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Were the “Good Ol’ Days Really All that Good?
Sure, If You Were a White, Protestant Male
Everything is relative, isn’t it? The ‘50’s is commonly known as the Golden Age, and you hear a lot of conservatives refer to the era as the “good ol’ days,” a time they’d love to return to, but they seem to have a very idealistic view of that time. Relatively speaking, in this country, we had the Great Depression in the 1930’s, followed by World War II in the ‘40’s, so it’s no wonder the ‘50’s had a head start on getting its reputation as being a time of prosperity in the US, and in some ways, it was. The economy skyrocketed, the average family could afford to buy a home, and there was a huge surge of scientific and technological advancements at that time. It became known as the Age of Consumerism.
Let’s look a little closer, though. You hear about cars selling for $1500, but the monthly income in 1955 was under $300 a month, and that was about three times the income average of fifteen to twenty years prior, so it seemed like a lot of money to some people. However, minorities earned about half of that, assuming they could find jobs, and if they did, it was within minority industries and companies. They were not considered for the best jobs within predominantly white companies. For the most part, they were strictly blue collar workers. The average and above positions were reserved for White men. And women? Most did not work, and if they did, they definitely didn’t earn a comparable wage to their male counterparts.
During this time of poodle skirts, sideburns, hula-hoops, and drive-in theaters, there were very strict norms for society and gender roles. The ideal man was the bread winner, and the ideal woman was focused on domestic concerns, namely keeping the house, raising the children, and cooking the bacon her husband brought home. There’s no judgment here, only a reflection of the way things usually worked back then.
There were probably a lot of people who were happy with that way of doing things, especially is they were White. I was born in the ‘60’s, but I can offer some personal, familial insight into this “golden age.”
My parents started their family in the early ‘50’s, and my mother was an exception to society’s accepted way of doing things, because she sometimes…
