The 1950s were good if you were white, Christian and at least middle middle class.
A lot of clubs, neighborhoods, and companies were 'restricted'
A much smaller slice of the population went to college - tough if you were working class or even lower middle.
It also helped if you were in or near a good sized city, one with about 250,000 people or more. There might be a library and a decent newsstand or two.
Otherwise, your horizons would tend to be limited by the people you knew.
Foreign travel was the result of being in the military, being rich, or having immigrant parents. Foreign travel for the middle class was not as common as today.
Better hope your town had college or two. Fewer campuses then.
Rural areas were worse -
If you were out in the sticks you might only get two TV channels.
There might be only one or two doctors in town. Don't get any rare diseases...
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The air pollution in a place like New York City could be horrid. Los Angeles didn't start getting better until the late 1970s.
If you lived somewhere like New York City you could see art, hear live jazz, catch West Side Story, see a Rothko or maybe Jasper Johns. You could read Paris Review and the New Yorker.
In the sticks, you had to wait for the movies.
You would be unlikely to know the Paris Review existed unless there was a college nearby, and even then...
Cars were okay if you did not mind drum brakes ;-)
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Okay, so here's a video about a MUCH better decade, the
Fabulous 1980s !
youtube.com |
