Why do you come here? Why do you love the Golden Era?

[alsendk]

Anyone who has noticed my postings has noticed that I like to ask a lot of questions....My aim here has been to try to learn more about the past--particularly the period from the roaring 1920s to the mid (Pre-Beatles) 1960s or so---as I feel that period was one of the greatest periods in American history, and was one of the classiest times ever in terms of aesthetics, general decency and culture here; It was also a time of much more optimism despite hardship, faith in each other and in the government, and a general belief, especially during and post WWII, that America and Americans could do anything they set their minds to. It was the Golden Age of the Middle Class American. I'm trying to uncover and learn of exactly what living in that era would've been like--what the middle class, average people of those times liked, believed in, listened to, watched, wore, saw in the theater and on television, what they dreamed of and felt the future would be like. I kind of want to see the world through their eyes, odd as that sounds. In particular, I'd love through this forum to "learn" what my deceased relatives and ancestors who lived in and enjoyed those times might've been like, what they might've enjoyed or loved. I'm trying to understand people I'll never have the chance to meet by understanding and coming to know the times they lived in. I want to understand and know my grandpa, for example, that veteran of WWII who died a good 15 years before I was born--a hero of mine who I try to emulate in many ways.

I love the Golden Era--defined loosely by me as a period sometime between 1920 and 1966-For the reasons I stated. I think Americans during this period were more decent, had greater sense of morals, had a greater sense of civic duty, had much much better dress sense, had a sense of decency in the movies they made, the songs they played, and the books they wrote. Their dreams and their optimism of a 21st century where we'd live in a utopian sort of Science Fiction world of flying cars is endearing. The art, architecture (whether it be Decco or Googie), and films of those times is superior to the present. The cars--from the big, metal wonders of the 1930s, to the moving works of art of the late 50s, to the tail finned beauties of the early 1960s--are again superior to the plastic, shapeless globs of today.

Family, too, seemed a more well defined and functional unit then. Families lived together, sometimes multiple generations in one household--GGrandma and Grandpa having an active role in the raising of the children. In my family, my Italian immigrant great grandfather having his tomatoes and grapes in the backyard, teasing my aunts, in the 1950s. Even the more secure nuclear family of the 50s onward seems more sound than the family unit which tends to exist today--a much looser unit and more loosely defined.

Even in the way people dressed and wore their hair: Men dressed classier in their buttoned down shirts, slacks, and polished shoes (my mother recalls her father having his shoes polished often), with short yet nicely manicured hair, sometimes adorning themselves with small little moustaches ala Flynn or Gable. No long hair and bummish beards like the Hippies. Men were more masculine; women more feminine in general. The middle class, working, blue collar man thrived and wasn't considered a bum or economically marginal. Women were classy, dressed beautifully (I love for example the Poka-Dotted dresses of the '50s) and wore their hair in utterly beautiful ways from the 20s through the 60s. I consider jeans to be bum clothes, to be honest--clothes worn by coal miners for practically, adopted by Hippies due to the Frankfurt School. We dress today very slobbish--sometimes wearing our national uniform of jeans and a t-shirt (which in the Golden Era was thankfully just underwear or summer wear) even to weddings, untucked. Everything seemed more dignified, and more charming, then.

I think of the stories my mother and father tell me--Trips to Coney Island, having Chow Mein sandwiches--All of the fond memories I've heard of that era--and I feel that era as a whole just seems so charming. Of course, it had it's problems, that much is obvious, but I'm focusing on the positive.

I simply feel that America, aesthetically, morally, politically, socially and otherwise, was better off before the Hippies came on the scene. They didn't achieve their "Revolution" but they did change the dress, norms, morals and expressions of the country, in many cases for the worse. I was raised by flawed Baby Boomer parents, and I tend to loathe Baby Boomers for their anti-intellectualism, for their aesthetics, for the way they acted during the 60s and 70s, for their greediness and self absorbedness, for ther refusal to accept responsibility; I dislike Generation X due to their great deal of cynicism, skepticism, anti-religiosity, negativism, nihilism, and jadedness, so perhaps that's why I feel strongly about this--I put the generation of those who were either in power during the Depression, WWII, Korea, and until 1967, the generation that fought and served in WWII and Korea, etc--Basically those born between 1900-1930 or so, the Lost, GI and Silent Generations--on a pedestal, what they believed in, liked, wore, believed in, the cars they drove etc. The world they had.

I am fully aware that I am standing on a sideline here, being born and raised in Europe.
I also know that I should be...and am very grateful to the american forces, and the british too, for liberating Europe...and the world from the nazi tyranny in ww2.

But when you praise the twenties...up to the mid sixties to be the best of all times for you, I come to think of exactly the second world war, and after that the war in Korea, and after that the start of the Vietnam war....and in the middle of all this the fight in Watts, and the pictures that went world wide about a woman in a bus, that claimed her rights to be sitting there.
This is the time period that you regard to be the finest hour for you...but not necessarily for people with a different skin colour than white.
And the hippies were good for nothing in your opinion.
What I saw in the television in Europe, was the massive demonstrations, led by long haired hippies...as well as all sorts of american citizens against the Vietnam war. In the end, these massive expressions made your president at that time to give up the war, if my memory serves me right. There would also be many other political explanations for ending the war, but it happened.
American cars in the fourties and up against time was very expressive, but also very demanding when to be filled up with gasoline. Time had come to an end for these big thirsty cars with a hopeless gasoline economy.
I will not comment about your remark about families with children.

It is difficult for me to see why you have to make comments this way about types of people, different from yourself....why not just be happy for what you are, and be happy about living in your beloved past century.

Sincerely
Allan
Denmark

 

[davidraphael]

I agree in part. While well intended, I think that FedoraFan112390's comments are a bit conservative and one-sided, particularly regards the so-called morality of America. Rose-tinted spectacles. Like many places in the western world, America was deeply racist, sexist, and socially flawed for a good portion the early 20th century.

Let's not forget that hippies didn't come out of nowhere. They came out of the Beat movement of the late 40s and 50s, as well as the civil rights movement. These people had a long struggle against traditional (often religiously rationalised) white conservative American values.
"America when will you end the human war? Go f**k yourself with your atom bomb. America why are your libraries full of tears. I'm sick of your insane demands" - Ginsberg
"Thanks for the American dream, To vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through. Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams." - Burroughs (who, incidentally, was always very well dressed and wore a hat and 3-piece suit every day)

I like America for many reasons and that includes its healthy, intelligent, urbane and often witty counterculture.

I love vintage clothes. I love the music, movies, the aesthetics, the culture, but I wouldn't want to have lived in a conservative christian society that allowed 'no Jews/blacks' signs in cafe windows, permitted prohibition, permitted McCarthyism to flourish, that had a 6million strong Ku Klux Klan (in the 1920s), that executed criminals (despite what 'the good book' says). I'd rather have had a bunch of silly, ineffectual hippies than any of that.

It's enjoyable to immerse ourselves in the moods of the 1930s, but let's not forget that for every deco lamp, every fedora, every Laurel and Hardy 2 reeler, there were people who lost everything during the depression and were homeless. There's always a dark side to everything.

I hope I haven't come across as 'an outsider' butting my nose in other people's affairs. I've lived in the US, my wife is American, and I made sure that the quotes mentioned were by Americans. And I'm not claiming that anywhere else in the West is better or worse.

 

[Spitfire]

Can't say I love the golden era. Doesn't even dress vintage.
I am not sure that everything was better back then either. Or more polite. Or more classy.
I find most of the music from back then extremely boring and odd.
And I don't think Casablanca is the greatest movie in the world.

I guess I am only here for the aeroplanes and the Irvin jackets from the forties.
And the charming girls in here.
And the good companionship you find here.
There's always someone who knows better and more than yourself. And they are willing to help.
And answer your silly questions on whatever subject.
And I do like the civilized tone here too.
That's why I am here.

 

[Two Types]

Why do I come here? Easy question to answer:

Where else can I 'meet' people who love mid-20th century British menswear and are willing to share their knowledge?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Like many places in the western world, America was deeply racist, sexist, and socially flawed for a good portion the early 20th century.

Like many places in the world -- western and otherwise -- it still is. The manifestations may be different, but the attitudes are still there.

I'll also point out, as I will every time this issue comes up, that the Era was the birthplace of the modern Civil Rights Movement -- led by people who were not smoking dope at the time -- and the 1930s were the crucible in which the most sweeping period of social reform in our history was forged, not by any underground countercultural movement but by the New Deal and the working-class labor movement. To sweep the "America" of that period aside because it hadn't yet attained the gleaming perfection of the modern era in which men and women earn the same money for the same work, in which all races and creeds stand side by side in perfect harmony, and in which there is no social or economic injustice, is a bit short sighted. But that's just my view of things.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I do have to say, anytime somebody talks about how much they'd enjoy the Golden Era better than today, it seems somebody has to bring up the racism and sexism topics. Yep, it happened them, but I have no reason to believe it's any less prevalent today. The games and the terminology have changed, but the feelings remain the same to many. It was wrong then, it is wrong now, I just think it's more sugar-coated today.

 

[Quigley Brown]

Gosh, I've been a member here for over eight years. I can't tell you exactly how I started. Heck, the Internet was still sort of new to me and I probably was searching for websites about vintage clothing and found this place. And made myself at home. I've met a couple of you in person over the years and would love to attend the annual Queen Mary event. I love the Golden Age mainly for the fashion and design and I enjoying sharing my knowledge of it, but I have learned so many more aspects of it from you all.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I do have to say, anytime somebody talks about how much they'd enjoy the Golden Era better than today, it seems somebody has to bring up the racism and sexism topics.

I encounter that attitude a fair amount in the comments on YouTube. In the minds of some people if you enjoy music from the 1920s and 30s like I do you might as well be listening to the Horst Wessel Lied. [huh]

 

[scottyrocks]

I came here originally during my search for fedoras. I have always loved the old movies from the 30s and 40s in particular. I have since become interested in the real life versions of so many of the character types seen in the movies of that time – in other words, every day life, in many of its incarnations.

There are few people here who are veritable fountains of knowledge. There are fewer still who when I see a new post by them I can't wait to read it. I am awed by their knowledge, and the way they communicate it.

What part of Brooklyn? My grandparents were born in 1920, 1927 (mom's side) and 1929 and 1933 (dad's parents) in Brooklyn.
I had the tape recorder idea myself. I want to tape record my grandma telling stories about the past, ancestors who are deceased, etc. It's better to have the tales on record coming from her own mouth than second or third hand accounts because once she dies, these stories die with her. And I wanna do the same with my dad's parents.

In fact, I had the idea of setting up a list for myself of topics and getting them to talk about them. I want to have on tape, for posterity, my grandparents' tales about their upbringing, their parents, grandparents, their relatives, their views on things (current day events, their politics, religion, past watershed events they lived through like the JFK assassination and Watergate, the rise of Rock N' Roll, etc). Why should their views, who they were, what they believed in, not be recorded for posterity? I know everything about what some celebrity who has nothing to do with me believes in, loves and hates. Public figures' entire personalities and histories are a matter of public record and who they were as people is well known. Why not my own kin?

My Dad was born in East Flatbush in 1934. My mom in the southern Bronx on Andrews Ave in 1936. I have some photos of the two of them at certain points in their childhood. Some of my mom’s expressions as a very young girl are haunting. I’ve heard various stories of my Dad’s early escapades from his late teens onward, but his childhood has always seemed to be a mystery. His teenage pool hall days, stint in the navy, meeting my mom, and early endeavors at employment are most of the stories I’ve heard but without much detail.

I need to sit the two of them down together and ask more focused questions, more specifically aimed at their childhoods. Maybe on Friday of the Thanksgiving break.

 

[Mojito]

Well, to be honest, I'd prefer to live now. I can indulge my love of anachronistic clothing AND have the career I love Yes, I might have been one of the fortunate ones who could have enjoyed that career in the 1920s (there have been stand-outs and exceptions in many eras who bucked the norm for their gender, class, colour, etc)...but the odds would be against it. I grew up with the example of my grandmother, born in 1908, who wanted more than anything to be a nurse, but who ran up against the expectations of her family that for someone of her "station" it was not the done thing. She grew up in frustration making endless meals for the stockmen on her grandfather's large property. And then there was my mother, who shudders when people talk about wanting to relive the 1950s. She hated it (but I won't elaborate on her list of reasons, as there are many people who love it - some of whom lived it - and to each their own )

I'm fascinated by history, and the early decades of the 20th century is one period that interests me. While acknowledging the negatives (and realising that with my current expectations and beliefs I wouldn't make an easy transition to that time), it's still possible to enjoy the many positive things - from those who fought the good fight for justice and equality in society, to the artists, musicians and writers who created works that still speak to us. I might not want to live there, but give me a way back to the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs and the wherewithal to enjoy it, and baby, I'm hopping the next time travelling vortex that materialises in my path. And it's not just the big events, the technological and design innovations, or the high life at its height that's interesting - it's the minutae of everyday existence. Reading journals of the period, recreating what your own neighbourhood or city looked like and bringing back vanished buildings and sights and sounds...seeing how close and how far away we are.

And, of course, I just plain love the aesthetics of the fashion. It is very consciously a sort of escapism...when I'm with my friends, dressed in 1920s vintage from head-to-toe, dancing at an Art Deco venue, I don't imagine that this is representative of daily life in that period. There's an element of fantasy to it, and I tend to consciously distinguish between the era as I know it existed in certain times and places and my own recreation of it. I come here for the knowledge, the information, the discussion and the enthusiasm for so many aspects of the past.

 

[The Good]

I don't necessarily love the Golden Age, but there are a number of things I like about it. I knew about the Fedora Lounge since at least mid summer, 2009. At the start of 2010 I registered because of my interest in hats (then I owned a grey wool Jaxon, and an inauthentic Panama hat), and wanting to learn more about wearing suits and smartening up. Before my interest in hats, I had no real style to speak of, but I gradually started dressing nicer since getting into community college. I'm also interested in classic outwear and leather jackets; I own a modern-made G-1, and a Raiders of the Lost Ark reproduction by Wested, although I rarely wear a hat with either. I appreciate aspects of the Golden Era, like the styles of the hats, suits (although I prefer wearing slimmer, modern suits, but not too skinny), films, the architecture, and some of the music (I listen to a lot of jazz, but rarely anything from before the 1940s. In general, I like the suit, tie, and hat aesthetic that was so common prior to the 1960s (I like that decade a lot, too), and enjoy carrying on this tradition in the 21st century.

 

[O2BSwank]

I agree with Tom that liking the styles of the past does not generally mean that you prefer the social reality of the past. I like the style of the Golden Age. The architecture, music, fashion, cars, furnishings and radios. Society was more formal in it's interactions and expectations. I found this site looking for information to restore my 1942 Radio console. I stayed because I found a wealth of information from like minded people that has expanded my understanding and appreciation of the era. I have also enjoyed the civility displayed by the many diverse people who have posted on the Lounge.

 

[m0nk]

I come here because of the people... but I love the Golden Era because of every reason that everyone else has given.

 

[filfoster]

To the question of the OP: Because I can easily imagine some kinship of common interest with the community here. It's a pleasant subject; the graphics are swank; the forums and threads are interesting and there is a ton of information and opinion that is fun and valuable here. It's a sort of interactive theater of the mind, isn't it? I mean, it almost seems like a three dimensional place in our consciousness.

And....I can afford the cover charge. But, hey, what is that sticky thing I stepped in by the raw bar?