CHAPTER 7- THE 50S DECADE CULTURE (MINI-UNIT 9)
7A. THE 1950'S- HAPPY DAYS
It didn't start airing until 1974, but the television show Happy Days portrayed the carefree '50s through the antics of characters named Potsie, Chachi, and Fonzie (above).
In American memory, the postwar 1950s have acquired an idyllic luster. Reruns of 1950s TV shows such as LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and FATHER KNOWS BEST leave today's viewers with an impression of unadulterated family bliss. The baby boomers look back nostalgically to these years that marked their early childhood experiences.
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The actions of Senator Joseph McCarthy tarnished the relaxed attitude of the 1950s. His hunt for communists working in the U.S. showcased the paranoia and fear that gripped America.
The president for many of these years was war hero DWIGHT EISENHOWER. Ike, as he was nicknamed, walked a middle road between the two major parties. This strategy, called MODERN REPUBLICANISM, simultaneously restrained Democrats from expanding the New Deal while stopping conservative Republicans from reversing popular programs such as Social Security. As a result, no major reform initiatives emerged from a decade many would describe as politically dead. Perhaps freedom from controversy was the prize most American voters were seeking after World War II and the Korean War.
Living in a Material World
Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower's campaign slogan "I Like Ike" epitomized the swell spirit that defined American culture in the 1950s.
Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower's campaign slogan "I Like Ike" epitomized the swell spirit that defined American culture in the 1950s.
A booming economy helped shape the blissful retrospective view of the 1950s. A rebuilding Europe was hungry for American goods, fueling the consumer-oriented sector of the American economy. Conveniences that had been toys for the upper classes such as fancy refrigerators, range-top ovens, convertible automobiles, and televisions became middle-class staples.
The pent-up demand for consumer goods unleashed after the Great Depression and World War II sustained itself through the 1950s. Homes became affordable to many apartment dwellers for the first time. Consequently, the population of the SUBURBS exploded. The huge youth market had a music all of its own called rock and roll, complete with parent-detested icons such as Elvis Presley.
Happy Days — But Not for All
Of course, not everything was as rosy as it seemed. Beneath the pristine exterior, a small group of critics and nonconformists pointed out the flaws in a suburbia they believed had no soul, a government they believed was growing dangerously powerful, and a lifestyle they believed was fundamentally repressed. And much of America was still segregated.
Nevertheless, the notion of the 1950s as happy days lived on. Perhaps when measured against the Great Depression of the 1930s, the world war of the 1940s, the strife of the 1960s, and the malaise of the 1970s, the 1950s were indeed fabulous.
Of course, not everything was as rosy as it seemed. Beneath the pristine exterior, a small group of critics and nonconformists pointed out the flaws in a suburbia they believed had no soul, a government they believed was growing dangerously powerful, and a lifestyle they believed was fundamentally repressed. And much of America was still segregated.
Nevertheless, the notion of the 1950s as happy days lived on. Perhaps when measured against the Great Depression of the 1930s, the world war of the 1940s, the strife of the 1960s, and the malaise of the 1970s, the 1950s were indeed fabulous.
7B. LAND OF TELEVISION
As the price of television sets dropped, the number of viewers grew. 1952 saw the arrival of the Viking Console, a Canadian set, which was popular all over North America.
Perhaps no phenomenon shaped American life in the 1950s more than TELEVISION. At the end of World War II, the television was a toy for only a few thousand wealthy Americans. Just 10 years later, nearly two-thirds of American households had a television.
The biggest-selling periodical of the decade was TV GUIDE. In a nation once marked by strong regional differences, network television programming blurred these distinctions and helped forge a national popular culture.
Television forever changed politics. The first president to be televised was Harry Truman. When Estes Kefauver prosecuted mob boss Frank Costello on television, the Tennessee senator became a national hero and a vice presidential candidate.
The first coast-to-coast color broadcast came on January 1, 1954, when NBC beamed the Tournament of Roses Parade across America.
It did not take long for political advertisers to understand the power of the new medium. Dwight Eisenhower's campaign staff generated sound bites — short, powerful statements from a candidate — rather than air an entire speech.
America Loves Lucy
Lucille Ball's new baby brought 44 million viewers to the show and graced the cover of the first national issue of TV Guide in 1953. TV Guide soon became the most popular periodical in the country.
Lucille Ball's new baby brought 44 million viewers to the show and graced the cover of the first national issue of TV Guide in 1953. TV Guide soon became the most popular periodical in the country.
Americans loved situation comedies — sitcoms. In the 1950s, I LOVE LUCY topped the ratings charts. The show broke new ground by including a Cuban American character (Ricky Ricardo, played by bandleader DESI ARNAZ) and dealing with LUCILLE BALL's pregnancy, though Lucy was never filmed from the waist down while she was pregnant. Forty-four million Americans tuned in to welcome her newborn son to the show.
Through shows such as Leave It to Beaver, THE DONNA REED SHOW, and Father Knows Best, television created an idyllic view of what the perfect family life should look like, though few actual families could live up to the ideal.
Television's idea of a perfect family was a briefcase-toting professional father who left daily for work, and a pearls-wearing, nurturing housewife who raised their mischievous boys and obedient girls.
With rare exceptions (such as Desi Arnaz) members of minorities rarely appeared on television in the 1950s.
The Wild West
The Lone Ranger was one of the earliest TV Westerns, making the jump from radio in 1941. The Lone Ranger and other Westerns geared toward children aired on Saturday mornings. Adult Westerns, such as Gunsmoke and Wyatt Earp aired during prime-time.
America's fascination with the Wild West was nothing new, but television brought Western heroes into American homes and turned that fascination into a love affair. Cowboys and lawmen such as HOPALONG CASSIDY, WYATT EARP, and the CISCO KID galloped across televisions every night.
THE ROY ROGERS SHOW and RIN TIN TIN brought the West to children on Saturday mornings, and DAVY CROCKETT coonskin caps became popular fashion items. Long running horse operas, such as BONANZA and RAWHIDE, attracted viewers week after week.
One Western, GUNSMOKE, ran for 20 years — longer than any other prime-time drama in television history. At the decade's close, 30 Westerns aired on prime time each week, and Westerns occupied 7 spots in the Nielsen Top-10.
Westerns reinforced the '50s notion that everything was OK in America. Like THE LONE RANGER or ZORRO, most programs of the early 1950s drew a clear line between the good guys and the bad guys. There was very little danger of injury or death, and good always triumphed in the end.
By the late '50s, though, the genre had become more complicated and the lines between good and evil was blurred. America entered the more turbulent '60s with heroes such as the black-clad mercenary Paladin and the gambling Maverick brothers who would do anything to earn a buck.
Nixon and Checkers
Richard Nixon was both helped and hindered by TV. His televised CHECKERS SPEECH (Checkers was his dog) successfully appealed to the public for support when financial scandals threatened to boot him from the Republican ticket. But in the 1960 televised presidential debates against John F. Kennedy, Nixon came off as sweaty and somewhat sinister.
Richard Nixon was both helped and hindered by TV. His televised CHECKERS SPEECH (Checkers was his dog) successfully appealed to the public for support when financial scandals threatened to boot him from the Republican ticket. But in the 1960 televised presidential debates against John F. Kennedy, Nixon came off as sweaty and somewhat sinister.
Variety Shows: Vaudeville in American Living Rooms
Ed Sullivan's variety show provided entertainment ranging from the rock and roll of the Rolling Stones to the goofy hijinks of trained animals.
Ed Sullivan's variety show provided entertainment ranging from the rock and roll of the Rolling Stones to the goofy hijinks of trained animals.
Because most early television was live, the producers of major networks found their talent among people already had experience with live performance: vaudeville. Television and vaudeville combined to created the form of entertainment known as the variety show. VARIETY SHOWS were made up of short acts — musical numbers, comedy sketches, animal tricks, etc. — usually centered around an engaging host. Former vaudevillians BOB HOPE, MILTON BERLE, and Ed Wynn all hosted popular programs. The influence of vaudeville on television was so strong that television critics called the shows "Vaudeo."
Sid Caesar had two popular variety programs in '50s, Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour. These shows featured the writing talents of CARL REINER, MEL BROOKS, LARRY GELBART, and WOODY ALLEN. NAT "KING" COLE became the first African American host of a television series when his variety show appeared in 1956.
But perhaps no variety program had a greater effect on American culture than THE ED SULLIVAN SHOW, which ran for 23 years beginning in 1948 and was for a while America's most popular show. Combining highbrow and popular entertainment, Sullivan's "really big shew" became a major stop for both established performers and young, up-and-coming artists. Although Elvis Presley had appeared on other shows in the past, it was his performance on The Ed Sullivan Show that grabbed the headlines. By securing rock-and-roll acts, Sullivan won the adolescent market, truly making the variety show a whole-family event.
Commercials: Selling through the Screen
In 1955, the adorable cartoon characters Snap, Crackle, and Pop leapt around and sang about the joys of eating Rice Krispies. Advertisements were an integral part of television viewing then just as they are today.
With more and more American families owning televisions, manufacturers now had a new way to sell their products, and the TELEVISION COMMERCIAL was born. By late 1948, over 900 companies had bought television broadcast time for advertising. By 1950, sponsors were leaving radio for television at an unstoppable rate.
Television sponsors ranged from greeting cards to automobiles, but perhaps the most advertised product was tobacco. TV Guide voted Lucky Strike's "Be Happy, Go Lucky" ad commercial of the year for 1950, and Phillip Morris sponsored I Love Lucy for years, inserting cartoon cigarette packs in the show's opening animation. Cartoon characters were common in '50s commercials, representing everything from lightbulbs to beer. In 1950, Coca-Cola launched its first television ad campaign using a combination of animation and celebrity endorsement.
By 1954, television commercials were the leading advertising medium in America. The life of the American consumer would never be the same.
The New News
CBS
Edward R. Murrow's incisive journalism exposed the folly behind Senator McCarthy's rabid attacks on so-called communists, effectively ruining McCarthy's career.
CBS
Edward R. Murrow's incisive journalism exposed the folly behind Senator McCarthy's rabid attacks on so-called communists, effectively ruining McCarthy's career.
Most Americans still got their news from newspapers in the 1950s, but the foundations for the modern television newscast were established as early as 1951 with EDWARD R. MURROW's SEE IT NOW, the first coast-to-coast live show. Many consider Murrow's 1953 PERSON TO PERSON interview with Joseph McCarthy to be a major step toward McCarthy's downfall.
While Murrow reported on CBS, DAVID BRINKLEY and CHET HUNTLEY were revolutionizing news broadcasting with the NBC Nightly News. Brinkley and Huntley were the first anchormen to report from two cities simultaneously, and Brinkley's simple declarative sentences became the basis for television news writing for several decades.
Two major developments in the 1950s that set up television as the news medium of the future were the establishment of coaxial cable linking the East and West coasts, which enabled footage to be moved electronically instead of physically, and the invention of videotape, which allowed the use of prerecorded footage (such as studio interviews).
But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit-and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you — and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials — many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom.
– Newton Minow, Chairman of the FCC and 1950s televison viewer (1961)
– Newton Minow, Chairman of the FCC and 1950s televison viewer (1961)
Children's Programming
The Howdy Doody Show, the first children's program to run five days a week, helped the young NBC network grow exponentially during the 1950s.
The Howdy Doody Show, the first children's program to run five days a week, helped the young NBC network grow exponentially during the 1950s.
Understanding that the population of children was in greater numbers than in previous generations, television producers developed a host of children's programs. Shows such as THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB and HOWDY DOODY, entertained millions of American tykes.
During the 1950s, few households owned more than one television, so viewing became a shared family event. Even the American diet was transformed with the advent of the TV dinner, first introduced in 1954.
7C. ROCK AND ROLL
America Rocks and Rolls
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The prosperity of the '50s allowed teenagers to spend money on records by their favorite bands and singers.ROCK AND ROLL was everything the suburban 1950s were not. While parents of the decade were listening to FRANK SINATRA, PERRY COMO, and BIG BANDS, their children were moving to a new beat.
In fact, to the horror of the older generation, their children were twisting, thrusting, bumping, and grinding to the sounds of rock and roll.
In fact, to the horror of the older generation, their children were twisting, thrusting, bumping, and grinding to the sounds of rock and roll.
This generation of youth was much larger than any in recent memory, and the prosperity of the era gave them money to spend on records and phonographs. By the end of the decade, the phenomenon of rock and roll helped define the difference between youth and adulthood.
The Roots of Rock
Alan Freed, the Cleveland disc jockey credited with coining the phrase "rock and roll," was the master of ceremonies at many of the first rock concerts, including his 1955 Easter Jubilee.
The roots of rock and roll lay in African American BLUES and GOSPEL. As the Great Migration brought many African Americans to the cities of the north, the sounds of RHYTHM AND BLUES attracted suburban teens. Due to segregation and racist attitudes, however, none of the greatest artists of the genre could get much airplay.
Disc jockey Alan Freed began a rhythm-and-blues show on a Cleveland radio station. Soon the audience grew and grew, and Freed coined the term "rock and roll."
Early attempts by white artists to cover R&B songs resulted in weaker renditions that bled the heart and soul out of the originals. Record producers saw the market potential and began to search for a white artist who could capture the African American sound.
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Chuck Berry's songs about girls and cars hit a nerve with American teens and sent his star rising high in the early days of rock and roll.
SAM PHILLIPS, a Memphis record producer, found the answer in Elvis Presley. With a deep Southern sound, pouty lips, and gyrating hips, Elvis took an old style and made it his own.
From Memphis, the sound spread to other cities, and demand for Elvis records skyrocketed. Within two years, Elvis was the most popular name in the entertainment business.
After the door to rock and roll acceptance was opened, African American performers such as Chuck Berry, FATS DOMINO, and LITTLE RICHARD began to enjoy broad success, as well. White performers such as Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis also found artistic freedom and commercial success.
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Satan's Music
Elvis Presley brought rock-and-roll music to the masses during the 1950s with hits such as "Love Me Tender" and "Heartbreak Hotel."
Rock and roll sent shockwaves across America. A generation of young teenagers collectively rebelled against the music their parents loved. In general, the older generation loathed rock and roll. Appalled by the new styles of dance the movement evoked, churches proclaimed it Satan's music.
Because rock and roll originated among the lower classes and a segregated ethnic group, many middle-class whites thought it was tasteless. Rock and roll records were banned from many radio stations and hundreds of schools.
But the masses spoke louder. When Elvis appeared on TV's The Ed Sullivan Show, the show's ratings soared.
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Rock and roll is the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression — lewd, sly, in plain fact, dirty — a rancid-smelling aphrodisiac and the martial music of every side-burned delinquent on the face of the earth.
– Frank Sinatra (1957)
– Frank Sinatra (1957)
The commercial possibilities were limitless. As a generation of young adults finished military service, bought houses in suburbia, and longed for stability and conformity, their children seemed to take comfort for granted. They wanted to release the tensions that bubbled beneath the smooth surface of postwar America.
Above all, they wanted to shake, rattle, and roll.
Above all, they wanted to shake, rattle, and roll.
7D. VOICES AGAINST CONFORMITY
Edward Hopper's Cape Cod Morning (1950) is typical of his lonely, New England scenes depicting a solitary figure. The somber tone of his paintings starkly contrasts with the typical 1950s representations of saccharine, happy-go-lucky American life.
Edward Hopper's Cape Cod Morning (1950) is typical of his lonely, New England scenes depicting a solitary figure. The somber tone of his paintings starkly contrasts with the typical 1950s representations of saccharine, happy-go-lucky American life.
Many in the 1950s strove for the comfort and conformity depicted on such TV shows as Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver.
But despite the emerging affluence of the new American middle class, there was poverty, racism, and alienation in America that was rarely depicted on TV.
Minorities seemed to be shut out from the emerging American Dream.
Poverty rates for African Americans were typically double those of their white counterparts. Segregation in the schools, the lack of a political voice, and longstanding racial prejudices stifled the economic advancement of many African Americans. In 1952, Ralph Ellison penned INVISIBLE MAN, which pinpointed American indifference to the plight of African Americans. "I am an invisible man," he wrote. "I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me ..."
Latino Americans languished in urban American barrios, and the Eisenhower Administration responded with a program — derisively named Operation Wetback — designed to deport millions of Mexican Americans .
While writing parts of Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison lived at Gordon Parks's home. Parks, a photographer, made a series of prints that were his interpretation of events in Ellison's novel. This one is entitled Man Peeking from Manhole, Harlem (1949).
Reservation poverty increased with the Eisenhower policy of "TERMINATION," designed to end federal support for tribes. Incentives such as relocation assistance and job placement were offered to Native Americans who were willing to venture off the reservations and into the cities. Unfortunately, the government excelled at relocation but struggled with job placement, leading to the creation of Native American ghettos in many western cities.
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Ethnic minorities — Jews, Italians, Asians, and many groups — all struggled to find their place in the American quilt.
The Beat Generation
In the artistic world, dozens of beat writers reviled middle-class materialism, racism, and uniformity. Other intellectuals were able to detach themselves enough from the American mainstream to review it critically.
In the artistic world, dozens of beat writers reviled middle-class materialism, racism, and uniformity. Other intellectuals were able to detach themselves enough from the American mainstream to review it critically.
The writers of the BEAT GENERATION refused to submit to the conformity of the 1950s. GREENWICH VILLAGE in New York City was the center of the beat universe. Epitomized by such Columbia University students such JACK KEROUAC and ALLEN GINSBERG, the beats lived a bohemian lifestyle.
In 1957, Kerouac published On the Road, the definitive Beat Generation novel. The beats were a subculture of young people dissatisfied with the blandness of American culture and its shallow, rampant consumerism.
While mainstream America seemed to ignore African American culture, the beats celebrated it by frequenting jazz clubs and romanticizing their poverty. The use of alcohol and drugs foreshadowed the counterculture of the following decade. Believing that American society was unspeakably repressed, the beats experimented with new sexual lifestyles.
In ON THE ROAD, Kerouac's hero travels around the nation, delving into America's fast-living underside. In "HOWL," Allen Ginsberg assails materialism and conformity and calls for the unleashing of basic human needs and desires.
As the media helped create a single notion of an idyllic American lifestyle, a vocal minority of social critics registered their dissenting voices. The notion of the white-collar, executive-track, male employee was condemned in fiction in SLOAN WILSON's THE MAN IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT and in commentary in WILLIAM WHYTE's THE ORGANIZATION MAN.
The booming postwar defense industry came under fire in C. WRIGHT MILLS' THE POWER ELITE. Mills feared that an alliance between military leaders and munitions manufacturers held an unhealthy proportion of power that could ultimately endanger American democracy — a sentiment echoed in PRESIDENT EISENHOWER'S FAREWELL ADDRESS.
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And teen alienation and the neurosis of coming-of-age in postwar America was examined in J.D. SALINGER's THE CATCHER IN THE RYE.
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They're nice and all — I'm not saying that — but they're also touchy as hell.
– Holden Caulfield, from The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951)
– Holden Caulfield, from The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951)
Painting against the Tide
Jackson Pollock's 1950 painting Lavender Mist typifies "Action painting," in which he fixed his canvas to the floor, then dripped paint all over it. Pollock's unorthodox methods were heavily criticized (he was labeled "Jack the Dripper"), but his novel painting style proved that American artists were on par with their European counterparts.
American painters also took shots at conformity. EDWARD HOPPER who had made a name for himself in earlier decades, combated the blissful images of television by showing an America full of loneliness and alienation.
In New York City, painters broke with the conventions of Western art to create abstract expressionism, widely regarded as the most significant artistic movement ever to come out of America. Abstract expressionists, such as WILLEM DE KOONING, HANS HOFFMAN, MARK ROTHKO, and Jackson Pollock, sought to express their subconscious and their dissatisfaction with postwar life through unique and innovative paintings. The physical act of painting was almost as important as the work itself. JACKSON POLLOCK gained fame through "ACTION PAINTING" — pouring, dripping, and spattering the paint onto the canvas. Rothko covered his canvas with large rectangles, which he believed conveyed "basic human emotions."
Big Screen Rebels
"Rebel without a Cause," a story of anguished middle-class juvenile delinquents, was an instant sensation when released in 1955. The film was particularly scandalous because the main characters "came from good families." James Dean played the main character, Jim Stark.
While the 1950s silver screen lit up mostly with the typical Hollywood fare of Westerns and romances, a handful of films shocked audiences by uncovering the dark side of America's youth. MARLON BRANDO played the leather-clad leader of a motorcycle gang that ransacks a small town. In 1953's THE WILD ONE. The film terrified adults but fascinated kids, who emulated Brando's style. 1955 saw the release of BLACKBOARD JUNGLE, a film about juvenile delinquency in an urban high school. It was the first major release to use a rock-and-roll soundtrack and was banned in many areas both for its violent take on high school life and its use of multiracial cast of lead actors.
Perhaps the most controversial and influential of these films is 1955's REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. Another film about teenage delinquency (the main characters meet at the police station) Rebel is not set amid urban decay, but rather in an affluent suburb. "And they both come from 'good' families!" the film's tagline screamed. Ironically, the film made it clear that the failure of those very families was to blame for the main characters' troubles. Juvenile delinquency was no longer a problem for the lower classes; it was lurking in the supposedly perfect suburbs. Once again parents were outraged, but the message could no longer be ignored. The film earned three Academy Award nominations and propelled JAMES DEAN to posthumous but eternal stardom.
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7E. SUBURBAN GROWTH
Convenience and color were two hallmarks of the 1950s kitchen. Pink refrigerators and new pre-sweetened cereals such as Sugar Pops were introduced to America early in the decade.
For many generations and many decades, the AMERICAN DREAM has promised an EGALITARIAN society and material prosperity. For many, the notion of prosperity remained just a dream.
But for millions of Americans in the 1950s, the American Dream became a reality. Within their reach was the chance to have a house on their own land, a car, a dog, and 2.3 kids.
POSTWAR AFFLUENCE redefined the American Dream. Gone was the poverty borne of the Great Depression, and the years of wartime sacrifice were over.
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William Levitt offered five different versions of each type of home, but all had the same floor plan.
Automobiles once again rolled off the assembly lines of the Big Three: Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler. The Interstate Highway Act authorized the construction of thousands of miles of high-speed roads that made living farther from work a possibility.
Families that had delayed having additional children for years no longer waited, and the nation enjoyed a postwar BABY BOOM.
Suburbia
William Levitt revolutionized the way Americans live and ushered in an age of suburbia by providing inexpensive housing outside the city.
Racial fears, affordable housing, and the desire to leave decaying cities were all factors that prompted many white Americans to flee to SUBURBIA. And no individual promoted suburban growth more than WILLIAM LEVITT.
Contracted by the federal government during the war to quickly build housing for military personnel, Levitt applied the techniques of mass production to construction. In 1947, he set out to erect the largest planned-living community in the United States on farmland he had purchased on Long Island, New York. Levitt identified 27 different steps to build a house. Therefore, 27 different teams of builders were hired to construct the homes.
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Each house had two bedrooms, one bathroom, and no basement. The kitchen was situated near the back of the house so mothers could keep an eye on their children in the backyard. Within one year, Levitt was building 36 houses per day. His assembly-line approach made the houses extremely affordable. At first, the homes were available only to veterans. Eventually, though, LEVITTOWN was open to others as well.
Keeping Up with the Joneses
With the ability to own a detached home, thousands of Americans soon surpassed the standard of living enjoyed by their parents. Nevertheless, the movement was not without its critics. Architects called Levitt's designs and emphasis on conformity an abomination.
As suburbia grew, fast food restaurants began to pop up all over the country. Ray Kroc bought a single burger joint called McDonald's and paved the way for the fast food giant. Pictured above is Kroc's first new restaurant, which opened in 1955.
Because little variety was expressed in the construction, homeowners struggled to keep their communities looking uniform. Residents had to pledge to mow their lawns on a weekly basis. African Americans were excluded by practice. The irrational need to "keep up with the Joneses" was born in the American suburb.
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Despite such criticism, a generation of Americans loved the chance to avoid rent and the dirtiness of the city to live in their own homes on their own land. Soon, shopping centers and fast food restaurants added to the convenience of suburban life. Thousands and thousands migrated to suburbia.
America and the American Dream would never be the same.