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The American Dream in the 1950's

By Jonah Lepore & Conall Donovan

The American Dream

The American Dream

The American Dream was an ideal for any and every american to have equal opportunity, allowing the highest aspirations and goals. The average goal of the American Dream was to have a comfortable house, a happy family, a nice car, and a prosperous and successful job.

Family

The ideal family in the 1950's included:

  • A wife who usually did not work and had motherly duties of the time period (Many women still did work)
  • A husband who had a successful and prosperous job to provide for his family
  • 2 children with at least one who could pass on the family name

Family Life

Line of Work

In the perfect household during the 1950s, the husband or "man of the house" had a job to support his family. The job of the wife was stereotypical and was to stay home and care for the children and take care of the house. This was not always the case but the majority of the time how it worked

Line of Work

House Ownership

Housing in the American Dream ideal includes the buying of a house and as you get more wealthy, you buy a bigger one. In the 1950's the ownership of a house becomes much more common. This was because of the state of the economy and the large baby boom after World War II. For African Americans, house ownership was much more difficult with racial discrimination. Buying housing was more uncommon in African Americans because they could not get equal jobs as white people because of the discrimination barrier.

House Ownership

Sports

During this time period, many of the sports we know today were starting National leagues and becoming more popularized. Sports attracted people from all across the country and world to the united States. Sports also provided a form of entertainment and distracted people from what was happening in the world around them.

Sports

4 Main Sports Today

Today, Baseball, Basketball, Football, and Hockey are considered the four main sports and back in the 1950's were beginning national leagues. Also during this time period, boxing was extremely popular. Many noticeable names emerged at the start of these leagues that inspired Americans to follow in their footsteps and pursue their dreams.

Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey

Famous Athletes Include:

  • Ted Williams
  • Jackie Robinson
  • Jim Brown
  • Rocky Marciano
  • Bill Russell

Racing

With the automobile still fairly new, many people enjoyed watching cars compete against each other. In this time period, NASCAR was beginning and many people took interest in building the fastest and best cars.

Racing

Horse racing was also a big event. The Kentucky derby was beginning to be publicized with the invention of television. This increased interest and made the sport extremely popular allowing people to enjoy heir lives without the involvement of events around them.

Communism vs. Capitalism

During the Cold War, an overall feeling of restlessness and uneasiness appeared. The main worry of this time period was being a communist as it would ruin your life, you would not be able to provide for your family and would become an outlaw. The overall feeling of paranoia was among every citizen of the United States and affected everyday life.

The Cold War

School

In schools, the Government taught American ideals. Duck and Cover was a way the Civil Defense Administration prepared kids. This was a film teaching kids what to do if bombs were dropped. Other use of films and teaching was to teach students communism was bad, and the correct way grow up as an American and follow American values

School Involvement

The Space Race

During the cold War, The United States was competing with Soviet Union on who could get to space first and who could create superior technology. The Soviets sent the first satellite in space called the Sputnik. Americans felt relatively safe because of the pacific ocean that separated the Soviet Union from the United States, but as new technology developed that could strike the United States, a feeling of insecurity, worry, and fear struck the U.S.

The Space Race

American Culture

The 1950s was a period of the expansion of american culture. With the integration of TV, many new series and movies appeared and instantly some stars became easily recognizable. With the development of recordable music, instantly it became more popular. Because of black oppression, many white artists were able to take musical motifs from African American musicians and become successful.

Pop-Culture

Segregation

Segregation was a big part of the everyday life and was a normal part of the 1950s. There were many forms of segregation including separate schools, separate water fountains, as well as separate movie theaters.The African American versions of these things were much lower in quality. This idea was that African Americans were inferior and would contaminate the white society.

Segregation

Rosa Parks

In 1955 Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus; an action which no African American dared to do because the front of the bus was reserved for white people. Rosa was arrested for the action by the police officers in Montgomery, Alabama. This event caused an outrage by the African American community and other people who were against segregation. This event was a big landmark in the start of the civil rights movement.

Rosa Parks

Civil Rights Movement

In the 1950's the African American community started the Civil Rights movement which was a movement to help put an end to Segregation and for African Americans to gain their civil rights. The goal was to have colored people completely intervened and included in the white community and able to have the same rights as whites.

Civil Rights

Television

During the 1950s, TV was becoming more and more popular. With new technology developing and more and more shows to watch, watching television became a very big form of entertainment. Families would sit down after dinner to watch a show or before breakfast to watch cartoons. Families were lucky if they have a television because they were very expensive. TV was also a way of spreading news of what such as sports and cold war information.

Television

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