American Social Classes by Vance Packer

These social breakdowns should be viewed as results of economic conditions in the period, political shifts, the development of new standard of popular media and cultural changes. The growing affluence of the 1950s and 1960s set ground for social mobility. The old school class division was blurred out with the increasing availability of

The novel's very title has become a kind of buzzword for periods of excess and fake luxury. The economic collapse of 2008 brought back distant and unwelcome memories of the stock market crash of 1929, casting the boom times of the 1990s and early 2000s as the modern-day version of the Roaring Twenties.

The Sixties, by Terry H. Anderson, takes the reader on a journey through one of the most turbulent decades in American life. Beginning with the crew-cut conformity of 1950s Cold War culture and ending with the transition into the uneasy '70s, Anderson notes the rise of an idealistic generation of baby boomers, widespread social activism, and revolutionary counterculture. Anderson explores the rapidly shifting mood of the country with the optimism during the Kennedy years, the liberal advances of Johnson's "Great Society," and the growing conflict over Vietnam that nearly tore America apart. The book also navigates through different themes regarding the decade's different currents of social change; including the anti-war movement, the civil

The famous book Fahrenheit 451, written by the unprecedented author Ray Bradbury, takes place sometime between 1991 and present day. However, Bradbury wrote and published it in 1953, which leads me to believe that much of the society’s customs and norms present in the novel were very much influenced by the 1950’s regime. Bradbury’s writing is able to (somewhat) give us a glimpse of what life was like in the 1950’s for many women and men. Many norms and customs of today and in the 50’s are fairly similar, and some are vastly different.

My name is Lawanda Mayes; I am a student at Gordon State College. During the spring semester of 2017 I was enrolled in Sociology 3060 where I had the pleasure of reading your book Unequal Childhoods Class, Race and Family Life. This letter is intended to provide you with my response to the book and the personal impact the book had on me.

If you compare the 1950’s to today you might say it is very different things like segregation, economy and family dynamic have altered. And yes many things have changed throughout the decades but not everything is as equal as you might think it would be. This paper will focus on the comparisons and differences of today vs the 1950’s.

The twentieth century marked great change in American society. Modernity, with the help of new technology, swept through the country, bringing excitement and hysteria to the upper-class. The extravagance of the modern era; the Jazz Age, the roaring twenties, all cultivated the excitement of the upper-class. However, as the upper-class advanced, the common American, feeling lost and hopeless, struggled. The technology that greatly advanced the country paradoxically destroyed it, overwhelming and engulfing American society. World War One left tens of millions dead, and many more soldiers and families devastated. In the short story, “Soldier’s Home”, Krebs, the protagonist, returns from war only to find frustration at his family and friends.

The 1950’s was an outstanding year that will not easily be vanished from history. For many people, this year is positively unforgettable because of major events that occurred. The whole story for this decade set place in the America, subsequently following the World War ll and The Great Depression. Three grand topics are recognized for this epoch, economic growth, baby boom, and suburban living. This set of three was often called as “The Good Life” a time of economic affluence.

While the 1950s initiated the economic prosperity America has now, there were cultural side effects. As America’s capitalism and consumerism expanded, the social and political outcomes changed drastically with the new era. Not only did politics influence a mindset change in the 50s, with the fear of communism on the rise which resulted in “a hysterical fear that has led the United States to spy on its own citizens…” (Zinn.1). While political fear was heightened, economics flourished due to the ever growing capitalist industry where “...demand for consumer goods together with increased purchasing power… [and] the appearance of new and modernized industries ranging from electronics to plastics” (Diggins.75). Both Howard Zinn, author of “Declarations

With reference to appropriately selected parts of the novel and relevant contextual information on both today’s society and society in the 1920’s, give your response to the above view.”

With the use of these techniques, the author is able to make this book timeless. While the book took place in the 1860s, a lot of the similar styles still showed up in the 1990s. It uses the setting as a building block to develop all of the other literary parts of the book, and it makes cultural claims along the way. The theme is emphasized through the setting, as the damp, dark feel of the book goes hand-in-hand with the idea that long periods of isolation are needed if one is to completely fulfill one’s potential. Perhaps surprisingly, this theme was still relevant in the 1990s, since many of the same cultural topics that were present in the 1860s reappeared.

The novel was published during the time of industrialization. The United States, a country shaped by agriculture in the 19th century, became an industrialized nation in the late 1800s. Moreover, "an unprecedented influx of immigrants contributed to a boom in population," created bigger cities and a new consumer society. By these developments, progress was linked with poverty, illustrating that the majority of the US population was sceptical about the dependency on the fluctuation of global economy.

The Contemporary Age began in the mid 1940’s and is still continuing today. This age was different from the previous ages, but like all ages before it, it had its successes and problems. The Contemporary age has been characterized by wars or the threat of war. This left the American civilians feeling scared. This fear and the life of the American civilian during the Contemporary Age were captured in a novel written by J. D. Salinger. Jerome David Salinger, prompted mainly by his desire to become wealthy, wrote a novel that would cause mass controversy and eventually lead American authors into a new style of writing.

America: the land where every opportunity is built on the optimism of the free market. Where actions and consequences are replaced with push and pull economics. Where the customer is always right, no matter how wrong they are. And no other time period so properly exemplifies this than the fifties. The economy was booming, consumer goods were selling like hot cakes and housing prices were at an all-time low. It was the perfect time to be a blue-collar family man, resting cozy in a picket fence neighborhood with plastic pink flamingos scattered across his lawn, like plastic seeds grown from the depths of a factory. Yes sir, it seemed like this was the epitome of the American Dream; we lived in a world of the Optimism, and of dreams. But in doing so, have we lost the reality of our situation? Have we become so blind to what we wanted that we failed to realize the repercussions of our actions to achieve these goals? Jennifer Price believes so. For when she gazed into such an obscene conformity, she could do nothing but laugh. And when she was done laughing, she created a snide commentary of the egregious lapses in a system where the optimistic consumer is favored over the reality of his or her surroundings. And no better trinket emphasized this than the “Plastic Pink Flamingo” craze in the 1950’s, the vehicle which Price uses to pursuit her claims

There are many factors at play in the novel which make it very satisfying to read. The book gives a strong depiction of middle-class 1950s life for the average American family; this time period is often reflected upon with nostalgia as a peaceful, prosperous decade, but the reality shows the discontent through which Tom and others like him view their lives. Tom