess.
Maybe for a couple of weeks, but absolutely not permanently!
Spoiler: America was best when it had (only) black and white TV.
If you’re trying to claim that the 1950’s were more unstable than the 1970’s, not only did you fail but it’s just not factual.
Do you think they would present incorrect stats, or do you just refuse to learn from them?
I do not agree with most of this video. To me, it seems the writer didn't like the 50's and put they own spin on the facts. Even though the voice is a computer I could "hear" the dislike and a tone of disapproval. Not a fan of this video but a fan of the 50's.
You can be a fan of the 1950's without the "carefree/trouble-free" myth.
Acknowledging that they struggled with the same very human conditions that we have always struggled with, makes the 1950s relevant.
I like to see how they dealt with street crime, bigotry, substance abuse, etc.
Nostalgia, on the other hand, will have us believe that none of that existed back then, that supposedly everything was "goody goody" until the year 1967.
Most of my friends who are into the vintage lifestyle however, have the most interesting conversations regarding the mafia's involvement in rock and roll, real-life juvenile delinquency ("The Capeman," the tragedies that befall Michael Farmer, Alvin Palmer, and the South Korean foreign exchange student at the University of Pennsylvania In Ho Oh, the murderous psychopaths Charles Starkweather and Billy Ray Prevatte), as well as the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement, which can be traced to the tragic murder of teenager Emmett Till, as well the effects of the Cold War and, The Payola Scandal of 1959.
Nor is exploring that history a "celebration" of those tragedies.
It's an acknowledging that society of the 1950's dealt with very real problems, which human beings have always dealt with.
That's what makes the work of 1950's gang outreach workers like Chauncey Kilmer Myers, Ben Moring, and David Wilkerson relevant and important, because we see what they had to come up against in order to help inner city teenagers of that time period. (If everything was "goody goody," then the work of the good people of the 1950's had no meaning.)
The most interesting stories come from real life struggles.
i grew up in the south back then and he was just telling the truth.
I have never understood the 50s appeal.
The us had given life support to communism at its most critical point which led to its seizing half of Europe - and securing gains in Asia.
Europe was rubble.
Communists in Soviet employ or collaboration were absolutely infiltrating the US, Britain and France (even south Africa, courtesy of foreign enabling, but to less success - at the time, at least) and even worse was the Trotskyists who were coming into their own - enabled by western intelligence at times even.
Even the "family values" were cookie cutter commodified half assery.
How did the U S give life support to Communism ? If anything I remember America was trying hard in the 1950's to drive out the communists out from Hollywood & points East. McCarthy had his foot planted pretty firmly where it belonged. I think to understand the 50's appeal you had to live through it. I found living in America in the 50's the very best time of all the years I was alive. People knew who & what they were back then, Today a woman/girl or man/boy is so confused they cant figure out what gender he or she is. Very sad. I suppose it's because no one told them your either male or female. Its not America that's a mess, Its the occupants.
yeah those “irritating” values of respect for others..
@@richardbartolo2890 we sent them billions of dollars, equipment, and we officially presented Stalin as "Uncle Joe" and a good guy.
We could have stood by and just watched Germany wear itself out fighting communism. Instead we allied with the communists and destroyed western civilization.
@@andysamet4554 Stalin was better than Hitler and the Soviets made sure everyone who had a vague idea of exactly how bad the Soviet Union was hurt by Germany was removed from any position of power in the United States by feeding the FBI false information which was illegally leaked the committee on unamerican activities
@@jamesricker3997 Stalin was better than Hitler, at being evil.
who cares? doesn't nyc have two other mlb teams? most cities have zero to one
What is your definition of the word pious? You post @10:47 Americans were more pious in the 1950’s and claim its false. Well instead of gauging it on how favorable “in god we trust” is on the currency (which is a strawman argument) let’s check church attendance (which is ALOT closer to the description of pious than what’s on the money). On a typical Sunday morning in the period from 1955-58, almost half of all Americans were attending church - the highest percentage in U.S. history. During the 1950s, nationwide church membership grew at a faster rate than the population, from 57 percent of the U.S. population in 1950 to 63.3 percent in 1960 Compared to 2018 at 40%
I am not sure what the purpose of this video is. I am 80 years old, so I grew up during the 1950's. I grew up in a small town in Wyoming. My father was a blue collar worker, and my mother was a housewife, as were the mothers of all my friends an school class mates. Most people didn't lock their doors, and nobody worried about us kids playing till dark in the summer. I don't care where he got his "statistics", the 1950's were completely calmer than now.
This channel is more entertainment than education
I still watch although I'm always annoyed by the falsehoods and misinformation
So we've progressed since the 1950s? Slow but steady wins the race I guess.
@@BlackSheep-83 I don't have to read a book about the 50's. I lived it, remember? Just because there were different living conditions for some people, doesn't mean there is falshood to be stamped out. There was good and bad, just like always.
Church attendance became a time of exchanging business cards and bragging...people talked about their new cars...and personal charity in obedience to the actual COMMANDS of Jesus dwindled into sending little checks to some famous "charity".
You state small business did not thrive. I lived in N Y C , Mom and Pop businesses stayed very strong until some time in the mid 70's when things slowly started to change. The same stores and owners were there for 2 decades & more., Many of them started their stores after WW 2 in the mid to late 40's. In 1967 gas was 25 cents a gallon. You can't believe every thing your hear or even read in todays world. Talk to some one who was in the room at the time and your will get the straight story.
14:19
Excellent channel!!!🙏👍😷
I never noticed how much David Cross looks like Allan Ginsburg! 😁
I'll take those days anytime to the PC days of today... Yes some things have been made right such as civil rights but that nearly went astray with TRUMP !!!
Yeah, we gave blacks civil rights , education , jobs , money , homes ,huge tolerance and look what we got back !!!!!
You must be a angry millennial !
bloviating, lol, apt
Boomer myth buster
Television is the Boomer's God!
52 to 63 were the greatest years of the country
For whites, but it’s understandable since it is your country after all
I think we can all figure out what this producer's (leftist) political leanings are. He would feel right at home on the campus of UC Berkeley. Didn't say one good thing about the decade, but had plenty of negative things to say.
Lol cry more snowflake
Paul, did you catch the title of the video? The point was to crack open the mythology and look at the less shiny truth. Also, I fail to see how the subject of this video is a partisan topic.
You should've began the video with how black people were denied homes in the suburbs, instead of presenting it 30 minutes into the video. Because that's the biggest myth of them all.
MAGA is a reference to this era when many blacks couldn’t vote or own property.
exposing myths is a good idea, but this was turning into an Anti-American rant.
America ain't Perfect and we NEVER WERE!!! We need to be Better in Every way!!!! Always remember we need to adopt the slogan,"Not Me,Us" to promote solidarity! We are SO BROKEN!!!
Broken!!!!😠🌹🌹🌹
I think you just took too personally.