1950s essay
...e from 3% in 1950 to 13.7% in 1959 while radios dropped from 10.6%to only 5.8%, news papers remained far ahead averaging one-third of all shares (Ward 161). Another thing that technology brought to the 1950s was that huge computers that were invented to unravel age old mathematical problems in minutes, they created transistors that changed electronics and the way we live forever (Kallen 94). These machines were very expensive to purchase or to rent and were very expensive to operate. The Univac became the first commercially available stored- program an electronic digital computer as the years passed the Univac became faster and more efficient. The last thing that technology brought to the 1950s was cars, American carmakers focused on style and not safety. None of the cars in the 1950s had seat belts they were just flashy cars with wraparound windshields, which were influenced by the designs of airplanes of the world war, lots of chrome, v-8 engines and pointy tailfins crowned with giant red tail light (103). Over forty thousand deaths occurred in car accidents during the fifties. Standard tires, brakes, and suspension became inadequate as cars got bigger, longer and lower to the ground. Pointy bumpers and tailfins were devastating weapons in car accidents. In the late fifties seat belts were an option and a luxury but they were rarely purchased because of the extra cost of the car (103-104). Secondly the revival of the American dream also brought the establishment of consumerism which means buying material goods which came to be equated with success. Consumerism was first materialized in the 1950 at the diner’s club which issued the first credit card and later in 1958 the American express card came in (Consumerism 649). With credit cards people could buy anything without paying for them at that moment so they paid them in fixed periods of time. Consumers bought lots of things they bought electrical house appliances like dish washers, washing machines, dryers, blenders’ freezers and dish washers. They also bought cars, casual clothing, lawn mowers, barbecue equipment, and swimming pools for their suburban lives, people in the fifties bought all these things because they had credit cards and they paid in fixed periods of time with payments regularly. The chemical industry produced several polyester fabrics, rayon, Dacron and Orlon to replace cotton, wool and silk. It also developed Teflon, a nonstick coating for cookware, as well as plastics that replaced wood, glass and metal and consumers where buying all these new products with their credit cards (Consumerism 648). Consumer ads encouraged people to purchase goods that ranged from cars to cereals to cigarettes, advertisers spent more than 6 million dollars in 1950, and by 1955 the figure was up to more than 9 billion dollars (649). The advertising industry in the 1950s capitalized on consumerism runway by encouraging even more spending by consumers, ads where everywhere in news papers, magazines, televisions, radios and along highways on billboards (649). Television became a powerful advertising tool in the fifties. There were one-minute commercials that advertised goods to buy; advertisers persuaded consumers to buy things that they really didn’t even need (649). Consumers bought things just to be up to date with the newly developed products that came out year to year. In addition to formulating new products, manufactures began using a marketing system called planned obsolescence which was that they purposely designed products to become out dated in a short period of time; they did this so consumers would purchase more goods and stay up to date with the new products that came out every year (649). Carmakers also used this type of system they brought out newer models every year urging consumers to stay up to date. Americans came to expect newer and better products with the planned obsolescence, because of planned obsolescence consumers began to discard of items that were sometimes barely even used (649). Lastly the revival of the American dream also brought post-war suburbia began in the 1950s after World War II it was a year of new beginnings for everyone, especially the people with loved ones and friends in the world war. William J Levitt began to solve the problem when he began mass producing seventeen thousands new reasonably priced homes in Hempstead and long island 20 miles from New York (Kallen 54). William J Levitt turned farmlands into giant Levittown’s. Families could have modern appliances, individual rooms, garages and a lawn for only six thousand dollars, people everywhere started buying homes and the suburban boom was born, the suburbs were imitated everywhere across the country (54). In the fifties people moved to the suburbs by the millions, and suburbs spread like patches of fungus to make room for them. Thousands of similar houses where crowded into instant suburbs on the outskirts of big cities. There were houses nearly for everyone (1.396 million brand new ones in the 50s alone), from eight bedroom mansions on two acre plots of land (62,000 dollars in Greenwich, Connecticut) to little look alike 6,000 dollar boxes five feet apart in Daly City, California (Suburbia 156). More that 4 million kids were born after the mid 1...