The 1950s as a Decade of Both Buoyancy and Opulence in the United States - Article Example

Jerry Ciacho April 15, The 1950’s The 1950s was a decade of both buoyancy and opulence in the United s. However, it likewise was one of immense conflict and war. Mostly however, many people describe the Fifties as a laid-back and easygoing decade. Entertainment was one of its major highlights. Movie stars and music were dominant features that people drew attention to. Amusement attractions such as Disneyland Park were opened to all people, attracting people of all ages. Disneyland conceptualized and created by Walt Disney during this time was an amusement park that changed the lives of the youth forever. At the time in the fifties, The United States of America was the world’s most powerful military authority. Its economy was exceedingly flourishing, and the products of this richness and affluence such as new automobiles, out-of-town homes and other buyer merchandises were obtainable to more individuals than ever before. Consequently, the fifties in the United States was a decade mostly regarded both publicly conservative and extremely money-oriented in nature. There was a wide-ranging increase of the middle class all throughout the 1950s. Unions were solid, encompassing nearly half of the work force in America. Politics veered to be unassertive, with radical opinions being in disfavor. The necessity to constantly have more and finer merchandises arose quickly in the West through the fifties. Consumerism turned out to be an important constituent of Western culture. People purchased large homes in the new suburbia and obtained new efficient home appliances. This trend was induced by numerous American cultural and commercial aspects such as advertisements, television, vehicles, new offers from banks such as credit and loan, straightaway being able to get what one fancied; and attaining an apparently better life. Entertainment was one of the major focuses of the fifties. Famous music celebrities in the early fifties comprised Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. Popular music, also known as the classic pop, ruled the records during the first half of the period. It was within this age that the fanatic hysteria, which arose with Sinatra throughout the Second World War, truly started to take grasp. Classic Pop then dropped in fame and popularity as Rock and Roll made an entrance in the mainstream and became a main strength in record sales in America. Rock and Roll materialized in the mid-fifties as the teenage music of choice. The decade saw the increase in fame of the electric guitar, which was established and commercialized by Les Paul. It was during the mid-fifties that Elvis Presley turned into the foremost symbol of the newfangled prevalent sound of rock and roll. He appeared in a chain of network television attendances and record-breaking hits. His invigorated versions of songs, mostly from African American origins, and his unrestrained performance stylishness made him immensely admired and scandalous during that time. Presleys climb to nationwide attention during the late half of the fifties changed the ground of popular music and possessed a vast outcome on the wider extent of pop culture. As the catalytic agent for the artistic transformation that was rock and roll, Presley was significant not only for marking it out as a musical genre but also in establishing it as a hallmark of adolescent culture and nonconformist outlook. With its culturally varied roots, rock and rolls state of fundamental place in mainstream American society expedited a new reception and appreciation of he culture of the African Americans. Rockabilly similarly surfaced in the early fifties as a combination of rock and roll and country. Rockabilly was very trendy with country music fans in the fifties. Elvis Presley really started the commercialization of the genre through a succession of records. In 1959, the Billboard, an American music publication termed Elvis Presley as the Best Artist of the Decade for the fifties. Elvis’s legacy continues to be seen until today. His name, appearance, and voice are immediately identifiable all around the world. Elvis Presley is one of the greatest cultural powers in the 1900s. Aside from music, art was also experiencing an evolution of its own. Pop art was initially initiated in the mid-fifties. Pop art uses characteristics of mass culture, like advertisements, comic books and everyday cultural subjects. Pop art frequently takes as its images that which is presently used in advertisements. Product tagging and logos feature significantly in the imagery selected by pop illustrators, such as in the Campbells Soup Cans brands, by Andy Warhol. Also beginning around the mid-fifties was The Silver Age of Comic Books. It was an age of imaginative development and profitmaking success in typical American comic books, largely those in the superhero category. In film, The Golden Age of 3D moviemaking occurred during the 1950s. Marilyn Monroe, who was an American actor, singer and model and who turned into a foremost sex image, starred in numerous commercially popular films all throughout the decade. She greatly made a great impact in the cinematographic industry during this period. She is perhaps one of the most distinguished actresses not only during the 1950s, but also of all time. It was also in the same year when she modeled unclothed for the currently well-known calendar photo, which later emerged in Playboy magazine in 1953 and furthermore heightened her career. She would become Playboys very first feature on center spread in that publications extensive and recognized history. 1950 established to be a good year for her. She became an Oscar nominee from a film she starred in. However, movie fans remembered her dumb-blonde enactment. The society was now starting to know Monroe and they were all captivated by her. She radiated an almost purity about the impression of sexuality about her. In 1952, she acted in “Monkey Business” where she performed for the very first time with platinum blonde hair. The look became her trademark. Monroe was now, as many people say, a box-office drawing card. She later appeared in the 1955 film, “The Seven Year Itch.” In it is among films most unforgettable scenes where she stands above a subway grill and the breeze from a passing underground passage whooshing her white dress up. She appeared in movies, illustrated in Hollywood articles, in sports discussion, on calendars in each garage and was later even discovered having affairs with presidents. Marilyn created only thirty movies in her entire lifetime, but her fabulous eminence will endure with film records for eternity. Her name was heard everywhere. There was probably no one who did not know who Marilyn Monroe was and what Marilyn Monroe looked like. Along with Monroe came Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor was best identified as an actress for a succession of movies she was in during the fifties. She was deemed the brunette fifties sex symbol equivalent of Marilyn. Elizabeth Taylor was undoubtedly beautiful. As many declare, Elizabeth lived a life larger than life. Her films were regarded suitable for the youthful naive minds during the 1950s. Taylor’s profession following the mid-fifties appeared to change into more mature characters. Filled with sophistication, grace and elegance, she has been identified the most beautiful woman of all time by most people. The 1950s indeed was an exciting and an adrenaline-charged decade. However, it was also an age of prodigious divergence. For instance, the budding civil rights movement and the campaign opposed to communism revealed the fundamental separations in the society of the United States. The African-American Civil Rights Movement that arose in 1955 signifies the societal actions in the United States intended to outlaw cultural injustice against the African Americans and reinstating voting privileges to them. Foremost movements of civil opposition described the crusade. Actions of nonviolent remonstration and public defiance shaped disaster circumstances concerning campaigners and government powers. State, federal and local administrations, industries, and areas frequently had to do something right away to these circumstances that emphasized the inequalities dealt by African Americans. Different ways of objection plus civil noncompliance comprised boycotts. An example would be the effective Montgomery Bus Boycott. By the decade’s close, the world had essentially recuperated from World War II and the Cold War that grew from its meek start to a heated rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. The hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union, also known as the Cold War, was another significant component of the 1950s. During this time, the United States and the Soviet Union progressively participated in a competition for influence by indirect means in the Third World as the granting of colonial independence increased motion in the decade. The Cold War enmity between the two countries concentrated on achieving firsts in space investigation, which were perceived as essential for nationwide reassurance and representational of technical and conceptual dominance. The Space Race included groundbreaking determinations to liftoff artificial satellites, human space flight encircling the Earth, and conducted expeditions to the Moon. It effectually instigated with the Soviet takeoff of the Sputnik 1 artificial satellite in 1957. In addition, conflicts between communism and capitalism ruled the decade, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. The battles encompassed the Korean War. The Korean War was an internal war between North Korea supported by the People’s Republic of China, and South Korea, which was on the other hand, supported by the United States of America. The North began a communist government, whereas the South formed a capitalist one. Though reconsolidation discussions sustained in the months before the war occurred, pressure deepened. The condition accelerated into open war when forces from North Korea attacked South Korea in 1950. It was the very first momentous armed battle of the Cold War. The Peoples Republic of China then joined the war siding with North Korea. Mao Zedongs choice to engage China in the Korean War was a thought-out effort to challenge the strongest and the dominating nation in the world, commenced at a period when the rule was still uniting its own power after their victory in the Chinese Civil War. Mao chiefly promoted intercession not to aid North Korea or to conciliate the Soviet Union, but for the reason that he believed a military battle with the United States was foreseeable after UN forces crossed over the 38th Parallel. Maos second reason was to advance his own status and reputation within the communist global group by proving that his Marxist interests were worldwide. Chinese interference left the Southern-allied forces no choice but to withdraw behind the 38th Parallel, the political boundary between the two Korean states. Though indirectly obligating forces to the war, the Soviet Union stipulated substantial assistance to both the North Korean and Chinese militaries. The active phase of the war came to a close in 1953, when the Armistice Agreement was signed. This treaty reinstated the boundary between the Koreas close to the 38th Parallel and formed the Korean Demilitarized Zone or DMZ, a fortified safeguard region between the two Korean states. Trivial outbursts of hostility remain to the present-day period. There was a prodigious number of casualties in both parties after the Korean War. The United States experienced roughly 150,000 fatalities and South Korea experienced more than 1 million losses. Estimated Communist fatalities were 2 million. Post-war recuperation was different in the two parts of Korea. South Korea deteriorated in the first ten years after the war, but later developed and modernized. Modern-day North Korea continues to be underdeveloped. The thunderous prosperity of the fifties assisted to make a prevalent sense of strength, satisfaction and harmony in the United States. Nevertheless, that harmony was a delicate one, and it disintegrated for good during the turbulent 1960s. Works Cited Curtin, Jim, and Renata Ginter. Ultimate Elvis: The Fifties. New York: Dorling Kindersley Pub., 2000. Print. Hastings, Max. The Korean War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987. Print. Kallen, Stuart A.. The 1950s. San Diego, Calif.: Lucent Books, 1999. Print. Spoto, Donald. Marilyn Monroe: The Biography. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. Print. Read More