Download or read book America in the Fifties written by Andrew J. Dunar and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2006-11-07 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1950s evoke images of prosperity, suburbia, a smiling President Eisenhower, cars with elaborate tail fins, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and the “golden age” of television—seemingly a simpler time in which the idealized family life of situation comedies had at least some basis in reality. A closer examination, however,recalls more threatening images: the hysteria of McCarthy-ism, the shadow of the atomic bomb, war in Korea, the Soviet threat manifested in the launch of Sputnik and the bombast of Nikita Khruschchev, and clashes over the integration of public buses in Montgomery, Alabama, and a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Andrew J. Dunar successfully shows how the issues confronting America in the late twentieth century have roots in the fifties, some apparent at the time, others only in retrospect: civil rights, environmentalism, the counterculture, and “movements” on behalf of women, Chicanos, and Native Americans. The rise of the “Beats,” the continuing development of jazz, the emergence of rock ’n’ roll, and the art of Jackson Pollock reveal the decade to be less conformist than commonly portrayed. While the cold war rivalry with the Soviet Union generated the most concern, Dunar skillfully illustrates how the rise of Nasser in Egypt, Castro in Cuba, and Communist regimes in North Korea, Vietnam, and China signaled new regional challenges to American power.
Download or read book American Culture in the 1950s written by Martin Halliwell and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2007-03-13 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a stimulating account of the dominant cultural forms of 1950s America: fiction and poetry; theatre and performance; film and television; music and radio; and the visual arts. Through detailed commentary and focused case studies of influential texts and events - from Invisible Man to West Side Story, from Disneyland to the Seattle World's Fair, from Rear Window to The Americans - the book examines the way in which modernism and the cold war offer two frames of reference for understanding the trajectory of postwar culture. The two core aims of this volume are to chart the changing complexion of American culture in the years following World War II and to provide readers with a critical investigation of 'the 1950s'. The book provides an intellectual context for approaching 1950s American culture and considers the historical impact of the decade on recent social and cultural developments.
Download or read book The Fifties written by James R. Gaines and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-02-08 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: Seeing in the dark -- Gay rights: "To be nobody but yourself" -- Feminism: "Meet Jane Crow" -- Civil rights: The war after the wars -- Ecology: Before we knew -- Epilogue: The best of us.
Download or read book Fat in the Fifties written by Nicolas Rasmussen and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-26 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting history of the rise and fall of the obesity epidemic during 1950s and 1960s America. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company identified obesity as the leading cause of premature death in the United States in the 1930s, but it wasn't until 1951 that the public health and medical communities finally recognized it as "America's Number One Health Problem." The reason for MetLife's interest? They wanted their policyholders to live longer and continue paying their premiums. Early postwar America responded to the obesity emergency, but by the end of the 1960s, the crisis waned and official rates of true obesity were reduced— despite the fact that Americans were growing no thinner. What mid-century factors and forces established obesity as a politically meaningful and culturally resonant problem in the first place? And why did obesity fade from public—and medical—consciousness only a decade later? Based on archival records of health leaders as well as medical and popular literature, Fat in the Fifties is the first book to reconstruct the prewar origins, emergence, and surprising disappearance of obesity as a major public health problem. Author Nicolas Rasmussen explores the postwar shifts that drew attention to obesity, as well as the varied approaches to its treatment: from thyroid hormones to psychoanalysis and weight loss groups. Rasmussen argues that the US government was driven by the new Cold War and the fear of atomic annihilation to heightened anxieties about national fitness. Informed by the latest psychiatric thinking—which diagnosed obesity as the result of oral fixation, just like alcoholism—health professionals promoted a form of weight loss group therapy modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous. The intervention caught on like wildfire in 1950s suburbia. But the sense of crisis passed quickly, partly due to cultural changes associated with the later 1960s and partly due to scientific research, some of it sponsored by the sugar industry, emphasizing particular dietary fats, rather than calorie intake. Through this riveting history of the rise and fall of the obesity epidemic, readers gain an understanding of how the American public health system—ambitious, strong, and second-to-none at the end of the Second World War—was constrained a decade later to focus mainly on nagging individuals to change their lifestyle choices. Fat in the Fifties is required reading for public health practitioners and researchers, physicians, historians of medicine, and anyone concerned about weight and weight loss.
Download or read book The Fifties written by David Halberstam and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2012-12-18 with total page 1216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This vivid New York Times bestseller about 1950s America from a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist is “an engrossing sail across a pivotal decade” (Time). Joe McCarthy. Marilyn Monroe. The H-bomb. Ozzie and Harriet. Elvis. Civil rights. It’s undeniable: The fifties were a defining decade for America, complete with sweeping cultural change and political upheaval. This decade is also the focus of David Halberstam’s triumphant The Fifties, which stands as an enduring classic and was an instant New York Times bestseller upon its publication. More than a survey of the decade, it is a masterfully woven examination of far-reaching change, from the unexpected popularity of Holiday Inn to the marketing savvy behind McDonald’s expansion. A meditation on the staggering influence of image and rhetoric, The Fifties is vintage Halberstam, who was hailed by the Denver Post as “a lively, graceful writer who makes you . . . understand how much of our time was born in those years.” This ebook features an extended biography of David Halberstam.
Download or read book The Forgotten Fifties written by James Conaway and published by Skira. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From the archive of Look comes a photographic portrayal of the dynamic era that sparked a transformation in America's political and cultural identity. From the Red Scare incited by Joseph McCarthy to the election of John F. Kennedy as president in 1960, best-selling journalist James Conaway charts an entertaining and highly readable year-by-year survey through the fifties as it heralded some of the most striking and clashing aspects of twentieth-century America."--Dust jacket flap.
Download or read book Becoming America s Playground written by Larry D. Gragg and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1950 Las Vegas saw a million tourists. In 1960 it attracted ten million. The city entered the fifties as a regional destination where prosperous postwar Americans could enjoy vices largely forbidden elsewhere, and it emerged in the sixties as a national hotspot, the glitzy resort city that lights up the American West today. Becoming America’s Playground chronicles the vice and the toil that gave Las Vegas its worldwide reputation in those transformative years. Las Vegas’s rise was no happy accident. After World War II, vacationing Americans traveled the country in record numbers, making tourism a top industry in such states as California and Florida. The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce saw its chance and developed a plan to capitalize on the town’s burgeoning reputation for leisure. Las Vegas pinned its hopes for the future on Americans’ need for escape. Transforming a vice city financed largely by the mob into a family vacation spot was not easy. Hotel and casino publicists closely monitored media representations of the city and took every opportunity to stage images of good, clean fun for the public—posing even the atomic bomb tests conducted just miles away as an attraction. The racism and sexism common in the rest of the nation in the era prevailed in Las Vegas too. The wild success of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack performances at the Sands Hotel in 1960 demonstrated the city’s slow progress toward equality. Women couldn’t work as dealers in Las Vegas until the 1970s, yet they found more opportunities for well-paying jobs there than many American women could find elsewhere. Gragg shows how a place like the Las Vegas Strip—with its glitz and vast wealth and its wildly public consumption of vice—rose to prominence in the 1950s, a decade of Cold War anxiety and civil rights conflict. Becoming America’s Playground brings this pivotal decade in Las Vegas into sharp focus for the first time.
Download or read book Something from the Oven written by Laura Shapiro and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-03-29 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Author of the forthcoming What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women and the Food That Tells Their Stories (Summer 2017) In this captivating blend of culinary history and popular culture, the award-winning author of Perfection Salad shows us what happened when the food industry elbowed its way into the kitchen after World War II, brandishing canned hamburgers, frozen baked beans, and instant piecrusts. Big Business waged an all-out campaign to win the allegiance of American housewives, but most women were suspicious of the new foods—and the make-believe cooking they entailed. With sharp insight and good humor, Laura Shapiro shows how the ensuing battle helped shape the way we eat today, and how the clash in the kitchen reverberated elsewhere in the house as women struggled with marriage, work, and domesticity. This unconventional history overturns our notions about the ’50s and offers new thinking on some of its fascinating figures, including Poppy Cannon, Shirley Jackson, Julia Child, and Betty Friedan.
Download or read book Rock Roll Generation written by Time-Life Books and published by Time Life Medical. This book was released on 1998 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 300 pictures and countless quotations, bringing back the hopes, fear, and dreams of a one-of-a-kind generation, the nifty 50s.
Download or read book Fifties Flashback written by Dennis Adler and published by Motorbooks. This book was released on 2004 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No other era in automotive history is as revered as the 1950s, when Detroit was the center of the auto world and the American V-8 was king of the road. With hundreds of color photos of beautiful restorations and a collection of rare archival photos, Dennis Adler has compiled a detailed history of the emerging postwar American auto industry.
Download or read book The Fifties written by Brett Harvey and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 1993 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advanced academic degree, to raise children and keep a home in the suburbs, to follow your dreams of having a profession, and even to live, politically and sexually, far from the mainstream of American life. These are stories of women's lives - some very tragic, some remarkably heroic - and they reveal to us all over again an era we thought we knew so well.
Download or read book American Cars of the 1950s written by David Newhardt, Robert Genat and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The 1950s American Home written by Diane Boucher and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-06-10 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern living began with the homes of the 1950s. Casting aside the privations of the Second World War, American architects embraced the must-have mod-cons: they wrapped fitted kitchens around fridges, washing machines, dishwashers and electric ovens, gave televisions pride of place in the living room, and built integrated garages for enormous space-age cars. So why was this change so radical? In what ways did life change for people moving into these swanky new homes, and why has the legacy of the 1950s home endured for so long? Diane Boucher answers these questions and more in this colorful introduction to the homes that embody the golden age of modern design.
Download or read book The Feminine Mystique written by Betty Friedan and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This novel was the major inspiration for the Women's Movement and continues to be a powerful and illuminating analysis of the position of women in Western society___
Download or read book America in the 1950s for Kids The English Reading Tree written by Keith Goodman and published by English Reading Tree. This book was released on 2019-03-21 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introducing: America in the 1950s for KidsThe English Reading Tree Book 54 This book is aimed at children aged eight and over and is part of the English Reading Tree Series (number 54). It is a perfect tool to get young learners into the habit of reading. This nostalgic look at America in the 1950s will take children on a journey through key events, trivia, and culture. From the War in Korea to Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, this is a must read for young and curious minds. America in the 1950s for Kids has been written to entertain and educate. It is packed with information and trivia and has images that bring the topic alive. There is a quiz at the beginning and end to test how much has been learned. What people are saying about the English Reading TreeGoodreads Excellent books that not only improve reading ability but educate. Post Online Very well presented and I particularly enjoyed the quiz at the end. Island EBooks Simple, easy to read and full of interesting facts. What more can a parent ask? Online Review With less emphasis on pictures and more emphasis on reading and developing initial reading vocabulary, this series will capture most kid's imagination and encourage them to read more. The large print makes the reading more inviting. Parental assistance will be needed to help with new words or the meaning.
Download or read book The Fifties written by Douglas T. Miller and published by VNR AG. This book was released on 1977 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveys the social, cultural, and political history of the United States during the decade of the 1950's.
Download or read book It Came From the 1950s written by Darryl Jones and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eclectic and insightful collection of essays predicated on the hypothesis that popular cultural documents provide unique insights into the concerns, anxieties and desires of their times. 1950s popular culture is analysed by leading scholars and critics such as Christopher Frayling, Mark Jancovich, Kim Newman and David J. Skal.
