1950s Everyday Life - 2

------	__	1950s Everyday Life part 2
		Education Trends Holidays On The Job Part 1: More Topics

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Education at school The one-room schoolhouse became a thing of the past in the 1950s. During this decade, most rural school districts were eliminated in favor of consolidated school districts. New boundaries were drawn up and rural kids were bussed to modern schools in town. Half of the children in public school purchased their lunch from the National School Lunch Program, which began in 1946. Reading, writing, arithmetic, penmanship, citizenship, fire drills, duck & cover drills and fingernail inspections made up a typical school day in the 1950s. Dick & Jane Readers Vintage Readers college life The number of Americans who graduated from college increased dramatically in the 1950s. Between 1950 and 1960, graduation rates increased from 14 percent of the population to 22 percent. Wartime advances in aviation and electronics created new careers and a greater need for advanced learning. Many war veterans were also taking advantage of the G.I. Bill. Popular fields of study for men included Engineering and Agricultural Sciences, while women studied Teaching, Nursing, Secretarial Skills and Home Economics. The policy of in loco parentis gave colleges the authority to act in place of the parents when supervising student life. Skirts and dresses were required for women, dorm visits from members of the opposite sex were prohibited, and any young lady who went out for the evening had to sign out and be back by curfew. Women had to have written permission from their parents to take weekend trips off-campus, and any female student who got married was required to drop out. Colleges also restricted the rights of students to form organizations and join political causes. The 1950s were the golden years of fraternities and sororities on campus. Approximately 33 percent of undergraduates participated in Greek life. Activities included theme parties, formals, teas, exchange dinners, charity work and Greek Sing festivals. Hazing and binge-drinking were decades away....the focus here was on comradeship and character-building. In Loco Parentis When The 50s Met The 60s

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Trends -------- trading stamps It was the duty of every "smart wife" to stretch the household budget, and trading stamps certainly helped. When you made a purchase at your local supermarket or gas station, you received whatever brand of stamps they gave out: King Korn, Top Value, Plaid and S&H Green Stamps were the most popular. You licked the back and stuck them in your saver's book, and when you had enough you could redeem them for gifts, toys and other household items. S&H Green Stamps The Trading Stamp Story faith Like many things in the 1950s, religion was still very traditional. We attended services every Sunday, married someone of the same faith in a big church wedding, and baptized or christened our babies. Nuns were dressed in full habit, and priests and pastors were always men. Church buildings were traditional clapboard structures with gleaming white steeples. Many states still had blue laws, which made it illegal for stores and other establishments to conduct business on Sundays. These laws were arbitrary and difficult to enforce, and officials were beginning to look the other way if a Sunday drive included a stop at the local shopping center. The Little Brown Church In The Vale Blue Laws the wild, wild west Cowboy life was definitely in style! cowboy fashions square dancing rodeos dude ranches country & western music westerns on TV		Look what my smart wife got Free for Top Value Stamps! postwar uncertainty In the 1950s, our sense of security was shattered when the Soviet Union developed atomic weaponry comparable to our own. We were convinced that it was only a matter of time before a hydrogen bomb or nuclear missile would be headed our way. Duck & cover drills, civil defense publications and emergency broadcast tests created an underlying level of fear that pervaded every aspect of American life.

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Holidays Our Christmas trees were decorated with traditional lights, bubble lights, Shiny-Brite glass balls and kitschy plastic ornaments. Lead foil icicle tinsel was draped carefully over each branch, and a liberal application of mica flakes gave the tree a snowy appearance. The first aluminum Christmas trees were sold in 1958. Because they were extremely flammable, they were lit from below by a spotlight and revolving color wheel. The living room decor wasn't complete without a manger scene or lighted cardboard village. Aluminum Christmas Trees Bubble Lights It's A 50s Christmas Christmas Wishbooks Vintage Decorations What Is A Glitterhouse? holiday songs making their debut It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas ------Perry Como (1951) Silver Bells ------Bing Crosby & Carol Richards (1950) Santa Baby ------Eartha Kitt (1953) Caroling, Caroling ------Columbia Choir (1954) The Chipmunk Song ------David Seville & The Chipmunks (1958) Suzy Snowflake ------Rosemary Clooney (1951) Home For The Holidays ------Perry Como (1954) I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus ------Jimmy Boyd (1952) Jingle Bell Rock ------Bobby Helms (1957) Marshmallow World ------Bing Crosby (1950) Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree ------Brenda Lee (1958) Mary's Boy Child ------Harry Belafonte (1956) Frosty The Snowman ------Gene Autry (1950) Carol Of The Drum (Little Drummer Boy) ------Trapp Family Singers (1955)		Bubble light popular Christmas gifts in the 1950s Howdy Doody toys & collectibles Jackie Robinson doll 17-inch black & white TV Red Ryder #960 Noisemaker BB Gun slide projector electric train set Buck Rogers toys Donald Duck xylophone Davy Crockett gun & coonskin cap pipe & lighter set pogo stick Silly Putty hula-hoop Betsy Wetsy doll Mr. Potato Head quilted bathrobe Icicle tinsel

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On The Job job trends The first National Secretaries Week was held in 1952. When we think of married women in the 1950s, we picture June Cleaver, don't we? Cooking dinner and cleaning house in her apron and pearls... But, in actuality, 24 percent of married women held a job outside the home in 1950, and this figure rose to 36 percent by 1959. common office items keypunch machines for punch cards punch card sorters 10-key adding machines carbon paper mimeograph machines electric typewriters stock tickers Telex machines & teleprinters calculating In the old days, office machines were strictly electro-mechanical. Data was entered on a keyboard or fed into the machine on a punch card, and the calculating was done mechanically. Adding machines and cash registers fell into this category. Computers changed everything. In the 1950s, modern office machines used keyboards, punch cards, vacuum tubes and complex wiring to get the answers electronically. Now the world of office technology revolved around the almighty vacuum tube, as shown in this IBM ad. dictation Prior to the 1940s, most dictation machines used wax cylinders as the recording medium. In 1947, the Dictaphone Company eliminated wax cylinders in favor of embossed plastic belts. These flexible red belts were known as Dictabelts. Machines using plastic discs were also very popular. In the 1950s, disc models included the Edison Voicewriter, Gray Audograph, Recordio, Tru-Kut, Soundscriber, Memovox and Portable Soundscriber. The Edison Televoice system was introduced in 1951. This product allowed an executive to speak his dictation into a standard desk telephone. At the push of a button, his secretary could transcribe it from her desk telephone. This system was generally promoted for use in hospitals and large businesses. The use of magnetic tape was becoming common in the 1950s. During this decade, the Minifon used miniature reels of tape. In 1957, the Dictaphone Dictet used the first tape cassettes. answering the phone Before 1949, AT&T didn't allow the use of recording machines on their public phone lines. Businesses that needed around-the-clock phone monitoring had to rely on answering services, where live operators answered forwarded calls and took messages. After the ban was lifted, the phone companies discovered that renting out answering machines could be very profitable. During the 1950s, answering machines were expensive. They were generally only used by certain types of businesses, where the volume of calls or the need for privacy made using a machine practical. Machines in use during this decade included the Electronic Secretary (wire recorder), Gray Peatrophone (disc) and the Code-a-Phone (cassette tape).		Electric typewriter Dictaphone, 1953

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Part 1: More Topics