What were the 50s in America like?

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Asbestos, Asbestos everywhere.

In 1950s Australia, they even used to use loose asbestos fibers in kids play boxes instead of sand.

Ah yes the 50s where you could still beat your wife and kids, fags were in their closets and lynching blacks was still a public spectacle to bring your kids and grandma to.

There still existed a middle class back then.

>>1012612
>fondly reminisce
I seriously doubt most people who do so even born in the 50's, let alone experienced it as adults.

Sick aesthetics, awesome cars, good music.

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>>1012612
In some parts of America it was literally a utopia if you factor in community, culture and values alongside material wealth and technology, a lot has been thrown away with the bathwater in the name of progress.

In other areas black folks were mistreated like this >>1012620 and mistakes happened like this >>1012618 , however today there are still many shitty places in the world and many mistakes being made. The fact Louisiana is part of the USA is of no more consequence than the fact that Syria is part of the Earth.

>>1012612
>conservatism

Relative to the error: conservative to us, liberal to someone who was old/traditionalist back then

Great time to be a white middle class man.

If you werent, you're shit out of luck.

>>1012612
A period of recession and poverty. Average IQ, health, standard of living, etc. were all shit.

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>>1012612
Obsessed with the newly burgeoning synthetic chemical industry. Stockings, spandex, etc was new and fascinating. Continued marvelling from post-war technology booms, ie splitting the atom. Lots of gelatin-based and preserved foods for the same reason.

Source: traditionalist grandpappy who thought these kids with their new foods and fashion trends were lawless degenerates. The man never ate a bagel in his life, never touched rice, and never used a coupon.

It was a time of incredible optimism and happiness but as has been mentioned, was really only a sweet deal if you were a WASP.

>>1015967
Is this a joke? The prosperity of the 50s created the historically unprecedented luxury, where thanks to the GI bill and Europe in rubble it was actually possible to sustain 2 kids, a dog, a house and a car on a factory worker's salary, which you got by simply giving the hiring manager a firm handshake!

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>>1015989

The still very religion climate of the post-war bubble kept social issues under the rug where they were difficult to address. Despite what Spenglerians might tell you, the modern American is much better off by a myriad of social statistics. Alcoholism, violent crime, teen pregnancy, domestic violence are all on the decline, and thanks to abortions and unleaded gasoline intelligence is on the increase

>>1016003
There were 2 recessions in the 50s, and standards of living was garbage. People "sustained" a living on one wage because they lowered their standards accordingly.

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>>1016030
Yes, but it still blew competitors in Europe and Asia out of the water

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>>1016048
And I think I'd rather be a farmer in the 50s than one in the 30s, although both eras obviously pale in comparison to the modern day

>>1016055
we were so close, should have listened to patton

>>1016048
Yeah true, 50s America was indeed a better place to live than the wartorn and bombed out Europe and Asia. I guess it does have *that* going for it.

>>1015957
there were only white people in the places that mattered

>>1016055
>>1016048

china and india's gdp numbers are grossly inflated in the pre industrial era.

all you had were hundreds of millions of subsistence farmers. the only strong commerce was in exporting their unique goods to the West.

1950s America is literally the NatSoc German dream.

>>1016099
>ignoring the part where he said middle class and male
Also let's not forget that during the 50s there were actual PC police:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code#Don.27ts_and_Be_Carefuls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_Committee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Act

>>1015517
Ok did you grow up in those times or are you just assuming it was a utopia because of drawings that idealized that point in time?

>>1016126
>china and india's gdp numbers are grossly inflated in the pre industrial era.
>all you had were hundreds of millions of subsistence farmers
That's not really true. China and India's populations weren't significantly larger than Europe's until the 1800s. Not sure about Indian, but China had plenty of commerce. It was the first country to print paper money after all. In addition merchants the Song Dynasty for example:
"...set up partnerships and joint stock companies, with a separation of owners (shareholders) and managers. In the large cities, merchants were organized into guilds according to the type of product sold; they periodically set prices and arranged sales from wholesalers to shop owners. When the government requisitioned goods or assessed taxes, it dealt with the guild heads."

>last age of the nuclear family

It was actually the start of the nuclear family. Family structures were reasonably different before the 50's and they usually consisted of your grand parents living with you, the mother having a more powerful role in the home etc.

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>boring, stifling communities filled with fundies
>censorship left right and centre
>two recessions

Don't let the propaganda fool you.

>>1012612
Our fascination with '50s nostalgia is probably a manifestation of the authority-vacuum brought about by a postmodern awareness of all cultural values being essentially arbitrarily constructed.

People are willing to overlook the blatant racism and sexism because they long so desperately for the galvanizing effects of the nationalism.

In reality, '50s America was largely the product of an inherited white-supremacy which borrowed heavily from Nazi ideology, but remediated it into a democratic ideal of cultural colonialism: there was no "master race," but there was definitely a "master culture" (the Malthusian, logical-positivist Puritanism which drove industry and hyperbolic economic growth).

What we presently are experiencing is the death of this culture, and in its final throes, we sometimes remember, reflecting on the nice parts.

I get it. I like milkshakes.

>>1016055
Was Japan that rich before 1900? They have no resources or population then.

The 1950s were great. Boomers ruined everything.

>>1012612
Women were fucking the TV-repair man or Milk Man because being a housewife could be very boring.

>>1015989
Not true, in fact the 50s were the time when non-WASP whites (Irish, Italians, Poles etc) were finally elevated into middle class.

>>1016248
>burbs are so white and BORING!
>I'd rather live in a decrepit urban ghet-I mean "vibrant neighborhood"

>>1016724
The amount of Marxist nonsense in this entire post makes me believe you're trolling.

>>1012612
>fondly reminisce

retarded delusions and good old days fallacy

>>1016048
yeah because those countries were recovering from WW2 while the US made a killing straight through the war and set itself up to make a killing off rebuilding and european/asian war debt.

>>1012612
Like most other periods of history, I'm sure it was alright if you had a stable income.

It wasn't all the white picket fence picture that some people like to assume it was though, there was still a lot of poverty about.

>>1012620
>and lynching blacks was still a public spectacle to bring your kids and grandma to
It was also incredibly fucking rare, but common perception is that it was a common occurrence. On average, there were less lynchings annually than fatal lightning strikes between 1865 and 1965 with the bulk of lynchings occurring between 1865 and 1900. Source: The Tuskegee Institute.

>>1016248
>>boring, stifling communities filled with fundies
there was nothing stopping you from fucking off to the middle of utah or minnesota and doing your own thing
unlike our post-waco, post 9/11 days, the fed probably wouldn't give a shit.
>censorship
literally where, all those infamous books still got published and sold
>two recessions
wow, just like today

>>1012612
>nuclear family
>conservatism

>>1016213
India also had considerable commerce, and it's economy was highly dependent upon trade with the Middle East and East Africa. This is especially true for places like Goa, Gujarat and Travancore. When looking at India economically, it's generally looked at in the context of the entire Indian Ocean World, rather than solely on the subcontinent.

>>1017912

Some of it is sadly true and a lot of it is pretty much horse shit. But this sort of Marxist critical theory tripe is what the blatantly Marxist professors all across the western world are teaching.

>>1015517
>In some parts of America it was literally a utopia

In some parts, sure, but America on the whole wasn't that great in the 50s compared to today. Taxes were high as fuck (containment wasn't going to pay for itself), paranoia about communism was rampant, the KKK was rampaging through the South again, and there was no welfare state so if you were a poor person (white, black, whatever) you were completely fucked.

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1950s America would be a third-world shit hole today.

>>1018423
>not adjusting for inflation

My take on it was that it was the perfect storm of social and economic conditions that led a situation of incredible economic growth and social solidarity for the belief that investing in your country benefits everyone. People today like to yearn for the "good old days" of the American Dream, but the more I read into the more I see the American Dream being an outlier, not a norm, of economic realities.

Not going to lie - on a subconscious level, there was probably a lot more trust and openness in society than there is today. Outside of the prospect of nuclear war, people most likely felt safer and more optimistic about the world in general, and this translated into the "utopian" social ideals that has made the era so romanticized in decades since.

Of course, that is not to say there weren't fundamental structural problems which by today's standards look barbaric, and which most citizens only coped with either by willful ignorance or deeply-held ideological beliefs.
Treatment of blacks was horrific. Women were still more or less second class citizens. Uncritical propaganda seeped into every aspect of contemporary life. Nonsensical religious exceptionalism was just making its debut. Mass materialism exploding.

But to say that all of these amounted to some sort of "cultural dark ages" would be to ignore the very real positivity that most people felt in their minds, and the impact that this worldview would have on the decades to come.

>>1018428
>constant prices

>>1015944
era**

>>1016248
Don't forget the massively lower rates of suicide, anxiety, depressions...

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>>1018398
sadly true.

Had a black professor point out to a white professor that blacks and other minorities in 1950s America were better off in pretty much every metric then thy are now. He did give her that there were less black CEO's and there was no hope for a black president though. I could literally see her brain frying.

>Its the last age of the nuclear family and conservatism

>and conservatism

Conservatism never dies out, the definition just changes.

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>>1016724
Fucking kill yourself.

>>1018561
Traditionalism is probably the better term.

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>>1016196
>everything out of living memory is unknowable
In the period after the post-war boom, before the decline in values and in parts of the country that weren't dysfunctional, people had money and leisure time for the first time in their lives (or since the 20s) and spent it wisely based on what they had learned during the great depression and the war. This is all backed up by numerous indicators and facts.

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/humfig/11217607.0002.206/--decivilization-in-the-1960s?rgn=main;view=fulltext

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/detoc/assoc/strange.html

>drawings that idealized that point in time
Sitting in front of the telly eating hot dogs and drinking pabst blue ribbon is considered pleb in this day and age, I assume it seems idealized because they are happy and smiling. I suppose if you were raised by a single mother in the projects, went to chaotic inner city schools and believe anything but slavish devotion to pop culture (or an accepted "nonconformist" subculture) is lame like the mainstream media tells you this would all seem quite alien.

>>1018583
>I suppose if you were raised by a single mother in the projects, went to chaotic inner city schools and believe anything but slavish devotion to pop culture (or an accepted "nonconformist" subculture) is lame like the mainstream media tells you this would all seem quite alien.


And people sitting in front of the tv in the 1950s was.....what, exactly? A proud way of ignoring pop culture? And I think he means that it seems idealized because the people depicted in those drawings are middle class or upper-middle class. You don't see too many drawings of dirt-poor Italians or Irishmen starving to death because the welfare state didn't exist yet

>>1018595
>You don't see too many drawings of dirt-poor Italians or Irishmen starving to death because the welfare state didn't exist yet

Ah, yes. The classic, "every point of history before mine was poverty stricken madness line." There was more strife back then but not too much more.

>>1018526

That's just ridiculous. These people are determined to find a fault in everything and make everyone one who they believe being culpable atone for it. When I think about all those naive minds drawing from this poisoned well it's just depressing

>>1018409
>paranoia about communism was rampant
And was absolutely justified. I know the current popular line is that McCarthy was a fuckwad, but the fact of the matter is that Alger Hiss has been all but confirmed as a Soviet agent thanks to the Verona papers.

>and there was no welfare state so if you were a poor person (white, black, whatever) you were completely fucked
New Deal politics were alive and well in the 1950's. Are you fucking stupid?

>>1018409
Containment was a necessity because he USSR was a belligerent totalitarian dictatorship that before the schism between China and the USSR was poised to swallow up eurasia, the theoretical global pivot that precedes world domination. It would be a problem if we ignored it and weren't willing to fight. The paranoia was only a serious problem if you were some fruity filmmaker in hollywood, it was unjustified for the government to step in and I disagree with McCarthy on that point, however he was actually right all along.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project

Homelessness was in the decline apparently.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2221566

The meme "walk into a factory and get a job you can pay for a house with" was more or less true. You'd still be very poor, but you'd have a place in society. If you're a homeless drug addict today you're not going to get hired over an illegal.

It is already widely known that there were plenty of problems on the 50s, if there is "more to this era" it is the fact that the idyllic 50s was not a myth in some places and we've thrown it away.

>>1018631
>Containment was a necessity

I never said that it wasn't, only that it wasn't going to pay for itself.

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>>1018631
>The meme "walk into a factory and get a job you can pay for a house with" was more or less true.
Fun fact: the average house was 50% the size of an average house today. Everything was smaller and shittier in the 50s, including household income.