Society in the 1950s
Sobiya Azmath
"If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous."
"Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?"
Until we meet again, may God bless you as he has blessed me. ~ Elvis Presley
Economic Prosperity
Cars in the 1950s
"Cars which dim their lights by sensors, automatic transmissions, and who knows what else? Pretty soon they will have electric motors rolling your windows up."
First McDonald's in Chicago
"I don't know about you but if they raise the price of coffee to 15 cents, I'll just have to drink mine at home."
Kids watching the Television
"We won't be going out much anymore. Our baby sitter informed us she now wants 50 cents an hour. Kids think money grows on trees."
Interstate Highway System
On June 29, 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The bill created a 41,000-mile “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” that would, according to Eisenhower, eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes, traffic jams and all of the other things that got in the way of “speedy, safe transcontinental travel.” At the same time, highway advocates argued, “in case of atomic attack on our key cities, the road net [would] permit quick evacuation of target areas.” For all of these reasons, the 1956 law declared that the construction of an elaborate expressway system was “essential to the national interest.”
“As long as the Interstate is the highway supporting our society, economy, and national security, it will forever need to be the beneficiary of our attention and investment. The ribbon cuttings will never end!”
“The U.S. Interstate System is unique. There is nothing like it in the world.”
“The Interstate Highway System wound a key and then released a perpetual motion machine.”
“I read the other day where some scientist thinks it’s possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas.”
Baby Boom
"Did you know the new church in town is allowing women to wear pants to their service?"
"I just hate to see the young people smoking. As I tell my kids, "Don't take a cigarette from ANYONE. You never know what might be in it."
"Why in the world would you want to send your daughter to college. Isn't she going to get married? It would be different if she could be a doctor or a lawyer."
Television
[The television is] an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn't have in your home. - David Frost
Don't you wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's one marked 'Brightness,' but it doesn't work. - Gallagher
Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other. - Ann Landers
Jonas Salk
"Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality."
"The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more."
"I pictured myself as a virus or a cancer cell and tried to sense what it would be like."
Computers
First Ferranti MARK I
1951 The first commercial computer, named the "First Ferranti MARK I," is now functional at the Manchester University.
The invention of the computer in 1950 and 1960's changed the way people entertained themselves. You could play games and make documents that saved a lot of people money on those services.
Suburbs
“Chicago happened slowly, like a migraine. First they were driving through countryside, then, imperceptibly, the occasional town became a low suburban sprawl, and the sprawl became the city.” ― Neil Gaiman, American Gods
"And I found both literature and the church very dramatic presences in the world of the 1950s."
“I am opposed to Naperville. It's all cute, trendy and expensive, and filled with cookie-cutter Borg houses that assimilate you into upper-middle-class America.” ― Robyn Bachar, Bewitched, Blooded and Bewildered