FYS The Fifties

A woman who defied the stereotypes of her time was Marilyn Monroe. Born as Norma Jean Mortenson in 1926, she grew up in orphanages and foster homes as her mother, Gladys Baker, was institutionalized due to mental illness. Monroe was living with her mother’s best friend, Grace Mckee, while she was nine years old. At this young age, Marilyn was allowed to wear makeup and curl her hair. Once Mckee married, however, Monroe was sent to an orphanage. After the orphanage, she was sent to live with her great aunt Olive Brunings where she was allegedly sexually assaulted by Olive’s son. Many experts question if Monroe’s later behavior such as sleep disturbances, substance abuse, etc. were due to the sexual abuse she encountered during her childhood. At age sixteen, she married a 21-year-old aircraft worker, Jim Dougherty. The couple divorced four years later. It was during this time that Monroe began modeling bathing suits, dyed her hair blonde and began to pose for pin-ups and photos. Continue reading →

With the now widespread use of the automobile, it seemed that everything started to become optimized for cars and ease of use with them. A large part of any country’s culture is their food. It is certainly true that food, and how Americans got it; was now catering to a nation of automobiles. This led to the rise of fast food, and subsequently less frequent usage of sit down restaurants. The fifties were the first decade to see the introduction of drive-thru windows and the first to experience the chain fast food restaurants. Continue reading →

When you are told to imagine what a typical family household in the fifties looked like, what would you think of? It would certainly not be anything similar to what you would see in today’s society. In today’s society a typical household is one where the kids go off to school and both parents go to work. Now I’m not saying that all families have two working parents but the majority do. Back in the fifties this was not the case. It was the father that would go off to work in the morning and leaving the mother at home with the children. She would cook, clean, and manage the house work every day. Make sure that the fridge is stocked and that all of the kids had done their homework and cleaned up for the day. Continue reading →

On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, a 42 year old African American woman by the name of Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus. This seemingly insignificant decision gave way to an important chain of events that eventually led to the desegregation of public bus systems. I chose to write my blog post about Rosa Parks because I am not only inspired by her actions, but because I am also intrigued by the fact that her one decision brought so many people together to fight for such a monumental cause. Continue reading →

With the invention of automobiles in the early 20th century, and the rising popularity of them in the 1950s, people in America were on the move. Instead of staying in the cities where they worked, people began to move to neighboring towns. These suburban communities offered many things that city life did not, but convenience and proximity to work was not always one. Commutes to work became longer for the average American, and on slow-paced roads it was surely a hassle.

To remedy this growing issue, president Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill into place in 1956 that would create 41,000 miles of interstate highway all across America. Continue reading →

I find Peyton Place to be a well written novel, but basically an extreme trying to fight another extreme. Metalious wrote Peyton Place with the stereotype in mind that the fifties was a peaceful, perfect time where families were tightly bonded and everyone got along. She saw the false side to this preconceived notion and did all she could to fight it, in the end not stopping that extreme, but simply creating a new one. Metalious’s work skews our perspective of the fifties, changing it from one of admiration to disgust, when in reality, we just must find room for a version in between the two. Continue reading →

When we were handed the reading from the National Organization for Women’s, I recognized their signature acronym of NOW. After Googling this organization I was brought to their website http://www.now.org/; I realized that I have been to this website a few times before. Ever since elementary school I have been studying feminists and their movement, from doing a poster on Susan B. Anthony to writing my final research paper on Virginia Woolf, this has been a subject that has always interested me. In our reading from class, the statement of Purpose from NOW was written in 1966, when the organization was once formed. In their statement they say “NOW is dedicated to the proposition that women, first and foremost, are human beings, who, like all other people in our society, must have the chance to develop their fullest human potential.” (Statement of Purpose) This statement is one that may not have been agreed with by many in 1966, but today it is something that most everybody can agree with. The ideas of this organization were new and innovative at the time, but today seem to be common knowledge. Continue reading →

After reading The Feminine Mystique we saw how many women struggled with “the problem that has no name.” Many women were getting married and having kids sooner than ever. These women were hoping for a perfect family and to be the perfect housewife. The media told them how to dress and act. They were supposed to love cleaning the house, taking care of their kids, and being with their husband, all with a big smile on their face because they really do love it. Women were realizing that this is not necessarily the case.

Betty Friedan talks about how she (and other women of the decade) was feeling a lack of fulfillment in her life. They were trying to do everything that they were told is the right thing to do. They started to realize that they weren’t feeling happy after doing it, and feeling a lack of fulfillment after doing the chores. They would feel guilty for this because they had everything that the media said they should have, so they should be happy like those women right? Women were blaming themselves for this, thinking other women were happier with their lives wondering “what kind of a woman was she if she did not feel this mysterious fulfillment waxing the kitchen floor?” (Friedan 19) Feeling “ashamed” and “hopelessly neurotic,” women were even going to psychiatrists to get help. (19)

This problem shouldn’t have been as mysterious to the women as it was, they were constantly told how to act and what to do within their own home. Continue reading →

Miss America is one of the country’s oldest beauty contests that originated in Atlantic City as a local pageant. However, it quickly transformed into an event that “oppresses women in every area” (No More Miss America manifesto). The 1968 press release read in class entitled “No More Miss America” had an extremely negative view on beauty pageants and how it affected women. The article itself is outwardly feminist, in which it states “we plan to reject all male authority and demand to be busted by policewomen only.” The article directly criticizes the pageant without presenting any possible counterarguments. Continue reading →

Everyone who knows the name Hugh Hefner knows about his life surrounded by beautiful women with perfectly engineered bodies. Hefner is known for his Playboy Mansion, Playboy Bunnies, and Playboy magazine. When reading chapter six of Andrew Dunar’s, America in the Fifties, I was surprised to find that Playboy magazine was founded in the 1950’s. The Fifties is typically seen as a time period in which families were perfect and life was so simple, but the topic of sex is often overlooked. Continue reading →