{"id":640,"date":"2015-03-25T15:53:20","date_gmt":"2015-03-25T15:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/?p=640"},"modified":"2017-03-30T16:41:57","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T16:41:57","slug":"was-the-fifties-a-golden-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-118pinsker\/2015\/03\/25\/was-the-fifties-a-golden-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Was the Fifties a Golden Age?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Arnold<\/a>

Arnold Palmer (left) and President Eisenhower<\/p><\/div>\n

H.W. Brands labels his chapter on the 1950s as “The Golden Age of the Middle Class,” but even Brands seems unsure how much to believe in this label. \u00a0Were the Fifties a “Golden Age,” or a new “Gilded Age,” or more ominously, still the “Dark Ages” for race and gender discrimination? \u00a0There were certainly real signs of widespread growth and prosperity for the American nation in this defining post-war decade, but also significant underlying tensions and growing social problems. \u00a0Trying to fit all of these trends into a single narrative is challenging, but students in History 118 should be able to explain the contours of the\u00a0period with a series of notable examples.<\/p>\n

The starting point might well be\u00a0a consideration of population growth and the cultural consequences of the celebrated “Baby Boom.” \u00a0US population soared between 1940 and 1960, from about 132 million people to over 180 million. \u00a0The country gained about\u00a030 million people during the 1950s alone –roughly equivalent to the entire population of Civil War era America. \u00a0During this era of limited\u00a0immigration (between the 1924 National Origins Act and the 1965 Immigration Act), the vast majority of these demographic gains came from an increased national birthrate. \u00a0By 1964, Brands reports, four out of every ten Americans were Baby Boomers<\/strong> (born between 1946 and 1964). \u00a0The question for discerning students is how did all of these new children affect what Brands labels the “child-based culture” of the 1950s? \u00a0One way to answer that question is by pointing to various trends in television, entertainment, music, sports, and other aspects of an emerging mass culture. \u00a0But how much of this was a by-product of demographics or of new technologies remains an issue worth discussing.<\/p>\n