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The 1950S: a Retrospective View

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The 1950S: a Retrospective View Nebraska History posts materials online for your personal use. Please remember that the contents of Nebraska History are copyrighted by the Nebraska State Historical Society (except for materials credited to other institutions). The NSHS retains its copyrights even to materials it posts on the web. For permission to re-use materials or for photo ordering information, please see: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/magazine/permission.htm Nebraska State Historical Society members receive four issues of Nebraska History and four issues of Nebraska History News annually. For membership information, see: http://nebraskahistory.org/admin/members/index.htm Article Title: The 1950s: A Retrospective View Full Citation: Michael W Schuyler, “The 1950s: A Retrospective View,” Nebraska History 77 (1996): 2-11 URL of article: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/NH1996RetroView.pdf Date: 4/10/2013 Article Summary: America felt relatively tranquil in the 1950s. To those who were enjoying a newfound post-war prosperity it seemed that problems like discrimination, poverty, and racism would solve themselves. Cataloging Information: Names: Harry S Truman, Dwight D Eisenhower, Franklin D Roosevelt, Joseph R McCarthy, Alfred Kinsey Keywords: Depression, cold war, World War II, New Deal, African-Americans, Communism, Soviet Union, Iron Curtain, agriculture, labor unions, middle class, suburbs, credit, fast food, television Photographs / Images: inset upper section of the Lincoln-Star front page for August 6, 1945, with the headline “Atomic Bomb Released on Japs By Yanks”; building Interstate 80; the group Omaha Action holding a vigil outside an ICBM site near Mead to protest nuclear weapons in 1959; Mrs Raymond Baker and her daughters in the family’s basement fallout shelter, 1960; contestants in a hula hoop contest at Gold’s department store in Lincoln in 1958; picking corn near Minden, probably in the late 1940s; Electric Farmer cover showing a rural woman using her dual-oven range; Ken Eddy’s Drive In, Lincoln, 1952; Ward Justus family of Lincoln watching television, 1950; inset advertisement for an Elvis Presley concert at the University of Nebraska Coliseum, Lincoln Star, May 18, 1956 By Michael WSchuyler Events such as the Vietnam War and ans about how to interpret the past are experience during the 1930s, World War Watergate, the increase in crime, commonplace, discussions about the II, and the bewilderingly complex violence, and racial conflict, the break­ post-World War 1I period have been es­ ....11<"../,"" that swept the world during the down of the liberal consensus, and rev­ pecially bitter. Historians have divided years that followed the surrender of Ger­ elations about the personal and politi­ into warring camps for at least two ma­ many and Japan. The 1950s was not a cal immorality of the nation's leaders jor reasons. First, as Eric Goldman sug­ golden age; it was neither the best of have raised serious questions about the gests, the magnitude of the events and times nor the worst of times. Reform genius of American politics. The United the decisions made about government continued, but there was also reaction States is clearly anxious and worried policy during the "crucial decade and and a failure to respond intelligently about its future. This crisis of confi­ after," continue to have a profound im­ and effectively to many of the most dence has caused many Americans, pact on American history and life. For pressing problems of the day. It was a faced with the increasing complexity of example, Truman's decision to drop the time of promise and hope, but the 1950s the modern world, to look to history not atomic bomb on Japanese cities to end was also characterized by fear, anxiety, only for an explanation for what went the war inevitably stirs emotions and in­ repression, and misseq opportunities. wrong, but also to search for a golden vites controversy. Even more important, During the 1950s Republicans and age in America when the public was the initial evaluations of the 1950s coin­ Democrats alike moved away from the happy and secure. Many people, and cided with the breakdown of the Ameri­ New Deal's emphasis on change and ex­ especially those who learn their history can consensus and the beginning of perimentation to a defense of the estab­ by watching television and movies, radical protest during the late 1950s and lished order and a celebration of the vir­ have embraced the view that the period early 1960s. As a result historians, and tues of consensus and conformity. following the end of World War II until especially those identified with Change, and especially radical change, the assassination of John F. Kennedy "neoconsensus" and "New Left" schools now seemed to threaten the nation's was such an age. Supposedly during this of thought, approached the post-World link with a stable past and to endanger period, which broadly conceived will War II period from fundamentally differ­ the government's future survival. Fol­ be referred to as the 1950s, the nation's ent ideological perspectives. lowing the lead of a number of conser­ leaders were honest and trustworthy, While some historians, especially bi­ vative intellectuals such as Russell Kirk Americans shared a patriotic commit­ ographers of Presidents I-larry S. Truman and William Buckley, who began pub­ ment to a clearly defined national pur­ and Dwight D. Eisenhower, found much lishing the National Review in 1955, pose, and families, committed to tradi­ that was positive in the 1950s, others many Americans concluded the status tional values, lived simple but virtuous viewed the era at best as a time of "post­ quo not only was defensible, it was nec­ lives. Unfortunately, public imagination ponement" and at worst as a "night­ essary and desirable. The result was a often has little in common with histori­ mare" decape. More recently, as the period, for better or worse, that empha­ cal reality. ideological battles of the 1960s and sized the importance of order, consen­ Professional historians have engaged 1970s begin to fade, historians have pre­ sus, and conformity in both thought and in a protracted debate about the mean­ sented more balanced and more com­ action. ing and historical significance of the views of the 1950s, Rather than ap­ To understand the failure to move 19505. Although debates among histori- proaching the postwar period with an beyond New Deal liberalism, and the ideological lens from the Left or the failure of the nation's leaders to recog­ Michael W. Schuyler is dean ofthe College of Right, most recent scholars emphasize nize the problems that would explode Natural and Social Sciences at the University that the nation's history, and the genera­ in the 1960s, it is necessary to under­ ofNebraska at Kearney, and a member ofthe Nebraska State Historical Society Board of tion that responded to the challenges of stand the catastrophic events that Trustees. the time, were shaped by the American shaped the world view of the generation 2 The 1950s of leaders who came to power in the spending during World War II. As a re­ and promised to roll back Roosevelt's 1950s. The legacy of three major sult of the war, the gross national prod­ welfare state, but most Republicans, events-the Great Depression, World uct in the United States increased from anxious to regain power, preferred to be War II, and the beginning of the cold $89 billion in 1939 to $199 billion only identified with "Dynamic Conservatism" war between the United States and the five years later. or "Modem Republicanism." Soviet Union-determined the charac­ When the war ended, there was a By the end of the 1950s Republicans ter of the postwar period. general fear that the Depression would and Democrats seemed pretty much the The collapse of the American return. Instead the 1950s ushered in a same. Both supported increased presi­ economy during the 1920s not only period of unprecedented prosperity. dential power and the development of a brought great personal suffering and The new prosperity was the result of a strong military state, embraced demo­ hardship, it also ushered in a period of number of developments: new tech­ cratic pluralism, and celebrated the vir­ angry debate, class divisions, confusion, nologies and new industries; increased tues of corporate capitalism. Together and uncertainty. While most Americans productivity; an increase in the popula­ Republican and Democratic leaders ultimately embraced Franklin D. tion between 1940 and 1960, primarily worked to increase the minimum wage, Roosevelt's liberal welfare state as the because of the baby boom of fifty mil­ to expand Social Security coverage, to best way to preserve the capitalist sys­ lion people; pent-up consumer demand; create new federal agencies, such as the tem, others joined fascist organizations healthy wartime savings totaling more National Aeronautics and Space Admin­ on the Right, or communist groups on than $140 billion; heavy defense spend­ istration in 1958, and to pass new legis­ the Left, to express their despair and ing; the GI Bill; devastation and ruin in lation, including the expensive Federal contempt for both capitalism and Europe; and foreign aid that allowed Highway Act in 1956. The Highway Act America's failed democracy. Whether Europeans to buy American products. alone would cost taxpayers more than people wanted to move backwards or Unexpected prosperity, sustained by all of the New Deal welfare programs forwards, almost everyone agreed that economic growth, provided a strong ar­ combined. The federal bureaucracy change was necessary for the Republic gument to maintain the status quo and continued to grow. Between the 1950s to survive. to refrain from rocking the boat. and 1970 the number of federal employ­ The New Deal's approach to the de­ Political radicals, who had mass fol­ ees doubled-to nearly thirteen million.
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