The Role Of Experience In American Culture

After World War II the next threat was the Soviet Union and the growing amount of communism. The fear of communism breed the conformist 1950’s, which created suburbs, consumerism, “organization men”, domesticated women, car culture, and explicit gender rules (I&J, 43-58). Communism engulfed everyone so much that people were afraid to be different. The culture of the 1950’s was not only seen in their everyday lives but shown through advertisements.

Coontz analyses both the weakness and strengths of the period and takes a ‘sarcastic’ approach. She is able to indicate the ideal time for the Americans pointing positive outlooks such as education, birthrate, economic expansion, jobs, family oriented culture and social environment. Her weakness about the myth of the 1950s includes teen pregnancies, poverty, marital problems, discrimination, racial and gender inequalities. She attacks the political system who continues states the goods of the 1950s but the politicians have not created and advanced the ideals and optimism of the 1950s. She categorically attacks the perceptions of people saying the 1950s was good even though when compared to the freedoms and engagements of these days, the 1950s’ thinkers are misplaced. The following quote summarizes her perspective, “This confidence that almost everyone could look forward to a better future stands in sharp contrast to how most contemporary Americans feel, and it explains why a period which many people were much worse off than today sometimes still looks like a better period for families than our own” (p. 40). Based on the historical and available information, Coontz argument may suffice because currently, nobody thinks about the future since the economic and social challenges are immense. The optimism is absent while challenges of discrimination, prejudice are fading. Hence, the article cleverly covers the

Terry H. Anderson The Sixties takes us back to that controversial decade where citizens not only believed change was important but demanded it to occur. The author beings his discussion on the Cold War era and how it seeded the growth of the sixties. The conventional and orthodox of the fifties was a vast improvement for many of the old-generation who lived through the great depression. The decade was referred to as “Happy Days,” however, it was only truly happy for white American males. The rest of the population was tired of the unfair treatment and the lack of national problems being addressed by the government. This anger was beginning to manifestation and would eventually take center stage in the era of the sixties.

With the arrival of the 1920’s, new battles fought between traditionalist rural society and modernist urban civilization arose in the postwar United States. These urban-rural culture wars of this time period represent the everlasting conflict between conservatives and liberals. The 1920 census demonstrated to traditionalists that their views were under attack by the modernists who gradually came to outnumber them. Traditionalists were disturbed that they were losing a battle against immigrants who didn’t understand or appreciate “old American values” and against their own children, a new generation of rebellious youth who brought about sexual revolution, materialism, and skepticism.

The 1950s is considered to be the model decade of America. Families were close, children respected their elders, workers worked hard to provide for their families who grew up in nice neighborhoods, and the economy was booming. The forced conformity, neglect of the poor, and segregation are often overlooked when talking about the decade as they were during the time period. The 1950s were a prodigious time period for family life but not for the individual or societal ethics.

America experience a golden age in 1950 and early in 1960 results in two developments. One was a booming better balance and national Distributing of prosperity, which greatly changed the, social, economic, and even physical landscape of the United State. The second one was the continuing struggle against communism, a struggle that created considerable anxiety by that also encouraged many Americans to look more approvingly at their own society. (Brinkley 679)

Europeans felt that civilization was the pinnacle of human achievement. When they began settling across Canada, they began making assumptions about the First Nations, Inuit & Metis people. It was assumed that the aboriginal culture was unable to adapt to a rapidly modernizing society. The aboriginals were viewed as ignorant, savage, uncivilized and quite possibly rivals. Essentially, the native ways were viewed childish. The settlers realized that the natives culture, faith, education and trade were drastically different to European ways. Their ways appeared primitive. Duncan Campbell Scott, who was the Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs in Canada in 1920, has been quoted on the record saying, "I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone... Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department.”

With the overwhelming amount of Levittown houses, the obsession to obtain the perfect American “ideal family” as seen on TV and the unspoken agreement to fear any and all foreign ideas and values, the 1950s were revealed to be a decade of prosperity, conformity and consensus. Just ten years later the atmosphere in America was shockingly different; the 1960s were a decade of turbulence, protest and disillusionment due to the ongoing struggle for civil rights, arising feminism, and the Vietnam War.

The 1950’s in the United States of America were characterized by a strong fear of communism, growing consumerism due to a healthy and fast growing postwar industry and the belief that the nuclear family is the heart of the American society. If we examine these three ideologies closer and oppose them to Stephanie Coontz opinion expressed in her essay “Leave It to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet: American Families in the 1950s,”, we see that many myths existed about the 1950’s.

In the 1940’s many changes were occurring culturally in the United States, many due to the war that was being fought. In this essay, many of these cultural innovations will be discussed and assessed. As will the events that caused such changes and evolutions in the American culture.

When historians observe the 1950’s (50’s) and 1960’s (60’s), they tend to generalize both decades. The 1950’s is seen as a era of conformity and political consensus. The 1950’s are normally viewed as a time of peace and prosperity because many Americans were able to save money during World War II. Mainly white Americans will move to less crowded areas and make their living off of white collared jobs. During the 50’s many Americans will view Communism as an evil, economic power and wish to spread Capitalism instead. The 60’s, however, is viewed as a decade of nonconformity and political divisiveness. Many young men would refuse to fight in the Vietnam war, and women would begin to break the tradition of the “stay at home wife,” and begin to join the workforce. However, both decades show conformity and nonconformity.

Historians tend to portray the 1950s as a decade of prosperity, conformity, and consensus, and the 1960s as a decade of turbulence, protest, and disillusionment. These stereotypes are largely true, though, as with everything in life, there are exceptions to this perspective. Therefore, the historians’ portrayal of the 1950s and 1960s is accurate for the majority of Americans, though some groups were clearly exceptions.

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

Aside from the approach taken by Elaine Tyler May and Jessica Weiss, Alan Petigny argues in his book The Permissive Society: America, 1941-1965 against the traditional narrative of the 1950s being the years of conservative values, religious resurgence, and family orientation. Instead, Peking argues that American social norms remained conservative during the 1950s, however, personal values and behavior underwent a significant process of liberalization between 1941 and 1965. This is a similar view shared by Jessica Weiss. In making the case for the “dramatic liberation of values during the Truman and Eisenhower years,” Peking points to the “emergence of the Permissive Turn.” Essentially, this position argues that “during the latter half of the 1940s, and continuing throughout the 1950s, the popular ingestion of modern psychology, coupled with significant changes in child-rearing and religious practices, constituted an unprecedented challenge to traditional moral constraints.”

American culture refers to the traditions and practices of the people of the United States. Culture comprises of the nature of buildings, religion, music language and marriage. The population of the United States is more than 320 million people making it the most culturally diverse country in the globe. Books such as Crabgrass Frontier, Manifest Destination and Muscular Christianity are important sources of information about American culture. This paper is a reflection on the methods that these books use in providing information about the evolution of the US culture. The paper examines the relationship between these three sources and ways they challenge or inform an understanding of the American society during the late 19th and early 20th century. There is an analysis of the efficiency of the issues tackled by these books in influencing the contemporary discourse surrounding American culture. The major argument of this paper is that Crabgrass Frontier, Manifest Destination and Muscular Christianity provide reliable information about the evolution of the US culture and they supplement each other through the use of relevant examples.