Question

How did popular culture and family life change during the 1950's?

Answer 1

The 1950's was considered one of the better decades of the 20th century for the United States. After WWII, a population boom occurred in which many couples began to have children, and saw a rise in family demographics leading into the 1950's. The new decade saw a great movement of family life from the city and into the new emerging suburbs, which gave families sense of space and privacy in densely filled neighborhoods that involved commuting for working parents, and new opportunities for children to grow up together. Much of the propaganda in the 1950's encouraged families to seek out life in the suburbs by companies who were building them, setting tones and new family dynamics that promised a strong quality of life that evoked a new American dream. This population rise was parallel to an increase in middle class families who were able to spend more money leisure than the generation before. Among the amenities in new households included the fast-selling television - which introduced new visual programs of music, entertainment, news, and sports that created new outlets of pop culture to occur. Rock n Roll music became heavily popular, with figures like Elvis being adored by millions of teenage fans, who used their new financial and social freedoms of suburb life as way to rebel against authority.