The 1950s

After World War II, the world became clearly divided between the Soviet Union and the United States. “The Cold War” resulted in both superpowers building up their military and weaponry, forcing countries to take sides. Even the exploration of space became part of the Cold War. It became known as “the space race.”

After Joseph Stalin, who had led the Soviet Union through WWII and had killed millions of Russians he suspected as being his enemies, died in 1952, the Soviet Union was ruled by Nikita Khrushchev.

The Soviets sent the first unmanned artificial satellite into orbit in 1957. “Sputnik” caused the U.S. to accelerate its space program and emphasis math and science in school across the country.

The Korean War (1950-53) pitted American troops against Soviet and Chinese supported troops of North Korean. The result of the war was a divided Korea that has remained for more than 60 years.

Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin led the way in what became known as the “Red Scare,” during which any American who had a history with leftwing organizations was branded a Communist. The “Hollywood Ten” was a group of writers and directors who were blacklisted from working in movies because they refused to name others who were members of the Communist party sometime in the past. The harassment and bullying by McCarthy was finally exposed by CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow, the most respected broadcast journalist in America, in a special edition of his investigative show “See It Now” in 1954.

That McCarthy came to power by way of his televised hearings and then was brought down by a TV show offers the clearest signal of the coming of age of the medium. Television had quickly become the most popular entertainment of the era, with 12 million homes having a television by 1951. It was in half the homes in the nation by 1955.

The 1950s are known as the Golden Age of Television for its many live dramas that aired nightly, featuring the work of the country’s best writers, actors and directors. Among the comedy performers who became major stars in the decade were Jackie Gleason, Sid Caesar, Red Skelton and Lucille Ball.

The movies saw more independent films as the major studios lost power (because of legislation restricting what they could and couldn’t control) and actors became free agents. To compete with television, wide-screen spectaculars became popular, including Biblical epics such as “The Ten Commandments” and “Ben-Hur” and musicals such as “Singin’ in the Rain,” “American in Paris” and “Gigi.” Movie companies also introduced 3-D films to pry people away from their televisions, but that fad quickly failed. Annual attendance at movie theaters by the end of the decade was one-fourth of what it had been in the 1940s.

A new group of movie stars, many trained in a more realistic form of acting referred to as “The Method,” included Marlon Brando, James Dean (who died at age 24 in 1955), Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. Along with Dean, Marilyn Monroe (who died in 1962) became an icon of the era and the best remembered sex symbol of the 1950s. She married two of the most famous men of the era, New York Yankee baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller.

Music changed forever on Sept. 9, 1956 when Elvis Presley appeared on the “Ed Sullivan Show,” a variety show that aired on Sunday nights from 1948 to 1971. That introduced to middle America a hybrid style of music that mixed African American blues with traditional popular song that eventually evolved into rock ‘n’ roll. Other important performers of this music that teenagers loved and adults hated were Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly.

Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, hero of World War II, served as president from 1952 until 1961. His vice president was future president, Richard Nixon.

The decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 to declare unconstitutional the practice of separate by equal schooling for blacks and whites was the beginning of the desegregation of American schools. The famous case was called “Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.” It took years before this ruling was enforced in all parts of the country, especially in the South.

One of the biggest fads of the era was the hula hoop. In two years in the late 50s, over 100 million hula hoops were sold. Also popular among teenagers were drive-in movies and drive-in diners, where car-hop waitresses would roller skate to your car and take your order and then bring it out to you.

Abstract expressionism was the leading movement in the art world, in which artists used undefined, abstract imagines to show how they saw life and the world. Among the leaders of the movement were Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.

The most important books published in the 1950s were J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye,” Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451,” and Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man.”