What were 1950s like?

Question

please tell me everything you know about that decade.

Answer 1

In England the 1950's were like this -

We had school milk, smoking chimneys, trolley buses, and steam trains. The coal was delivered on a horse and cart, the milk came on an electric trolley, and the gas man, the insurance man, and the rent man all had bicycles. The Co-op had a fantastic overhead bucket system for taking your money to the cash lady and sending back your change. Pound notes were worth so much there were twenty shillings for every pound and twelve pennies for every shilling. Clothes and things were expensive so most people wore the same things most of the time and saved their best clothes for Sundays and special occasions. Children had to wear what their older brothers and sisters had grown out of, and our mums darned our socks and mended our trousers. Every week we would have a bath in the kitchen. Plastic bags, tooth paste, instant noodles, and toilet paper hadn't been invented yet, and if your dad was lucky enough to have a car he was allowed to park it anywhere, except at night with no lights on.

Almost everyone smoked cigarettes, except in school and in church, and children spent most of their spare time sitting outside pubs waiting for closing time. Indoors we used to play with glass marbles, lead soldiers, and dinky toys, and every week we read the Beano and the Dandy, and then swapped them for other comics with our friends. The family all listened to the light programme and the home service on the wireless, and each week we took the accumulator to the electric shop to get it charged up. When King George died my dad bought a small television with an oval screen and everyone in the street crowded in to watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. There was no advertising on the television and most of the time there were no programmes on it either.

Going out to the countryside was great. You were allowed to pick flowers, light bonfires, collect birds eggs, climb trees and do almost anything provided a farmer didn't catch you.

Everywhere in town there were policemen on bicycles, park wardens, and truant officers, all of whom were allowed to beat you if you were suspected of doing anything criminal. Inside school there were teachers, who were there  to protect you from bullies and make sure you drank your milk, but they were also allowed to beat you for any reason whatever.

In London there were lots of bomb sites and empty areas left over from the war but the bits that had been cleared up were fantastic and they were all owned by the public and everyone could go anywhere they wanted to.

Answer 2

We had the first television on the block.  Three network stations and one public station.  

We decorated our wagons and had parades in the summer.

In our block, the mothers were all at home.

The girls wore dresses to school every day.  It seems like they were usually plaid.  In the winter we wore pants underneath and had to take them off when we got to school.

There were nuclear bomb drills.  I don't think ducking under the desk and covering heads would have done much good in the case of a real attack.

I Love Lucy could not be missed on Monday night.  

We shopped at a neighbourhood store for groceries.  A pop and candy bar cost ten cents.  We sat on the store steps to drink the pop so we didn't have to pay the deposit.

On nice summer days, many of the families on the block would drive to a park at a lake for swimming and water skiing and potluck.

Rock and roll started and we all swooned over Elvis.

We rode our bikes to Minnehaha park and walked down to the Mississippi River, or walked to  the lake nearby for swimming.

Answer 3

we left our doors open and our cars unlocked..we played ball outside all the time...nobody had guns...we listened to the ballgame on radio and watched 3 channels...nobody was in a rush and burgers were 15 cents and movies a quarter..simpler times until republicans starting with Nixon took  over ending with Bush today...seems all empires fall from within as our country falls apart

Answer 4

I was borne in the 50's i don't remember it being hard time

intertainment was a radio story teling was popular on the

radio as wel l as music and the news. we lived in farming

comunity all though we where not farmers we did grow

food for our owne use. and my dad butcherd a hog and

calf each winter. he hunted food allso squarls,possom,

quals, rabit, and he fished he made somthing called

burgoo every fall when it was cold it was made from every

meet you coud think of wiled and tame and vegetables,

it was always times of plenty that i can remember but he talked of the deperesion in the 40's where all they had was

spoiled strawberries and they ate them i hade 5 step sibs

we shared clothes and mom sowed are clothes and we

had a milk cow, chickens,rooster, pecock, pet racoon,

dogs ,cats, ducks, no washer and dryer it was a wringer

washer and hang them on the line . no cooking out on the

grill we had a bon fire once a year in october my father

birth day. my father was a grounds keeper for a country

club so we would watch the fire works there on the 4th of july

Answer 5

I was born in 1950.

Times were hard, we didnt have tv or many of the so called luxuries that we have now, but there was a great community spirit and a lot less pressure than there is today

Answer 6

Great! Low crime rate. Good secure jobs. Good schools that used common sense instead of written laws. We could leave the doors unlocked without crime. Children could play outside. Neighbors would look out for each other. We could afford to pay most hospital bills with out insurance. Doctors made house calls and would charge one rate if he looked at the whole family. Utilities, gas, telephone, cars, houses, were all within reach. Most people lived in areas with people like themselves, china town, little Italy, germantown , etc. The Bible was read in the morning in school. Boys carried pocket knives and hunted and no one was shot or knifed in school. We all (most) liked Ike. Most people had a TV by 1952. We got three channels with shows worth watching on all of them and nothing indecent got through the sensors.  I would gladly go back to that time.

Answer 7

It was a much simpler time than today.

Most women stayed home (did not work) and raised children

The man would go to work

There was little money and it was valued more

Most people did not have TV.s in theearly 50,s, there was no portable radios, no portable phones, no computers.

Sundays were family and church days, most stores were closed. Sunday picnics or drives in the country were usual persuits. Food was prepaired from scratch, no opening a box of something, there were no microwaves, no fast food joints, just cafe's, hamburger & coke was about 60 cents.

a house costing $500,000 now would have cost about $12,000 then

Life expectancy was less than 65 years., Grade 10 was all that was necessary for most jobs, and most jobs paid around $1/hour.

People did not wear running shoes except in gym class.

Corporal punishment was common at home and at school.

you dressed up to go to church, or a restaurant, and sometimes for sunday dinner at home.

the family ate together at supper, as with most meals, and no TV or radio was around at meal time.

Most people respected their elders, and beleived in following rules and laws

Kids knew that if they did something wrong, the neighbour would swat you and tell your parents who would swat you, schools would swat you and tell your pasrents who would swat you, if no one saw you do something, you were sure the police would find out, and if no-one did....god would get you for sure.

Life in the 50's.......It was a better time.

Answer 8

To tell you everything about the '50s would fill a book!

It was simpler times; women were "stay-at-home" Moms; Dads went to work, often working 50 - 60 hours a week or more.  You could go into town to shop, leave the doors unlocked (many had no locks) and come home and nothing was stolen or damaged.  Almost everyone had a dog or cat; at the edge of town, probably a milk cow or even a horse.  

We got water from a handpump (or spring), cut wood, burned wood or cobs to keep warm.  It still froze inside the house every night.  We did have "portable" radios: the radio sat on a big battery, bigger than many car batteries today; no TV. We played in the yard, "kick the can", "hid and seek", "eenie-einie-over", kites, etc. Never could afford a bat or ball; we used walnuts or rocks, our hands for bats.  Played "fox and goose" in winter; sledding, snowmen and snowforts and snowballs; explored the countryside; milked cows, goats; cut the corn and put up in shocks; always lots of chores.  Read books, listened to the radio.  Every summer we would get a summer movie pass, go into town and watch movie matinees every Saturday.

Every one knew everyone in town. Every store was closed on Sunday; finally they allowed drugstores to open for a few hours Sunday afternoons, and then gasoline stations for travelers.

People were respectful; we young'uns always said "Yes, Ma'am" or "Yes, Sir" to our elders.

A troublesome kid in school did things like shoot spitwads or dip a girls pigtails in the inkjar. No knifings or shootings.

I would much prefer to live then than now.

Answer 9

---The Cold War meant the fear of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.  Joseph McCarthy as well as the John Birch Society looked for Communists (who simply didn't exist outside metropolitan areas).

---Television was a new invention that took the place of radio and visiting with family and friends first in the metro areas and later in small towns.  Although most consumers were limited to only a few channels, they happily watched comedy, variety, and quiz shows as well as soap operas.  In the United States, news broadcasts were at first limited to 15 minutes.  Cigarette companies advertised extensively, but Lucy and Ricky slept in separate twin beds on "I Love Lucy".

---The 1950s were very much the era of the stay-at-home mom.  After the GIs returned from World War II, Rosie the Riveter and her counterparts married and  (on average) produced 2.5 children.

---Rock and Roll also started in the 1950s when Elvis Presley sang "I Ain't Nothing but a Hound Dog", introducing the African American blues genre to a European American teenage audience. ( By the early 1960s, the Beatles, in turn, would adapt Elvis's songs for a British audience.)

---In "Brown v. The Board of Education", the Supreme Court ordered the immediate integration of public schools with "all deliberate speed" and declared the "separate but equal" doctrine unconstitutional in 1954.  Very few schools, however, fully integrated their classrooms until the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the American South, hotels, water fountains, schools, restrooms, and restaurants were separated by race.

---Central air-conditioning  for the home was a luxury even in the South as was central heating anywhere.  In my home town, the public schools were not completely air-conditioned until about 1980.

---Divorce was so unusual in many parts of the US that it completely ostracized a divorced woman (even if she had been the wronged party).  

---The majority of American families attended a church service every Sunday.  Church attendance in Europe was about what it is today in the US (around 40 percent).  

---Everyone liked Ike enough to elect him to two terms as President.  Eisenhower's presidency was a prosperous period that saw the start of the Interstate Highway System as well as the decline of passenger trains.   Gas was incrediably cheap, but so was everything else.  A McDonald hamburger, for example, was 15 cents, and sodas and icecream cones sold for a nickel.   Families usually ate dinner at home around the kitchen table.  

---Women and girls wore dresses except under rare circumstances.  When I was in first grade (1958), mother daughter dresses were popular. Most mature women also made a weekly trip to the beauty  shop.  Young men and boys often wore flat-tops, crew-cuts, and burr hair cuts.

---Unruly students were paddled either by the coach or teacher or by the principal.  Gum chewing was a serious offense.  During the late 1950s, more emphasis began to be placed on science.

---For the most part, trips to vacation spots were relatively near by.  For example, Texans typically went to Galveston or (at least once) to San Antonio to see the Alamo.   Only the very wealthy had been in an airplane (apart from returning GIs).

---Unconcerned about cholesterol and enjoying a bounty unknown during the 1930s and 1940s, men and women and boys and girls drank whole milk and put plenty of butter and salt on their food.  A steak, baked potato, and a green salad was the meal of choice for dining out at a nice restaurant.  Sunday Dinner probably meant chicken or perhaps some roast beef and two servings of vegetables.  Parents had bacon, eggs, and toast for breakfast while the kids had cereal (one of the first successful TV advertisers). Nouvelle cuisine and vegetarianism were in the future as was jogging and going to the gym.  In spite of a heavier calorie in take, very few people were overweight.

Answer 10

heres some info and pictures

http://www.fashion-era.com/fifties_photo...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950s

http://www.fashion-era.com/1950s_glamour...

http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade50.htm...

I wasint born in 50s but ive got some infos i hope

it helps