1957-1965 (or 1963)

[FedoraFan112390]

I wasn't around in this era, but it seems to me to have been a really great time for America. We were in the depths of the Space Age; A time of wonder, science, discovery; the future was in the minds and dreams of many. People were still proud to be American then; there was a certain spirit of Americana that was in the air--with Kennedy, the World's Fair, etc. Men still wore hats, and women still dressed classy; Sinatra and Dean Martin still made hits; Doo Wop was huge--Of course, by the end of the 60's, all that would change. Rock N' Roll was new, and booming in it's own way; it wasn't yet the voice of dissent that it became by 1967. James Bond was huge, relevant; the man's man. We had a succession in these years of pretty good Presidents (Ike, Kennedy, LBJ). The country was crazy over UFO's.

Of course, there was, as with every time, a dark side. We were still in the Cold War, and the struggle for Civil Rights continued for African Americans, Vietnam was beginning to escalate but I mean just in terms of the general, optimistic mindset of the late '50s-early 60s, it seems like it was a good era. An era in which people hoped and dreamed of futuristic tomorrows and when, to paraphase the theme song to All in the Family, girls were girls and men were men.

 

["Skeet" McD]

Dear Fedora Fan,
Well: I WAS alive then, although quite young (born 1953)....but have many memories of this period.

You've already shown that you aren't looking at it through (particularly) rosy glasses: believe me, there was PLENTY to be worried about (and unhappy about) in that time: I have very strong memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis, living 30 miles outside of NY City...I remember all the concentric circles spreading outward, and knowing that, if worst came to worst, the canned goods my mother was so diligently stocking below our cellar stairs (many of them still there, 45 years later) would be....not much help. Yes, I remember "duck and cover" and remember thinking (in 2nd grade, ducking and covering in the basement corridors of our 1901 school building): well, this won't be much help....

Like every period, the chunk o' time you've chosen to identify with had its goods and its bads....I think Dickens said something like that and it's still as relevant. One of the great delights of living today--with all of OUR difficulties and advantages--is that there has never been a time in the history of man where "just folks" had the leisure to live in two times at once...nor such a facility for learning about history.

ALL times are incredibly complex, and our individual tastes and beliefs will color our appreciation of them. There's nothing wrong with that, it seems to me, as long as we understand what's going on.

"Skeet"

PS: if you are interested in a very perceptive view of the latter half of "your" period, check out the work of Jean Shepherd, a midwesterner who held forth in late-night NY City on WOR before, during, and after the period you are interested in. I was one of the army of young men and women who listened to "Shep" on a transistor radio tucked under our pillow when we should have been asleep...their name is Legion...and his insights, arresting as they were in the 1960s, are absolutely prescient seen from almost 50 years on...if you have an iPod...check out the podcast THE BRASS FIGLAGEE; here's a few URLs to get you started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Shepherd
http://www.flicklives.com/
http://www.keyflux.com/shep/
http://bobkaye.com/Shep.html
(if you want to get STRAIGHT to the essence of Shep...check out the clip "Man as Machine"..."there is more to philosophy than is dreamt of in your college course, Horatio"...or words to that effect )

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Ahhh....... but it all changed and brightened that February night in 1964 when those four lads hit the stage on the Ed Sullivan Show.

To me it seemed as if a new era had dawned and that date marked the end of the "post-war" period and the beginning of something completely new, where youth mattered and life had a non-top musical soundtrack.

-dixon cannon

 

[AtomicEraTom]

Ahh, you are speaking of my favorite era. I see you look at it the same way I do. Skeet and I have had a talk about this era before. And it seems that it did end with the beginning of the British Invasion. And if you notice, this seemed to be almost the death of the hat-wearing era as well. It all kinda ties together. Morals, style, class, etc all seemed to just fly out the window so fast after this era, and this tailspin is continuing to this day.

 

[Barrelhouse]

I'm with Skeet on this one. There were certainly many wonderful things about the period you reference. There were all the great things you mentioned plus a booming economy, and an explosion in the arts and sciences and generally less of the pessimism and apathy that seemed to arise after Watergate.

However, I don't know if there was ever a more angst ridden period in American history. The soviets were whipping us in the space race, Walter Cronkite informed us nightly of the deepening moras in Vietnam, President Kennedy and Malcolm X were both gunned down like dogs, Watts burned, and we all lived with the very real fear that the world would end in a mushroom cloud. All in all I can't say I personally miss the 60's much.

On a happier note, it was an epoch completely devoid of disco and that counts for a lot in my book!!

 

[FedoraFan112390]

Bump...
I just figured rather than making a new thread, I'd re post in this one...
Though my date range has changed--I think the date would extend from 1955-1963 as sort of a Second Golden Era, or maybe 1955-1964.

 

[Tango Yankee]

... and the beginning of something completely new, where youth mattered and life had a non-top musical soundtrack.

-dixon cannon

Unfortunately, it seems in many ways that it was also the beginning of the opposite, where age and wisdom no longer mattered...

Cheers,
Tom

 

[dhermann1]

Very interesting

The specific events I use to bracket that era are the creation of the ABC TV network in 1954, and the Kennedy assassination in 1963.
I was born in 1946, so this era was the prime of my childhood.
The reason I choose the creation of ABC is that between 1947 and 1954 there were only 2 TV networks, and radio was still very much alive. The TV networks totally believed that people would only tune in to see live TV, so that's just about all there was. Amazing things were produced live in those days. ABC was predicated on the idea that people would not mind seeing stuff on TV that was filmed, and of course they were right. That change in how TV was produced really signaled a cultural shift in the country.
The other end of the era is Nov.22, 1963. If you were old enough to know what was going on, you know that the world changed in an irrevocable way that day.
That period in between, the Eisenhower years, had all sorts of issues, just like any other. The famous Supreme Court decision of 1954, declaring Separate but Equal to be unconstitutional, really kicked off the Civil Rights Movement. In 1957 Ike sent troops in to integrate the Little Rock, Ark, schools, as ordered by the Supreme Court. That was a truly earthshaking event. In 1956 the people of Hungary rose against their Communist oppressors, and were utterly crushed by Russian tanks. The whole world watched.
So there was a lot going on.
But that was also they heyday of the All American land yacht, the gas guzzling leviathons of the road, that we still love today. It was the period when TV took over American life, and was no longer experimental.
It was a time of unprecedented prosperity in America.
While it may be easy to over-glamorize it a little, that time was a distinctive and important period in American cultural history.

 

[jamespowers]

To me it seemed as if a new era had dawned and that date marked the end of the "post-war" period and the beginning of something completely new, where youth mattered and life had a non-top musical soundtrack.

-dixon cannon

And it screwed up everything since. :eusa_doh:

 

[skyvue]

Morals, style, class, etc all seemed to just fly out the window so fast after this era, and this tailspin is continuing to this day.

Styles have certainly changed, but could you explain which morals you're speaking of?

Because my study of past eras in our culture have taught me that people have always been people. There were always people who were sexually promiscuous (the difference was, it was widely winked at when men tomcatted around, and women were forever judged harshly if they did the same), there were always people who abused substances (in the era in question, many people smoked like chimneys and drank like fish -- it was legal, yes, but was it moral?), women were treated as second-class citizens -- their choices were limited, and those who chose to pursue a career were undeniably held back (and paid less) because of their gender (and, of course, the same was true for people of color). Moral? Doesn't strike me as such. Big business was as focused as solely on the pursuit of the almighty dollar as ever (this is, after all, the era when tobacco companies were lying through their teeth about their practices and the negative health effects of their products).

I also don't agree that it was a particularly optimistic time. As has been mentioned, it was a time of great turmoil, from the civil rights struggles (which seem hopeful and optimistic from our vantage point, but weren't viewed as such by a great many people at the time -- the majority would have happily left well enough alone) to the Cold War to the rise of rock 'n' roll (which occurred early in this era, not late, as was suggested above -- and I'm not saying it was a bad thing, but it was widely viewed as such by most folks over 30, if not 25, when it first hit) and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Plenty of people in those days thought the world was going to hell in a handbasket -- that attitude didn't suddenly spring to life in 1967.

Kennedy carried a certain optimism with him, but it was sadly short-lived and one could argue that it had largely dissipated even before his assassination.

And returning to the topic of morals, Kennedy, the man who brought the country so much hope was busy dogging every skirt within a 100-yard radius.

I'm not looking to trash the era. I was born then, and I have fond memories of my young childhood years spent in it. But I also remember most of my friends in those days using the N word freely, and my mom trying to limit my exposure to those attitudes by telling me I couldn't play with those kids.

Had she been able to enforce that rule strictly, I'd have had very few playmates in the early '60s.

That era, like every other era in the history of man, had its great accomplishments and its great injustices. It was no better and no worse than today. One might prefer the clothes, the music, the movies, etc. of that era, and that's reason enough to celebrate it. I certainly celebrate the 1920s, '30s, '40s, and '50s for those reasons and I have been and will remain fascinated by life as it was lived in those decades. But I've seen too many old movies where men joked blithely about beating their wives (seriously, such jokes turn up in more movies of the 1930s and '40s than I can count, and the characters are never called out for them) and black folks appear only as maids and porters to think those times were more moral.

The same applies to the late 1950s and early '60s -- it all depends on the shade of the glasses through which you're viewing those years.

 

[FedoraFan112390]

I've just never understood why the ''Golden Era'' only extends from the 30s-40s.

 

[Paisley]

Ahhh....... but it all changed and brightened that February night in 1964 when those four lads hit the stage on the Ed Sullivan Show.

...and those songs have been played, and played, and played ever since. Apparently, you had to be there to appreciate it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

But I've seen too many old movies where men joked blithely about beating their wives (seriously, such jokes turn up in more movies of the 1930s and '40s than I can count, and the characters are never called out for them)

Domestic humor, in general, tended to be more violent, as anyone who knows who Jiggs and Maggie were can attest. But it's important to point out that jokes about a topic don't necessarily mean that the topic itself is something that's condoned in the culture. A wife-beater in the Era was considered about the lowest form of life there was, and if he didn't get dealt with by the law, there's a good chance he'd get dealt with thru other means. My mother still tells the story of how, on her wedding day, her father took her husband-to-be aside, shared a drink with him, and told him in perfect seriousness that if he ever raised a hand to her, he'd get a bullet in the head. That's how "calling out" was handled.

 

[dhermann1]

Well, I think that regardless of one's feelings about the era, there was a certain distinctness to it. Pre 1954 was sort of a carry over from the 40's. Post 11/22/63 was "THE SIXTIES". It was the tailfin era, the hula hoop era, the maltshop era, etc. It took me a while to adjust to the idea of that period being "in the past". It was a jolt when instead of having a Roaring 20's party, I saw schools having Fabulous 50's events. But I think the period has really become a brand.
And I definitely think it fits in as the last chapter of the "Golden Era".

 

[Tiller]

And it screwed up everything since. :eusa_doh:

Speaking as a member of that oh so precious to marketers 18-25 crowd, I have to agree. Youth "culture" is one of the worst things that rose out of the 1960's. There have always been certain subcultures that attracted the young, but it wasn't until the 60's that said cultures started becoming the driving force of "pop culture". Now we live in a Peter Pan society.

Now instead of general warning tales about the future and the human condition that we used to have in the Twilight Zone, we now get "teen angst" Vampires in the Twilight series, with sparkles and pixie dust.

 

[FedoraFan112390]

Well, I think that regardless of one's feelings about the era, there was a certain distinctness to it. Pre 1954 was sort of a carry over from the 40's. Post 11/22/63 was "THE SIXTIES". It was the tailfin era, the hula hoop era, the maltshop era, etc. It took me a while to adjust to the idea of that period being "in the past". It was a jolt when instead of having a Roaring 20's party, I saw schools having Fabulous 50's events. But I think the period has really become a brand.
And I definitely think it fits in as the last chapter of the "Golden Era".

Personally I look at the Golden Era as 1920-1963. The only thing I really like post 1963 is the music and the late 70s-90s big blockbuster movies and period movies. Not the cultural attitudes or culture or society so much since.

Though I do have to admit my favorite era of cars is like 1955-1975 or so. I don't really like the cars of the 30s-40s. Too big and bulky for my liking. I love the 60s cars with their round headlights; they have a very nostalgic look to them.

 

[vitanola]

The specific events I use to bracket that era are the creation of the ABC TV network in 1954, and the Kennedy assassination in 1963.
I was born in 1946, so this era was the prime of my childhood.
The reason I choose the creation of ABC is that between 1947 and 1954 there were only 2 TV networks, and radio was still very much alive. The TV networks totally believed that people would only tune in to see live TV, so that's just about all there was. Amazing things were produced live in those days. ABC was predicated on the idea that people would not mind seeing stuff on TV that was filmed, and of course they were right. That change in how TV was produced really signaled a cultural shift in the country.
The other end of the era is Nov.22, 1963. If you were old enough to know what was going on, you know that the world changed in an irrevocable way that day.
That period in between, the Eisenhower years, had all sorts of issues, just like any other. The famous Supreme Court decision of 1954, declaring Separate but Equal to be unconstitutional, really kicked off the Civil Rights Movement. In 1957 Ike sent troops in to integrate the Little Rock, Ark, schools, as ordered by the Supreme Court. That was a truly earthshaking event. In 1956 the people of Hungary rose against their Communist oppressors, and were utterly crushed by Russian tanks. The whole world watched.
So there was a lot going on.
But that was also they heyday of the All American land yacht, the gas guzzling leviathons of the road, that we still love today. It was the period when TV took over American life, and was no longer experimental.
It was a time of unprecedented prosperity in America.
While it may be easy to over-glamorize it a little, that time was a distinctive and important period in American cultural history.

And so what was DuMont, Chopped Liver?

Just because almost all film records (virtually everything that went out on the network feed was Kinescoped) of the network were dumped in the ocean one Sunday afternoon by John Kluge so that the potential buyers of his New York properties wouldn't have worry about the expense of storing them does not mean that the network did not exist.

 

[dhermann1]

Dumont

Oh, of course. I was a big Captain Video fan. Wikipedia says that Dumont existed only from 1946 to 1956. They were a pretty marginal operation at best. My point was that TV changed in 1954. Disney also was part of that 1954 ABC package. Pre 1954 was the true era of "Early TV".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuMont_Television_Network

 

[Paisley]

Domestic humor, in general, tended to be more violent, as anyone who knows who Jiggs and Maggie were can attest. But it's important to point out that jokes about a topic don't necessarily mean that the topic itself is something that's condoned in the culture. A wife-beater in the Era was considered about the lowest form of life there was...

I'm thinking of the Kramdens on The Honeymooners. Ralph always said to his wife, "Someday, pow, to the moon!" Everybody knew it was never going to happen.

 

[dhermann1]

Of course the Honeymooners was based on Gleason's own childhood experiences on Chauncey Street in Brooklyn in the 20's. But the past always lives in the present.