When does the "Golden Era" start and end for you?

[Stearmen]

I still remember when fedoras were common. It's really the childhood memory of my father's fedora that has drawn me into the vintage hat world. My parents are deceased but I remember my mother's stories of driving around in a friend's Deusenberg and of having a flight in an open cockpit biplane. My father's first car was a Hupmobile for which he paid $15 and had to push home. When I was young, all of the men that I knew had served in the second world war...my father, all of my uncles, all of my friends' fathers... That period is still alive in my memory but I can certainly see it fading in the minds of younger people. Heck...so many people today refuse to even watch a black and white movie! (Must stop...starting to rant)

That is interesting, when I was growing up and a new kid moved into the naubor hood, or when I moved, you would simply say, "was your dad in the war!" Never mind Korea. Even when Vietnam was raging, if I met some one my age it would be the same question. Nothing more needed to be said.

 

[sheeplady]

I think I'd have to say from the start of WWI to sometime in the early 60s, maybe late 1950s. It is really hard for me to parse out WWI from the 1920s, because (in my opinion) so much of the 1920s was a direct result of the experience of WWI. Some of the authors that most captured my attention when I was in high school were members of the lost generation, who wrote later but were shaped by their war experiences. In college I lived in a dorm attached to the first memorial built in the US for soldiers who died in WWI, and it just fits in my head as being part of the experience of the golden age.

The end point is harder for me. It's hard for me to separate WWII from the baby boom and the housing boom- they are so entangled- it is like a row of dominos. It just seems like the start of WWI is one bookend, but it is difficult to find the other in my mind. I think that parts trailed on for quite some time, so it is difficult to say "this is the stop date" for me. I do think that by the late 60s most of what existed in the era was gone- the death of downtowns and the beginning of the economic downfall of a lot of rural and small towns in the northeast part of the USA (the rise of the rust belt).

 

[Atomic Age]

For me the golden age starts sometime in the late 1920's, but there is a very definite year of the end of the golden age. That would be 1953. 1953 was a year of lasts for many things in American pop culture.

It was the last year that the majority of Hollywood films were made in Black and White. With the advent of Eastman color film, in 1954 more films were made in color than not.

It was the last year that most films were made in the "square" 4X3 format. CinemaScope premiered in 1953 with The Robe, and with in a year an a half, all films were being made in some wide screen format. This also lead to the demise of small films and the start of the epic.

1953 was the last year that musical acts like Frank Sinatra and Perry Como dominated the musical charts. There was 1 rock and roll song on the top 10 charts in 1953. In 1954, 7 of the top 10 were rock and roll. By 1958 every song in the top 10 was a rock and roll song. (these are top 10 singles. Other acts had top selling albums well into the 70's)

1953 was the first year that the Oscar's were televised. For me this the true start of television's domination of the latter half of the 20th century. Movie attendance had been dropping from about 1947, but it really starts to fall drastically after this.

1953 is also the year that starts a long slow drop in book sales that is still going on today. Again I suppose television is to blame.

For me 53 is really the end of Jazz and Big Band, Classic Hollywood, and the start of the "instant" generation.

Doug

 

[dhermann1]

Interesting. I always mention 1954 as also being the year that the ABC Television Network was started. I include the 1954 to 1963 period as a sort of transitional period because so many people love Atomic Age and 50's stuff. But MY Golden Era really stops in 53 or 54.

 

[Red Tractors]

November 1918 until January 1961. The 50's are too fascinating to disregard.

 

[TidiousTed]

This will obviously depend a little on your age and tastes. I would say there are two golden ages for me.
The old golden age: 1920 - 1929 (often referred to as the roaring twenties)
The new golden age: 1950 - 1970 (which will say my childhood and youth, I'm born in '53)

 

[Fletch]

I begin in 1925, with the introduction of electric sound recording, the Charleston, and the "monkey trial."

I end in 1955, when Elvis broke big, the last major metros got TV, and chrome started to go over the top.

 

[Nobert]

My own personal definition of "The Golden Era" of the 20th century is a bit staggered from the way most people on this forum would define it, I think. I'm as much interested in the Edwardian/Progressive/Ragtime era as the between-the-wars period.

It all kind of focuses around the Twenties, from my perspective. I find it fascinating that, visually, things which were "modern," as introduced in the late teens and really taking hold in the twenties, are still things that basically define the concept of "modern" nowadays: bold, simple, geometric or minimal(as opposed to organic, ornamented or filigreed). It's as though if you traced things backwards from now and traced another time line forward from some indefinite point in history, the the Twenties is where they meet up and intertwine, the old world mixing with the new in a vibrant rythmic tension. Everything before that was leading up to this sort of renaiscence, everything since then has been a sort of flattening and the settling in of osteoperosis.

The period between 1900 and WWI is alluring to me because of the way things were in the early throws of transformation, and seems to be the last vestige of old-world, nineteenth century values cautiously one-stepping with new concepts of Fruedianism, Socialism, and avant-garde movements in the fine and applied arts. Until "The War to End All Wars" came along and levelled the whole field.

As far as the end goes, that would be a slow tapering off between the end of WWII and about 1966.

 

[FedoraFan112390]

For me I'd have to say either:
1933-1963

or

1945-1974 (WWII's end to Nixon resigning along with the start of stagflation after almost 30 years of uninterrupted economic prosperity)

or:

1920-1965

 

[O2BSwank]

It seems that so many want to place the end of the "Golden Era" at the year of their birth some time in the mid 1950's to even the 70's. In my opinion the "Golden Age" begins after WW1 with the roaring 20's and ends at the beginning of the 50's. The 50's and 60's had their interesting and worthwhile aspects but they don't fit in with the earlier period.

 

[Marzena]

For me the Golden Era would be from 1920s until very early Sixties - the Mods being the very last manifestation. I base this (private and subjective) definition on both "modernist" state of mind and the status of cultivated appearance. During 1920-60 the neat, polished and classically elegant image was by and large taken for granted as the attractive model for both sexes. Mid sixties, with the hippie movement, a very different aesthetics prevailed. For the first time the mainstream feeling deprecated the sophisticated, polished and cultivated, while exalting the relaxed, casual, and low maintenance . (Of course it could still cost a fortune.).

 

[ButteMT61]

For me the Golden Era would be from 1920s until very early Sixties - the Mods being the very last manifestation... (Of course it could still cost a fortune.).

For me, "Golden" is defined as when I look back at when we did lots of things really well, worked together, and made great things. Those great things are music, cars, clothing, aircraft, spacecraft, movies, houses, buildings. etc. I think I'm making my "golden" ~1900-1975. I include the 70's mainly for music and space travels.
We may be technically stunning today, but I don't think we're in a place I'd call golden right now...

 

[Marc Chevalier]

In terms of menswear, the Golden Era begins for me around 1933 and ends at some point during World War II. Apparently, the Great Depression was wonderful for men's clothing. Go figure.

 

[FedoraFan112390]

Bumping this thread...I think the premise is very good.
Would anyone agree with the "Golden Era" lasting from around 1920-1975/1976? Or 1929-1965? I firmly believe that the "Golden Era" extended into the mid '70s--Marked at it's end with the Fall of Saigon or the Bicentennial. I believe the Golden Era encompasses the "Roaring '20s", the "FDR '30s", the WWII-Atomic Era (1939-1957); The Space Age (1957-1969), and finally the Nixon/Ford era (1969-1976)

 

[jamespowers]

Bumping this thread...I think the premise is very good.
Would anyone agree with the "Golden Era" lasting from around 1930-1974? Or 1929-1965? I firmly believe that the "Golden Era" extended into the mid '70s--Marked at it's end with Watergate.

The end for me, specifically, was January 20th 1961.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

The end for me, specifically, was January 20th 1961.

January 20,1961: The day Americans became underdressed

 

[jamespowers]

January 20,1961: The day Americans became underdressed

A shoe salesman without shoes. How ironic.

 

[Edward]

I won't make any judgments on a Golden Era, a term which I rather dislike,

Ha! I thought I was alone in that!

Stylistically, I'm most interested in the "thirties" (roughly speaking, 1930-1945), the "forties" (1945-54), and the early Fifties (1955-57ish). The later Fifties (1957ish-1963) when it got all about the narrow leg as well as the narrow lapel don't appeal so much. When it comes to music, I'm all over the twentieth century - and before. and after. In terms of actual historical interest, I'm mostly about the twentieth century, with a especial specialisation in Ireland during the revolutionary period (1912-23).

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think if one were judging solely on the basic of culture, the beginning of the "Rock Era" would have to mark the absolute end of the Golden Era. In terms of how popular culture is studied and understood today, there is a clear and insurmountable line between the world of pre-rock culture and attitudes and rock-era culture and attitudes, and so far as the modern world is concerned, anything pre-Rock Era may as well have never existed.

That's not to say Golden Era influences didn't persist after the end of the Era proper -- you could argue that as long as the world was being run by people born between 1900 and 1930, the Era still had an important influence. But even by the seventies, the Boomer influence was overshadowing the lingering traces of the Era.

 

[dhermann1]

I've often said this, but I think I'll slightly modify my parameters in view of Lizzie's comment. I've always placed the dates as beginning on Nov. 12th 1918 (the end of the Great War), and ending Nov. 21, 1963 (the day before JFK's assasination). But I think I'll refine that to include the Edwardian era, 1902 to 1910, plus WW I, as a "transitonal" phase, and place another transitional period at the other end, from 1954 to 63. The 1954 date I use because that's when the ABC TV network was started, ending the true "Early TV" era. That dovetails with Lizzie's use of the introduction of Rock and Roll.
But I'm sorry, younger folks, the 70's totally and utterly do NOT belong in the Golden Era.