Do you count 1945 through 1963 as part of the Golden Era?

[LizzieMaine]

For me, the Golden Age is from December 17, 1903 to July 20, 1969. Why those specific dates, the first is when Orville Wright first took to the air in a controlled heavier then air machine, the latter is when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. Between those dates it was higher, faster and farther on an almost daily basses. After the moon landing, the good times went away and seemed to die, the record became farther and farther apart, the magic was gone!

The space program was the last real hurrah for the prewar/WWII generation as a major force in everyday life. I don't think it's coincidental that it's more or less died off with them.

 

[Fastuni]

Those were incredible years, lacking the cynicism and pessimism (two different things) which are so prevalent today. As a younger man in his early 30's, I absolutely appreciate any older perspectives which considered a forward-thinking, onward-and-upward view of the world.

In my view it is ambivalent. I also wish for the underlying optimism of Modernism (or as some here call it the "Golden Era") roughly around the same time that has been suggested.
However how many of us here have turned to the "Golden Era" because they have grown largely cynical about the contemporary (and I don't call it "modern"...) world?
I certainly have to some extent. Looking at the numerous discussions here bemoaning the decay of the present world, I think there are many cynics among us.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Many of us are cynical about today's cynicism, which is cynicism without a cause. Many people in the early 1930s were bitterly cynical about those who had led us into the Depression -- Herbert Hoover was the first president to be booed in public in anyone's memory, even though he was the poor patsy left holding the bag by those who had preceded him -- but their cynicism was focused and directed toward a positive goal, that of moving away from the dangerous excesses and empty materialistic hedonism of the twenties.

Today's cynicism doesn't seem to have that positive motivation. Modern cynics don't seem to want to create a better world -- they just want to point and snicker at everyone who isn't them. That's not cynicism, that's cheap schoolboy nihilism.

 

[Nobert]

The term "cynic" is itself a bit squishy. The Cynics of ancient Greece weren't what we'd call cynical these days. And Bierce's definition is somewhat in between.

 

[Story]

Tangential - Eisenhower/Kennedy-esque homes on Zillow.
http://homes.yahoo.com/photos/yahoo-homes-of-the-week-homes-frozen-in-time-1394745886-slideshow/

 

[VintageEveryday]

For American board users, do you count the Post War period between 1945 and 1963 (ending with the JFK assassination) as part of the Golden Era? What about simply 1945 to 1959, basically the '50s?

I'd still consider that part of the golden era. Mostly in terms of men's style. After 1963 things got ugly.

 

[PeterGunnLives]

If the Golden Age was the thirties to mid-forties, then perhaps the post-war years through the first couple years of the sixties could be considered the Silver Age. And I'm a Silver Age kind of guy. I love the modernist architecture and furniture of those years, the car designs, the feature films, the sleek continental-influenced fashion, and the music such as that of the Rat Pack and its accompanying cocktail lounge culture. To me, the whole rockabilly/rock and roll/poodle skirt/sock hop thing that people think of as the stereotypical "fifties" was really for kids, while exotica and cool jazz, martinis, dark lounges, jet-setting, and Arthur Murray-style ballroom dancing were for grown-ups. And the latter stuff is what "the fifties" mean to me.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

It was right around '63 that men stopped wearing hats as everyday business attire. Utilitarian covers like cowboy hats, baseball caps and such continued in use but the age of the fedora, homburg, trilby, porkpie and such was past. Previously you were not "fully dressed" if you wore a business suit, or even a sport coat and slacks out in public , without some form of hat. You took it off indoors. There were hatracks everywhere and church pews had spring clips on their backs for men to store their hats while inside the church. All that, and the rest of hat culture, disappeared with the age.

 

[2jakes]

If the Golden Age was the thirties to mid-forties, then perhaps the post-war years through the first couple years of the sixties could be considered the Silver Age. And I'm a Silver Age kind of guy. I love the modernist architecture and furniture of those years, the car designs, the feature films, the sleek continental-influenced fashion, and the music such as that of the Rat Pack and its accompanying cocktail lounge culture. To me, the whole rockabilly/rock and roll/poodle skirt/sock hop thing that people think of as the stereotypical "fifties" was really for kids, while exotica and cool jazz, martinis, dark lounges, jet-setting, and Arthur Murray-style ballroom dancing were for grown-ups. And the latter stuff is what "the fifties" mean to me.

Your description of the “fifties” as being for the “kids” rings true.
Because....I was a kid in the fifties.