Myths of the Golden Era -- Exploded!

[LizzieMaine]

Victory parades were much more common after the First World War than the Second. The First was supposed to be the "war to end all wars," and a lot of people actually believed that it would be. Few generations of people ever ended up more disillusioned than that one did.

 

[dhermann1]

That's very true. My mom, who was born in 1920, said that when she was a child growing up it was just assumed that there were to be no more wars. Ha.

 

[Edward]

Very true. There's so many stories of how returning Vietnam vets were greatly mistreated.

A local man told a story of how he went to see his sister at the local high school as soon as he got home. The other students yelled at him, berated him, spit on him, and ran him out of the school. It was a controversial war, no doubt about it, but that's not how you treat a man who did what he was told to. He didn't start the war.

Interesting case to have documented. his sort of thing has long been referred to as the norm, but everything I have ever read on the matter other than this has been no more than received wisdom and third hand hearsay. Doesn't excuse the treatment of one individual (as a matter of simple logic, even, one should always aim for the king, not the pawn. As in chess, so in life), but it would appear it was certainly not the norm that some would have you believe.

If we're veering into the Sixties era, there's also the myth of feminists burning bras - something of which there is not a single, reliable, documented occurrence yet again it is represented as assumed fact by popular culture.

 

[KayEn78]

Yep, not every woman burned her bra and was part of the women's liberation movement. Still, even in the 60s, I'm sure many women still felt the same as they always had and didn't feel they needed to jump on that bandwagon.

-Kristi

 

[LizzieMaine]

That myth started in 1968 when radical feminist leader Robin Morgan (a former child star in Golden Era radio and TV!) told the press she and a group of her followers planned to disrupt the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City that year by pulling a string of burning bras into the auditorium during the live telecast. Security was tight, and it never happened.

What's happened is that people have conflated that threat with the actual public burning of draft cards by men to create a false national memory. Not the first time that's ever happened, nor will it be the last.

Along the same lines, there's the myth that we've done away with the cheap sexual objectification of women, which is supposedly what the feminists of the sixties were trying to accomplish. The slightest glance at modern culture will tell you that they failed completely to accomplish this goal -- women are objectified more now, and in sleazier, filthier ways than they ever were in the Era.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Well...I served in the US Army 1970-72. I was spit on..berated..called 'Baby Killer'...yelled at...and more..as were many of my brothers who were serving or had recently served. All from protestors and hippies around my same age and younger. Older folks would shake my hand..congratulate me...buy me a beer....move me up in line...and thank me for my service and risking my life. This IS first hand 'my say'...and was definately 'the norm'.
HD

 

[rue]

Well...I served in the US Army 1970-72. I was spit on..berated..called 'Baby Killer'...yelled at...and more..as were many of my brothers who were serving or had recently served. All from protestors and hippies around my same age and younger. Older folks would shake my hand..congratulate me...buy me a beer....move me up in line...and thank me for my service and risking my life. This IS first hand 'my say'...and was definately 'the norm'.
HD

My dad had the exact same experience HD.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

My dad had the exact same experience HD.

Before I became a DSGT...I served on funeral duty...and parade duty at different times and places. That's where I got it the worse. Anytime especially in uniform stateside was a risk.

 

[rue]

Before I became a DSGT...I served on funeral duty...and parade duty at different times and places. That's where I got it the worse. Anytime especially in uniform stateside was a risk.

He said it was his hair that gave him away and he's had it pretty long ever since. He's still really bitter about it. I'm sorry that you and the others that served had to go through that.

 

[1961MJS]

Victory parades were much more common after the First World War than the Second. The First was supposed to be the "war to end all wars," and a lot of people actually believed that it would be. Few generations of people ever ended up more disillusioned than that one did.

Hi, I wonder if the reasoning behind more parades for the earlier wars has to do with the way that the US Army etc bring the soldiers home now. From reading about the Spanish American War, Regiments and Companies came home together. My dad came home from WW2 in October / November 1945 by himself, the rest of his weather squadron was spread around South America and stayed there. One guy ain't a parade...

Later

 

[Flicka]

Along the same lines, there's the myth that we've done away with the cheap sexual objectification of women, which is supposedly what the feminists of the sixties were trying to accomplish. The slightest glance at modern culture will tell you that they failed completely to accomplish this goal -- women are objectified more now, and in sleazier, filthier ways than they ever were in the Era.

Yup, and now we do it to each other too, because we're soooo liberated. It's what Ariel Levy called 'the rise of the raunch culture.' Even women try to distance themselves from other women by objectifying themselves and other women in a very peculiar way.

Let's not kid ourselves into thinking we're anywhere but much further down the slippery slope.

 

[KayEn78]

That myth started in 1968 when radical feminist leader Robin Morgan (a former child star in Golden Era radio and TV!) told the press she and a group of her followers planned to disrupt the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City that year by pulling a string of burning bras into the auditorium during the live telecast. Security was tight, and it never happened.

What's happened is that people have conflated that threat with the actual public burning of draft cards by men to create a false national memory. Not the first time that's ever happened, nor will it be the last.

Along the same lines, there's the myth that we've done away with the cheap sexual objectification of women, which is supposedly what the feminists of the sixties were trying to accomplish. The slightest glance at modern culture will tell you that they failed completely to accomplish this goal -- women are objectified more now, and in sleazier, filthier ways than they ever were in the Era.

Oh my...ain't that the truth!!

-Kristi

 

[KayEn78]

I am terribly sorry to hear you guys had to endure that terrible treatment from those idiotic hippies and whatnot. Man, if I lived back then, I would never, ever treat someonein uniform that way. I'd be like the older folks, by shaking their hand and thanking them--not those other awful things people did to you.

Wow, it's hard to imagine, because I wasn't there, but I'm sure the older population felt the country was falling apart around them and there was nothing they could do about it.

-Kristi

 

[AtomicEraTom]

High School kids always think they know it all. I can vouch, I used to be one!

Unpopular war or not, that certainly isn't the way to treat someone who just returned. What did those stupid high school kids know anyway? Poor guy!

-Kristi

Again, I think this is worse now, too. I mean, sure it happened back in the Golden Era, I don't think anybody would say it didn't. Today, it just seems more blatant and more commonplace. I've got friends that go to the strip clubs all the time, one that goes about 3 times a week and when I explain to him that it's wrong to treat women like that, he just says I'm 'not man enough' to go. I think he's 'not man enough' to treat women with respect.

Along the same lines, there's the myth that we've done away with the cheap sexual objectification of women, which is supposedly what the feminists of the sixties were trying to accomplish. The slightest glance at modern culture will tell you that they failed completely to accomplish this goal -- women are objectified more now, and in sleazier, filthier ways than they ever were in the Era.

This just makes me sad, HD. If I ever meet you, I'll shake your hand for sure. Anybody who served our country deserves at least that.

Well...I served in the US Army 1970-72. I was spit on..berated..called 'Baby Killer'...yelled at...and more..as were many of my brothers who were serving or had recently served. All from protestors and hippies around my same age and younger. Older folks would shake my hand..congratulate me...buy me a beer....move me up in line...and thank me for my service and risking my life. This IS first hand 'my say'...and was definately 'the norm'.
HD

 

[Fletch]

That the 20s and 30s were strictly the Jazz Age!
[video - Gus Cannon]
[video - Jimmie Rodgers]

You said a mouthful. Awhile back I uncovered a statistic no one took much notice of. In 1932, the near-death year of the US record business, RCA Victor sold just 3 million discs (about half the industry total). Jimmie Rodgers alone sold 300,000 of that 3 million.

Reasoning from that, I suspect that the "old time" or "hillbilly" market was the strongest for recorded music in those days and probably the last to give up on it. Radio wasn't yet much listened to in the hills and hollers, but quite a few had a handcrank victrola, and music was their best - often their only - entertainment.

 

[Edward]

Interesting re: Vietnam returnees. Sounds like US culture with regards to the military was as different (to both extremes) to the UK then as now.

What's happened is that people have conflated that threat with the actual public burning of draft cards by men to create a false national memory. Not the first time that's ever happened, nor will it be the last.

Ah, yes.... that was it.

Along the same lines, there's the myth that we've done away with the cheap sexual objectification of women, which is supposedly what the feminists of the sixties were trying to accomplish. The slightest glance at modern culture will tell you that they failed completely to accomplish this goal -- women are objectified more now, and in sleazier, filthier ways than they ever were in the Era.

Certainly true. Sexist as it may be, I always feel much more disappointed when this sort of thing is fed by women too. The very worst misogynists I have ever met were, without exception, all female. Deeply depressing.

Hi, I wonder if the reasoning behind more parades for the earlier wars has to do with the way that the US Army etc bring the soldiers home now. From reading about the Spanish American War, Regiments and Companies came home together. My dad came home from WW2 in October / November 1945 by himself, the rest of his weather squadron was spread around South America and stayed there. One guy ain't a parade...

Later

That and a change in wider culture, I'm sure. Certainly here in the UK there has been a massive sea-change since WW2: where back then the media could be trusted to collude with the official story, something happened along the way somewhere and the media of all stripes (this is not a left / right / party political issue here) began to hold itself to a standard of "truth", whether or not that contradicted the version those in power would prefer to present. In these changed times the idea of a "victory parade" is rather more politically loaded than once it might have been.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And of course, now we've gone from the idea of a standard of journalistic truth to the belief that some truths are truthier than other truths. This was true *before* the Golden Era of journalism and is true again. The days of Edward R. Murrow and his disciples was nothing but the brief surfacing of an island in a sea of sewage.

 

[Captain Neon]

What I think is especially sad about the way Vietnam veterans were treated when they came back was that many of them were drafted. They didn't want to go, and may not have agreed any more with the war than those spitting on them.

I know of a significant number of Vietnam-era veterans that enlisted because it was likely that they would be drafted, and at least wanted some say in the branch of the military they were in. My father-in-law and my uncle both are among that group. My father-in-law was a submariner, and my uncle was in the Marine Corps.

When I was considering joining the Army in 1991, my uncle was the most vocal in opposition to me serving in the military. My father, who was medically disqualified from service, was second in his dissent. I had a very Hollywood idea of what military service was like, and sincerely believed that I would not see combat duty. Had I done what I had hoped at the time, 101st Airborne combat medic, odds are good that I would have been in Mogadishu, Somalia. While in college, I had a friend that had been medically discharged from the 82nd Airborne and he frequently discouraged my volunteering to join the military, but encouraged me to stay in shape and be prepared to enlist were a draft imposed.

 

[Captain Neon]

And of course, now we've gone from the idea of a standard of journalistic truth to the belief that some truths are truthier than other truths. This was true *before* the Golden Era of journalism and is true again. The days of Edward R. Murrow and his disciples was nothing but the brief surfacing of an island in a sea of sewage.

I stopped watching the news almost 15 years ago. I have since realised that it is about as unbiased and real as Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Journalism at its best is more about entertainment than having an informed citisenry.

 

[KayEn78]

The news? Are you kidding? I haven't watch the "news" in years either. I get a few highlights of what's going on and all from the Internet. I'm not going to sit in front of the TV all day, griping about the news and be boiling mad over things that are really beyond our control. I'd rather live life to its fullest. It's too bad people can't do that.

-Kristi