Fifties themes

From fifties

The Fifties: Fab & Fraught

List of Possible Topics for Your Research Project

(Susan and Marla brainstormed this list. It is not prioritized, and includes many different levels of detail. If you’d like to use a topic not on this list, check it with us first.)

Abstract art

Advertising

Air travel

Alcohol & cigarettes

Alternative culture: poetry, music, lifestyle, art

Barbie dolls

Beat culture

Bebop & modern jazz

Broadway Musical theatre

Civil defense

Civil rights

Classical music

Cold war

Computers

Consumerism

Country music

Cultural class shifts

Dr. Spock

Eisenhower

Electric guitars

Fallout shelters

Flannery O’Connor

Folk music

Freeways

Frigidity

GI bill

High culture vs. pop culture

Home design: furniture, architecture, dishes etc.

Kinsey Report

Korean War

Later sentimentalization of 50’s culture: e.g., Happy Days and Pleasantville

Leisure

Lenny Bruce and/or other comedians

Levittown

Malaise

Marlon Brando

Method acting

Obscenity

Polio

Postwar women

Processed food

Psychiatry

Recording technology: Hi fi, LPs, 45s

Red lining

Red scare & McCarthyism

Returning veterans: WWII & Korea

Rock ‘n’ roll

Segregation by age: teenagers, parents & small kids, old people all in separate spheres

Sexual mores & sexual politics

Shopping centers

Suburbia

Teenage culture

Television: variety shows, sitcoms, quiz shows, other genres

Tennessee Williams

The Bomb

Tupperware

Unions

Westerns

Writers: poets, novelists, playwrights, journalists