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American Culture in the 1950s

Author: Martin Halliwell

Publisher: Twentieth-Century American Cul

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780748618842

This book provides a stimulating account of the dominant cultural forms of 1950s America: fiction and poetry; theatre and performance; film and television; music and radio; and the visual arts. Through detailed commentary and focused case studies of influential texts and events - from Invisible Man to West Side Story, from Disneyland to the Seattle World's Fair, from Rear Window to The Americans - the book examines the way in which modernism and the cold war offer two frames of reference for understanding the trajectory of postwar culture. The two core aims of this volume are to chart the changing complexion of American culture in the years following World War II and to provide readers with a critical investigation of 'the 1950s'. The book provides an intellectual context for approaching 1950s American culture and considers the historical impact of the decade on recent social and cultural developments. Key Features: * Focused case studies featuring key texts, genres, writers, artists and cultural trends* Chronology of 1950s American Culture* Bibliographies for each chapter* over twenty illustrations

American Culture in the 1940s

Author: Jacqueline Foertsch

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2008-03-27

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0748630341

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This book explores the major cultural forms of 1940s America - fiction and non-fiction; music and radio; film and theatre; serious and popular visual arts - and key texts, trends and figures, from Native Son to Citizen Kane, from Hiroshima to HUAC, and from Dr Seuss to Bob Hope. After discussing the dominant ideas that inform the 1940s the book culminates with a chapter on the 'culture of war'. Rather than splitting the decade at 1945, Jacqueline Foertsch argues persuasively that the 1940s should be taken as a whole, seeking out links between wartime and postwar American culture.

The Twilight of the American Enlightenment

Author: George Marsden

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2014-02-11

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 0465069770

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In the aftermath of World War II, the United States stood at a precipice. The forces of modernity unleashed by the war had led to astonishing advances in daily life, but technology and mass culture also threatened to erode the country's traditional moral character. As award-winning historian George M. Marsden explains in The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, postwar Americans looked to the country's secular, liberal elites for guidance in this precarious time, but these intellectuals proved unable to articulate a coherent common cause by which America could chart its course. Their failure lost them the faith of their constituents, paving the way for a Christian revival that offered America a firm new moral vision -- one rooted in the Protestant values of the founders. A groundbreaking reappraisal of the country's spiritual reawakening, The Twilight of the American Enlightenment shows how America found new purpose at the dawn of the Cold War.

As Seen on TV

Author: Karal Ann Marling

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1996-03-01

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0674735293

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America in the 1950s: the world was not so much a stage as a setpiece for TV, the new national phenomenon. It was a time when how things looked--and how we looked--mattered, a decade of design that comes to vibrant life in As Seen on TV. From the painting-by-numbers fad to the public fascination with the First Lady's apparel to the television sensation of Elvis Presley to the sculptural refinement of the automobile, Marling explores what Americans saw and what they looked for with a gaze newly trained by TV. A study in style, in material culture, in art history at eye level, this book shows us as never before those artful everyday objects that stood for American life in the 1950s, as seen on TV.

Daily Life in 1950s America

Author: Nancy Hendricks

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2019-02-22

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 144086442X

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Placing the era firmly within the American experience, this reference illuminates what daily life was really like in the 1950s, including for people from the "Other America"—those outside the prosperous, white middle class. 'Daily Life in 1950s America shows that the era was anything but uneventful. Apart from revolutionary changes during the decade itself, it was in the 1950s that the seeds took root for the social turmoil of the 1960s and the technological world of today. The book's interdisciplinary format looks at the domestic, economic, intellectual, material, political, recreational, and religious life of average Americans. Readers can look at sections separately according to their interests or classroom assignment, or can read them as an ongoing narrative. By entering the homes of average Americans, far from the corridors of power, we can make sense of the 1950s and see how the headlines of the era translated into their daily lives. This readable and informative book is ideal for anyone interested in this formative decade in American life. Well-researched factual material is presented in an engaging way, along with lively sidebars to humanize each section. It is unique in blending the history, popular culture, and sociology of American daily life, including those of Americans who were not white, middle class, and prosperous.

Lost Revolutions

Author: Pete Daniel

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 9780807848487

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Chronicles the events and societal trends that created disturbance and conflict after World War II, discussing school integration, migration into the cities, the civil rights movement, and the breakdown of traditional values.

Cold War Narratives

Author: Andrea Carosso

Publisher: Peter Lang Pub Incorporated

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9783034312707

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<I>Cold War Narratives reveals the power that representations, understood as both cultural production and public discourse, have held in shaping the imaginaries of early Cold War America. By engaging conflicting accounts of the 1950s as either affirmations of a prosperous and confident nation (in TV shows, popular sociology, and advertising) or as critiques of a society in the throes of fear, rebelliousness, and inequality (in film, literature, and media), this study sheds new light on the ambivalent imaginaries of the American 1950s.<BR> Pitting visions of the Red Scare and of nuclear proliferation against narratives of an upbeat nation, eager to suburbanize and to adopt the new ethics of televised consensus, <I>Cold War Narratives illustrates how America's leading metaphors of conformity shaped problematic gender roles, domesticity and consumption in the 1950s. It also exposes how dissenting voices to the Cold War consensus converged around the affirmation of specific identitarian discourses, especially highlighting the agency of youth and of the rising civil rights movement, and the way in which these two entered into unprecedented dialog through new discursive formations such as beat culture and rock 'n' roll.

The Fifties

Author: Douglas T. Miller

Publisher: VNR AG

Published: 1977

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 9780385112482

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Surveys the social, cultural, and political history of the United States during the decade of the 1950's.