How the 80's Set the Way of Life Today

To begin, I'd like to pose the question: What measures success today?

Your immediate response is most likely how much money you have, your career, your assets... but it wasn't always like that. Maybe a little bit back in the 50's, but if you think about the 60's, the 70's and 80's bridges a huge gap between social conflict and rebellion to our more materialistic ways of consumerism that we live in today. 

Looking back at the 60's, it's obvious that there was a lot of unsettlement. This discomfort came from the suppressed feelings of their lives not containing any meaning. The 50's consisted of the stereotypical happy family with a stay at home mom, two children, and the father "bringing home the bacon" or so that was the image portrayed to us of normalcy. There was an emphasis on consumerism. In my last blog post, I highlighted a few of the advancements in terms of luxury that separated the middle-class from those with more money. For example, you start to see a difference in the luxury of cars. I think there must have been a point where buying things and conforming to that perfect image became too much for most and they started to take out their built up aggression out on "the establishment." The 60's were all about questioning authority of all forms whether it be religion, politics, or your own family structure. You have a focus on fighting for justice in the 60's in more ways than just one. There were huge civil rights issues going on that started off fairly peaceful like the sit-ins organized by the SNCC, however, they turned into acts of defiance. You start to see groups like the SNCC and CORE and the emerging of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. You also get feminism kicking up into high gear with Betty Frieden. Tons of antiwar protests. People just weren't happy anymore and they weren't afraid to get violent. It's important to recognize the events that took place in the 60's when considering the 70's. This is because the 70's were kind of a recovery period from the craziness of the 60's, I mean they had a lot going on. The country starts to lean more left and adopt more liberal values. After all, the late 60's came with the emergence of hippie culture and Summer of Love institutions. People were free to live how they wanted to a little more openly in the 70's, especially leading into the 80's. A lot of living together before marriage, pot smoking, pretty much what we see a lot of now if we're being honest. Radical feminism was also big in the 70's, which pushed public discussion of gender issues beyond the goals of equality, advocated public investments in child care while pushing for abortion rights, on top of pointing out the dangers of maintaining heterosexual relationships with men. As the economy started to grow, there wasn't as much disturbance. Then in 1980, we get Reagan in office and you see a huge shift in the economy over the next few years, which we later come to name the Great Expansion. There's also a shift in values. The hippie lifestyle, radical feminists, and the gay community got a lot of backlash from conservative Christians who made their way into politics. They pushed the theory of supply-side economics which insisted that lowering tax rates would motivate workers to produce, creating jobs and more tax revenue, as well as boosting the supply of money. However, Reagan incorporated this theory and created his own system of economics that focused on deregulation, cutting taxes, less federal spending, and fewer regulations. He also was against unions and organized labor and encouraged downsizing. The growth in the economy came from traditional sectors such as automobiles, oil, chemicals, and steel, as well as service industries. He did an amazing job as far as pulling the economy out of a recession for a few years, but by the end of his second term, Reagan left office even further in debt, back in a slight recession, and at a 10 percent unemployment rate.

But to focus more closely on the decade itself, the 80's has a lot of relevance in today's world. Especially when you consider technology.

The manufacturing of personal computers exploded and business for IBM boomed. Take a look. 

Now, this is neat because personal computers are now so common among consumers that I'm typing up this blog on a MacBook Air of my own. On the topic of technology, the Walkman also blew up. So did the VCR and dinosaur cell phones. You also get cable TV and the first Atari 2600 with which you also get Super Mario Brothers. ;)

The 80's also had a focus on building up space shuttles, however, that took a turn for the worse when the Challenger exploded, killing seven astronauts.

IF you ask an old person about the 80's, they'll tell you it was a simpler time. There wasn't any obsession with social media, in fact, they didn't even have social media. Cell phones were literally just around as means of communicating with one another, not for giving us access to the internet. They played on their Atari's, not hi-def Playstations with video games detailed enough to have conventions about. Saturday morning cartoons. Cameras had film. But these all serve as a basis for what we have today. Technologically speaking, these are all things that have SIGNIFICANTLY advanced. Some are bigger fans of advancing technology than others, but the point is that it's happening. Camera's have gone digital, we have Twitter and Facebook, we're almost at the point where cars will be driving themselves. Technology will never cease to amaze me. And as far as politics is concerned, it'd be interesting to see if history will repeat itself in its own version of the 60's-80's. Today you see a lot of discontentment. Just last year there were a series of peaceful protests that turned violent and a lot of them had to do with race. There are also protests regarding the protection of our environment. Even looking at the media attention Flint, Michigan received regarding their water crisis. With situations like that happening on top of having an unpopular president in office, it makes you wonder if we'll see a little bit more of the anti-establishment mentality of the 60's swing back around.

The Fabulous Fifties

NOW, before we get started I'd like to point out that our textbook does an awful job at highlighting the importance of the poodle skirt. I mean, seriously. I actually forgot the poodle skirt had any correlation with the 50's until I asked my grandmother how she would describe this era, to which she replied, "oxford shoes, poodle skirts, Happy Days, and Elvis." Then, after I told her she'd be featured in my blog post she continued to go on about rock and roll, drive-in theaters, televisions, "stupid commercials", musicals, lots of cigarettes, cheap gas... oooga horns... the poodle hairdo like Mary Martin in South Pacific... and she kept going. In fact, she's still texting me fun little facts about the 50's. The fact that she lived through all of that and is texting me on an iPhone really says a lot about history and how it has evolved. It's actually interesting to look at fashion and how trends seem to resurface. In a few years, perhaps those poodle skirts will be "in" again, but technology never does go backwards.

While we're on the topic of summarizing the 50's, here's a nice little intro vid.



The video highlights a lot of different accomplishments; way too many to focus on individually, but I would like to point out a few. Oh, and I know what you're thinking. They totally forgot to mention poodle skirts!

First and foremost, let's cover CREDIT.

With higher wages, inflation and unemployment low, and increased leisure time, the middle-class was ready to spend their money! And for the first time after the war, with the expansion of consumer goods readily available and flexible forms of credit, such as the first general-purpose charge card, consumerism boomed. These cards included the Diner's Club card, American Express, and the BankAmericard.

This second "achievement" I would like to highlight, is the fact that 90% of Americans owned a TELEVISION. Acting became more prominent of a career with popular shows including I Love Lucy, and other shows that targeted the white suburban middle class and urban working class families. Game shows also rose in popularity. The $64,000 Question consisted of contestants competing for money, household appliances, and cars.

Speaking of cars, in the 50's the AUTOMOBILE became the single most important symbol of American prosperity. Manufacturers like GM, Ford, and Chrysler started to incorporate luxuries and accessories into the cars. The fancier cars had curves, oversized bumpers, and bulging headlamps. Cars were made to target the suburban families prioritizing their comfort while making them affordable. Other auto industries lobbied for the interstate highway system which was set in place by Eisenhower with a bill that came to be the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (1956).

The video also mentioned the first microwave which was priced between $2000-$3000 with the first home model priced at $1295. HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES were huge especially with the image of the housewife. Our textbook mentions that by the mid-fifties, households spent on average almost a third more of their income on food than they had spent prior to WWII with the consumption of meat and convenience foods rising dramatically. The supermarkets were developed near suburbs and the majority of what was stocked were brightly packaged, chemically preserved foods.

This housewife ideology meant that women were supposed to remain out of the workforce and fully take on their roles as wives and mothers. The only jobs that women were left with were the "women" jobs which were limited to teacher, secretary, nurse, etc. The typical family usually consisted of a mother and a father, with two children. Divorce rates were low because divorce was frowned upon. The man was the head of the household and worked (most likely a white collared job) to support his family, the wife was obviously doing housework or grocery shopping (sheesh), and the children were in school. Unless of course, you were a teenager in the 50's. If that were the case, you might be at a drive-in heavy petting or be cruising around aimlessly in your parent's new automobile that they had just purchased with the fancy bumpers and cushiony seats. Which was probably fine by the way. Gas was only 23 cents a gallon! Anywho, that's basically the depiction of the average family in the 50's. Women had a bunch of babies because they were getting married younger and there was a huge emphasis on having a family. Hence, the baby boom generation.

This "ideal" family lifestyle wasn't the case for all Americans and America in the 50's wasn't entirely peachy. The 50's were still a time of conflict and anti-communism after the Cold War. There were also Civil Rights issues going on at the time. However, instead of focusing on the bad I want to wrap this up by focussing on what we have achieved. So with that being said, the video emphasized the DESEGREGATION OF SCHOOLS. Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1945) was a case made up of five lawsuits that parents had initiated against local school boards combined into one single suit. This case challenged the principle of "separate but equal" and argued that racial segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection. The Supreme Court agreed that the segregation of schools was unconstitutional making that day a very important day in history. Another attempt at desegregating the South was the Montgomery Bus Boycott which formed when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person on a city bus. Rosa was arrested, but what happened as a result of that was amazing! Martin Luther King Jr. led a boycott against the bus company which caused the bus company to fail and eventually led the Supreme Court to strike down segregation of all forms of public transportation.

It's safe to say we've come pretty far as a country and although we're still struggling with some very prominent issues in our own time, it's refreshing to look back at history and see how far we have come. Obviously, you still have a lot of people set in their ways, but I have hope that people will progress in a humane way.


Sources Used:

Becoming America Volume II: From Reconstruction by David Henkin and Rebecca McLennan 

http://fiftiesweb.com/pop/info-family/

http://www.history.com/topics/1950s