FYS The Fifties

Whenever I think of music in the 1950s, I cannot help but imagine a bunch of high school boys in leather jackets with their hair slicked back, or high school girls in poodle skirts. Most of the time in my imagination they will be singing, “Grease Lighting” or “You’re the One That I Want”. For most people my age, it is hard to imagine music during that time, but even harder getting us to explore the music. We have this gut feeling that the music back then was boring and un-relatable, but all of this is untrue. What we do not understand is that today, modern music is closely related to the music of the 50s. In fact if it were not for the music of the 50s, many genres of music today would not exist. Continue reading →

The 1950’s was a great era. Although we have only been in class for about two weeks I have already learned so much. I can honestly say that I was surprised to hear about some of the topics we were discussing. I have always thought of the 1950’s as an amazing time to be living in America. Thinking of the 1950’s I would think of Marilyn Monroe, cute furniture and similar home décor, and of course dancing in poodle skirts and sharing milkshakes with friends. I knew in general about most of the subjects we have talked about such as the atomic bomb, the wars, and scares of communism but I didn’t really know much about the details or how it had affected the people and us today. To be honest I never really placed any of those serious issues with the 1950’s. I know all this happened around that time but I guess I just never put two and two together. I saw the 1950’s as a happy thriving time and so I put all the political/government issues and frightening parts of the 1950’s in a different thought. I separated the good from the bad, but know I can put it all together and I see the truth of the 1950’s. Continue reading →