Life in the 1950's

[kimball455]

Found this interesting website about the '50's and people still living the 'retro' life style. Quite amazing.
Harry

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...ook-inside-Americas-Rockabilly-community.html

 

[retromania]

Loved it!

 

[danemodsandy]

Interesting!

Some of the folks in the photos are living the '50s more authentically than others (trust me, '59 El Caminos didn't have interiors like that from the factory), but they all appear to be enjoying themselves.

My own home is more '60s/'70s than anything here, but I share these "Rockabilly" adherents' enjoyment in coming home to a simpler lifestyle, off the treadmill of present-day society.

 

[toploader55]

I think that's pretty cool.

It kind of says the same thing about my staff at the restaurant. When it comes to music, most of them all listen to a wide variety of music but mostly from the 50's thru the mid 70's, They have a constant thirst for knowledge of what it was like growing up in the late 50's through the 70s.

As you can imagine, I'm chatting away all day with them. They find it so hard to belive that Fuel was $.37 a gallon when I started to drive in 1972

But as most of us here... we do love our Vintage appliances and furniture.

Does my dinette set and vintage stuff put me in the Rockabillie Realm ???

 

[hydralique]

Nice dinette set and Instrument (as Ernestine the Operator would say)!

 

[washman]

Gee Beev.........

that's swell!

 

[petek]

Love that dinette sets. Remember when it was more uncommon that people would have a different type of table. Ours was red, nothing fancy, my aunt next doors was a yellow one with a cutlery drawer built in the side.

 

[whirlcool]

You gotta have the LARGE rubber bumper things on the chair legs. These sets were all the rage when I was growing up. Most all of them had those huge rubber feet on them.

 

[rp2813]

Eddie, that table and set of chairs is to dine for!

 

[tolivac]

Very Good!-EXCEPT---in the 2nd picture the console TV that had its original picture tube and chassis removed and replaced with a modern set-----YEECCHHHH!!!NOT-NOT COOL!RIDICULOUS looking-If you are going to have the 50's motiff in these things and on that site-RESTORE the old set and use the ORIG chassis and screen-PLEASE!!otherwise its a bastard type set--DUMB LOOKING!!!!NOT ORIGINAL!!!!

 

[rp2813]

I noticed that TV set as well.  Considering these folks' commitment to authenticity, the right thing to own is a restored vintage color console.  They can provide decent color and resolution with a properly working chassis. 

 

[alr2903]

The furniture and settings are stunning. "Mr. Thomas Roberts", on MSNBC recently commented about The Trifecta: Caucasian, Male, Straight. In the 1950's were there any professional women, African Americans, Latino's, families without men as the head of household? Can you spot the Asian folk in #8? The pictures are beautiful and far enough in the past to make them sentimental. Kimball455 thank you for sharing the photos. I had a wagon wheel bunkbed.

[this post was last edited: 1/23/2014-02:50]

 

[alr2903]

This excerpt from The Amazon book description.

In Rockabillies, photographer Jennifer Greenburg offers a visual tour of a unique global subculture and her own place within it. The individuals her photographs capture are examples of the rockabilly scene, having fully embraced the aesthetic values of teens in the 1950s. What intrigues Greenburg is that these contemporary Rockabillies choose to overlook the social and political realities of the time period they adore and emulate. The subculture today has become a hybrid of texts and images—frequently taken out of context—from an era that saw race riots, cultural upheaval, and little hope for middle-class advancement. Few, if any, members of the Rockabilly culture would actually want to live in the post-war era; rather, the imagery and ideals have been adapted to serve a wistful interpretation of that time. As well, contemporary Rockabillies are not interested in historic preservation, but its members rarely stray from established fashion archetypes.



Through her photographs, Greenburg brings light to this unusual subculture and investigates its contradictory relationship to the American past.

The Amazon description does not mention the university.

 

[alr2903]

Kimball455, the photos are nice and sleek.  According to the article the photographer is an assistant professor at a university in Indiana.  This layout is an introduction to a coffee table book she has created. the article would leave one to believe there were no minorities, LGBT, or Professional Women.  I doubt the author saw this layout prior to publication. But<span style="font-size: large;">'At first I thought the culture was about fashion,' the 36-year-old photographer told MailOnline. 'Then I realized it was much, much, more than that. I realized that this was a culture of people who functioned as a community.'  

</span>Words like social diversity, State and Federal funding come to mind.

 

[frigilux]

It's hard not to admire people who commit so fully to a lifestyle; certainly the furnishings/appliances are cool---but I wouldn't want to try to live in the past. I'll take the present, warts and all.

 

[countryford]

<a name="startPOSTER_50722.9"></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">tolivac</span>: I noticed the same thing. Just gets me seeing that.

 

[westie2]

Picture 6

My room had the same wall paper and the bed spread is just like what I had. Also had the floor rugs with the same cowboy and horse. My light fixture was all cowboys and horses. The house was built in 1950 and my room was remodeled in 1968 after I had left home.

 

[lancethecook]

1950s women

There was a programme on UK television a while ago which I believe is on you tube.
It was called " time warped wives" some of you may find it interesting .
I certainly did .

 

[rp2813]

I agree with Eugene.  More power to those who immerse themselves into a time warp, but I'm just not that dedicated and there are modern conveniences I enjoy having.  Maybe a room devoted to a specific style or period, but not my entire life.

 

When I think about people who wish they could have lived in the 1920s or earlier, there's one thing that comes to mind that kills the deal for me every time:  Dental work.

 

 

 

[tolivac]

Remember the "cowboy" and "space" motiffs from the fifties as well.Liked both.Remember toy spaceships,horses,toy guns-both cowboy and "space".No,going back to the twenties would be too primative for me-yes,the dental and medical things of those days---Horrors!

 

[norgeway]

Re living in the past!

Just let someone invent a time machine and IM GONE!!!!I would go back in time to the 50s in a split second...No electronic aggravations, cars that looked like cars and Ike in the White house, oh yeah,, back when our budged was balanced and 2/3 of everything made in the world was made here!!Phones that had DIALS!, no cell phones, no computers...I could go on and on!!American made sheets and towels, not to mention, tvs, radios, hi fi's etc made here!!PARADISE!!!did I mention 25 cent gas!!!and 15 cent geating oil!

 

[washman]

I concur with norgeway

in addition we'd have solid tub machines with overflow rinses.
Detergents with phosphates that cleaned
No bombardment from social media discussing every "trend"
Food with trans fats and flavor
Algore would be another nobody
Piers Morgan would be yet another nobody
No vapid nonsense about global warming or climate change
No reality shows that are here today gone tomorrow
Women who acted like real women instead of inked up gutter mouth tramps of today
No Miley Cyrus "acting out" in rebellion to her religious upbringing
Young men of color and young white men would go around with their pants pulled up
Cars that actually had style and personality and could easily be distinguished from one another.
Levis made here
Fluffo shortening
No vapid pronouncements about job cuts to maximize "shareholder value"
Walmart was still a local thing and years away from the 800lb gorilla it is today
And last buy certainly not least, a whole bunch of Speed Queens featuring the famous Arc-Cuate transmission!

 

[norgeway]

WELL SAID!

My sentiments exactly!!People were raised right and knew how to act in public, you held a door for a lady, and always said yes sir and yes ma am, and if you were a kid and didnt behave, you got your hind end busted, and it sure never hurt me in the long run!And you didnt see people driving down the road with a D%^& cell phone up to there ear.....Oh to get to eat at a S and W cafeteria again and to go to Belks and Iveys stores in down town Charlotte again, oh I could go oN and ON!!!

 

[norgeway]

And if!

Your dirt driveway was dusty, you sprayed it with used motor oil, when you bought paint, it would stay forever practically because it had lead in it! And if you were a kid you knew better than to chew on the woodwork!!!!And your car could have 10.5 to 1 compression because gas was 100 octane with lead in it!!LOL..and electricity was cheap because your plants burned coal and there was no D%^& EPA to tell them they couldnt!!!I Remember my Mom and Dad saying they made 50.00 a week in 50 when they got married, they bought a car, rented an apartment and had t bone steaks every friday night, and went to the movies every saturday, no one needs to tell me today is better!NOTHING today is better.

 

[norgeway]

And I could!

Have driven a honest to goodness Plymouth Dodge or DeSoto with fins and pushbuttons, or a Super 88 Olds with a four speed HydraMatic!!!

 

[joelippard]

I would have absolutely loved to have lived back then.  I'm glad I'm old enough to have gotten in on the end of "the good ol' days"

 

[danemodsandy]

Lest We Forget:

The '50s weren't all fun and games. Shall I begin?

I remember the closed swimming pools because of polio fears, and I remember the kids who got polio anyway and were in braces.

I remember the "White Only" signs in any number of places.

I remember one of my little grammar-school classmates dying in a low-speed fender-bender, because a highly-styled pot-metal knob on the car radio went deep into his brain, when his small, un-seat-belted body was thrown against the car's dash.

I remember growing up in a world where the only information about anything gay came from classmates who mercilessly bullied me.

I remember clergymen preaching from their pulpits that segregation was "God's Plan."

I remember several female relatives of mine keeping the secret of their husbands' alcoholism, because it was considered a shameful moral weakness, responsive to nothing but Divine Intervention.

I remember the extreme sexual irregularities visited upon young campers by the counselors at the summer camp I went to.

I remember wondering why African-Americans had to sit in the balcony of Atlanta's Fox Theatre - and why I could not sit up there where it looked so beautiful and the faux sky was so close.

I remember wondering why none of the adults in my sphere would believe me when I told them that one of my teachers was emotionally and physically abusive towards students.

I remember people being terrified that the Russians had launched something called a "Sputnik" into space.

I remember that my favorite second cousin had terrible PTSD from his time in Korea, that his life was never what it should have been, and that no one even knew that his illness could or should be treated.

It wasn't all roses, folks. The T-bone steaks were there, but so were a whole lot of things best left in the past.

 

[whirlaway]

There still here!

Look around you! Everything but polio is still here! But people then didnt talk like trash as they do now! I was in a very nice Thai place tonight for dinner and the f bomb by the people behind me,you never would have heard then! People today dont have the manners they had then.Yes folks still have and always will domestic issues,but at least they didnt drag it out for everyone to hear,respect is all but gone!!!

 

[davey7]

I'd go back to the 20's or 30's (if I were wealthy), but not the 50's. The early 50's still had a lot of deprivation even in the US despite a boom compared to other countries, materials were in short supply and all kinds of unethical deals were cut.

 

[norgeway]

just let me be..

About 25 in 1953, and have a good paying job, the only thing I can think of that was really bad then would have been a visit to the dentist...of course its bad enough now!!LOL