Do remember this America? (interview, salary, economy, election)
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My mother (age 88) is much the same. When we talk about the 'old days' she gets rather angry when she recalls how people were treated, especially black Americans. She tells of people (of all color) literally starving in the streets: having beggars come to the door was quite common in the old days (up to the early 1970s; I suppose the welfare state helped in that regard). As a rather wealthy white woman as a youth, she did well, although she states that growing up she was not expected to 'do' anything, save to get married and have children. That she did. She would have liked to do more (she did do volunteer work, which some of her 'classy' friends frowned upon).
I was born in 1955, and I well recall blacks having to sit in the back of the bus, of the 'blacks only' counters at those eateries that even allowed black people inside the door, of the idiotic 'white' and 'black' water fountains (where the Hispanic people drank water in public is still a mystery to me). Thankfully, even in the early 1960s, my parents (who were Goldwater republicans) taught my sisters and I that we were expected to treat all people with respect, regardless of their skin color, even if they came from up North (prejudice against Yankees was also still strong).
Back in the old days, you had a lot of things to worry about. Polio was still around (one friend of mine had it), measles, mumps, whooping cough, you name it. It saddens me that, today, people want to make up claims about vaccines; I guess they miss the 'good ol' days'.
A word about the very high income taxes back in the 1950s: one big reason for such rates was that, as a nation, it was realized that the wars (WWII, Korea) had to be paid for through higher taxes. What odd thoughts people had back in the old days!
Prior to the late 1960s when Richard Nixon and other Republican leaders decided on the "southern strategy" to welcome disgruntled racist Democrats into the GOP, the Republican Party was fairly strong on civil rights issues. FDR and the New Deal brought about the shift in black allegiance from the Republican to the Democratic party, but it was more on issues other, especially economic issues, than on Civil Rights. Most of the openly racist politicians in the 1950s and 1960s were southern Democrats (Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Ross Barnett, etc). Most southern Republicans, such as existed then, were "liberal" on race issues. Certainly,a much larger percentage of blacks were and voted for Republicans back then. IIRC, the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was passed by a bi-partisan majority in both houses of Congress.
Barry Goldwater was a conservative, but there was never any question of him being a racist ... or a bigot of any kind. In fact, IIRC, over the years, Goldwater repeatedly chastised his fellow Republicans for embracing divisive politics based on racism and religious bigotry that's led to where we are today where "conservative" has almost become a synonym for "bigot".
Those who were children during them as well as those whose only exposure to them is through reruns of the idealized sitcoms of the time. It's surprising how many people think the Andy Griffith Show or Leave it to Beaver are accurate representations of life during the '50s.
This is the truth. There's a thread over on the Preparedness and Self Sufficiency forum where the OP argues that the 1880s "the best time ever". It's based on the same kind of nostalgic romanticism as the worship of the 1950s and early 1960s. People who didn't actually live then read or see fictional accounts of life "back then" and think that's an accurate portrayal of the period.
Think about the TV show "The Waltons", which was set in the 1930s. It sanitized the Great Depression to the point that you didn't know there was a terrible world wide depression. My Dad hated that show and wouldn't watch it. He was a farm kid who finished 8th grade in 1931. He was a smart kid with good grades but he didn't go to high school, which was only 2 miles down the road, because not only didn't his family have the money for him to have clothes or shoes or books like the "town kids" had but also because they desperately needed what little cash he could bring in working on some of the bigger farms in the area.
The 1950s were good times in this country. Good times. We had modern medical and dental care, and we were the most powerful country in the world. We had men and women of honor serving in political office. Our school houses were filled with America's best citizens, imparting their wisdom, patriotism and love of learning to young minds.
It was a wonderful time.
I wish we could return to it.
This is sarcasm, right?
Very few women served in political office because it simply wasn't done. "Honorable" women served as the president of the PTA, but dare not dream of being in the Senate or House. Through the 50s, between 2 - 3.5% of the House was women. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was DEMOTED for getting pregnant in the mid-1950s, and then was outright denied clerkships because of her gender.
Women were stifled in their careers consistently. Many of the best universities still barred women from attending. Women like my grandmother were trapped in marriages with philandering, abusive husbands because "that's just what was done" and they were hands were financially bound. Others, like the women at my alma mater which has been both integrated and coed since its founding, graduated from an elite college only to have their dreams in the sciences and business squashed by the social mores of the 50s. We have page after page of "yearbook" entries for our Reunions with women from the 50s talking about how they never could get their foot in the door as a researcher, or were turned down from law schools, or were told the only place for them in the company was a secretary. Many of these women harbor huge regrets about giving up and living the life that was expected of them - being a wife and mother - because it was unfulfilling for them.
Women like my mother grandmother, a single mother in the 50s, struggled to keep food on the table for her kids because promotions and raises almost exclusively went to "men with families." Daycares were practically unheard of, so the kids lived a precarious existence while mom had to work. Someone forgot to tell her about the house and the yard promised by the OP.
Young minds in our schools were being indoctrinated with anti-Communist propaganda. The 50s is when the Pledge of Allegiance added "under G-d," though education standards have fallen enough that a substantial part of the population (that tends to lean right) thinks it was there all along. We had the Space Race, which really encouraged young white men in the sciences. But young women? Black kids? Nope. Not even a little bit. Our high school graduation and literacy rates much lower as many kids had to work to support the family and drop out early. It's unheard of today for a kid to have never gone to high school - that was pretty common among adults in the rural farm area I grew up in.
The 50s were great for a small subset of the population - likely the same subset that is doing fine today. Yes, adjusted wages were generally higher and housing was cheaper... but what cost? As a single, Jewish 28 year old woman focused on my career, I would have been left out in the cold by the 50s.. that is if my cancer (now mostly curable) hadn't killed me first.
Prior to the late 1960s when Richard Nixon and other Republican leaders decided on the "southern strategy" to welcome disgruntled racist Democrats into the GOP, the Republican Party was fairly strong on civil rights issues. FDR and the New Deal brought about the shift in black allegiance from the Republican to the Democratic party, but it was more on issues other, especially economic issues, than on Civil Rights. Most of the openly racist politicians in the 1950s and 1960s were southern Democrats (Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Ross Barnett, etc). Most southern Republicans, such as existed then, were "liberal" on race issues. Certainly,a much larger percentage of blacks were and voted for Republicans back then. IIRC, the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was passed by a bi-partisan majority in both houses of Congress.
Barry Goldwater was a conservative, but there was never any question of him being a racist ... or a bigot of any kind. In fact, IIRC, over the years, Goldwater repeatedly chastised his fellow Republicans for embracing divisive politics based on racism and religious bigotry that's led to where we are today where "conservative" has almost become a synonym for "bigot".
You are certainly correct about Senator Goldwater, and I did not mean for my language to imply that Goldwater was racist and that my parents 'went against him' in that respect.
There's a reason why the people in the picture are white... those 'good old days' were basically only good for certain people. And, really, only for the guy in the picture. The woman, wearing a skirt, gloves, and a girdle - if she was working, she was subjected to inequality and sexual harassment - only there wasn't a word for it back then. If she was married, she couldn't sign a contract by herself, had to ask her husband for the money to buy groceries, and, if he was an abuser, told that she wasn't doing a good job in pleasing him. I won't even talk about people of color during that time. No thanks, those days are long gone, and good riddance!
People that bring out "The Good Old days" always cherry pick and leave out the sour apples.
Wives couldn't be raped by their Husbands, sex was considered one of her "duties" as his wife.
Married females had ONLY the rights given her by her husband, single females had almost no rights.
People that bring out "The Good Old days" always cherry pick and leave out the sour apples.
Wives couldn't be raped by their Husbands, sex was considered one of her "duties" as his wife.
Married females had ONLY the rights given her by her husband, single females had almost no rights.
YEAH, great times ...
Really? I really did not notice my grandmother cowering whenever gramps walked in the room. Let's not over do the legitimate obstacles women faced in the 50's with hyperbolic nonsense.
For many those days were more like the Honeymooners. Great for the drunks but hell for the rest of us.
Ralph and Alice , childless couple, married 15 or so years, were in their late 30's and lived in a tiny 2 room apartment in Brooklyn ( or was it Queens?). Ralph was a bus driver and money was tight.
I think the lifestyle portrayed in the Honeymooners was more indicative of life back then for the masses.
Dick Van Dyke, a very successful TV Show writer in Manhattan commuted from a New Rochelle neighborhood where professionals lived. It was a simple 2 bedroom house. That was the early 60s.
Really? I really did not notice my grandmother cowering whenever gramps walked in the room. Let's not over do the legitimate obstacles women faced in the 50's with hyperbolic nonsense.
Yeah, it wasn't quite THAT bad, but I definitely wouldn't have wanted to live in those times.
That said, there were some really good things about that America. At least we took care of home first.
The destruction began long before Reagan, when fractional reserve banking interests duped Woodrow Wilson into signing off on the Fed Res. Our system of credit and banking is slowly making this country poorer, even China sold their remaining WW2 debt owed U.S. taxpayers to private investors.
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” -Woodrow Wilson
Was Wilson unaware the US is a Republic, not a democracy?
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