Premium Essay

1950s Decade Essay

Submitted By
Words 793
Pages 4
The 1950s Decade The 1950s was a time of extraordinary inventions and famous individuals. This decennium had historic people and events from all over the world, especially America. While some may argue that this decade was one less memorable than other time periods, these nine years are years that people should never dismiss from their minds. These years include our change of understanding the universe, new gadgets that are widely used all across the world, and a time with unforgettable faces. In my essay, I will be writing about interesting history, a kitchen device popularly used today, and a well-known actress.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has arguably become the world’s premier source for exploration that pushed …show more content…
She was born on June 1, 1926 and began her acting career around 1946. She was mostly famed for being a well-known actress during the 1950s. Her small part in John Huston’s crime drama, The Asphalt Jungle (1950) gathered her a lot of publicity and attention. That same year, Monroe impressed audiences and critics alike with her performance as Claudia Caswell in All About Eve, starring Bette Davis. She would soon become one of Hollywood’s most famous actresses, though she wasn’t considered to be star acting material, she later proved her skill by winning different honors and attracting large audiences to the films she starred in (Marilyn Monroe Biography). From the late ‘50s to the early ‘60s, Monroe has starred in 29 films in the first eight years of her career and has earned herself an honor of “Best Actress in Comedy” in 1959. She had mostly gained publicity through her acting career and starring in outstanding films then died of drug overdose in 1962 (Marilyn Monroe Biography). Marilyn Monroe is just one of many other extraordinary actors and actresses from the ‘50s. She is more well-known than others and even people today still see her as a star.
In conclusion, there are many more topics I could have talked about that has happened in my chosen decade, but these three topics were the most interesting to me. I talked about NASA’s beginning, when the first microwave oven was created, and small bit about Marilyn Monroe’s

Similar Documents

Free Essay

1950's

...About The 1950s In Stephanie Coontz essay "What We Really Miss About the 1950's" she makes an interesting analysis of what we think we miss about past decades. In the essay Stephanie Coontz talks about the history and progress of family and discuses in depth the movement of the family from the 1920s to the 1970s. She begins her argument by stating some reasons why the, “nostalgia for the 1950s” exists. Coontz uses the logos appeal towards her audience with statistics, facts and numbers to explain why the 1950s was such a great decade. She uses great evidence to compare the 1950s to past declares to persuade you that the 1950s is what we really miss. Stephanie Coontz’s essay “What We Really Miss About the 1950s”, she uses the persuasive appeal logos throughout her essay. By using the logos appeal in Cootnz’s essay it strengthens the argument about the 1950’s. Coontz uses facts about how in the 1930s the stock market crashed and the great depression. She compares the 1930’s to the 1950’s by providing more data that murder rates were higher in 1933 than the 1950s. Coontz also explains by using statistics that ninety percent of all households in the United States were families, in comparison with the seventy one percent by the 1990’s. She continues to provide facts and data to show the audience that the 1950s was better than any other decade. Stephanie Coontz talks about how in a poll done by the Knight-Ridder news agency in 1996, 38 percent of voters chose the 1950's as the...

Words: 615 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Civil Right

...1. Discuss when, why and how the Cold War began. Then cite at least one factor that perpetuated the Cold War in each decade from the 1950s-1980s and discuss how the item you selected affected America at home as well. Last, discuss when and why the Cold War ended. 2. Discuss the origins of the Vietnam War, the course of the war over thirty years in the 1940s, and wars' impact on the United States, both at home and in terms of foreign policy. 3. Write an essay on the civil rights movement since 1953 in which you discuss the major factors that have contributed to its success and its major gains. Be sure to discuss more than one group and to cite examples from each decade of the 1950s through the 1990s. 4. Discuss the reasons for America's economic growth or decline in each decade from the 1950s through the 1990s. Then explain how various presidents have dealt with economic problems and why they succeeded or failed. 5. Write an essay about the impact of television on the history of the United States over the past fifty years in which you describe in detail at least one historical event of national importance from each decade of the 1950s - 1990s that was affected by TV. Civil Right: The WWII can be recognized at the origin of the period when United States started it political and economical dominant compare to other nations. WWII reshaped Americans’ understanding of themselves as a people. The struggle against Nazi tyranny and its theory of a master race discredited...

Words: 1612 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

History

...Yolanda Williams The Cold War American Intercontinental University Abstract This essay is on the cold war and the major events that affected it. It will be analyzing 2-3 major consequences the conflict had on the United States. It will also explain how the war affected American sensibilities, including the way Americans viewed the war and themselves. The essay will also answer: if the war changed America’s role in the world? And was the outcome of the war beneficial or detrimental to the United States or was it a combination of both. The Cold War: Containment By the time World War II ended, a large majority of the American officials came to a conclusion that the best defense against the soviet threat was a strategy called “containment”. George Kennan explained the policy: The Soviet Union, he wrote was “A political force committed fanatically to the belief that with the U.S. there can be no permanent agreement between parties that disagree”, as a result the only chance America could make was the long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. This way of thinking would shape American foreign policy for the next four decades. The Cold War: The Atomic Age In 1950, a National Security Council report known as NSC-68 had copied Truman’s suggestion that the country use military force to “contain” expansionism where ever it seemed to be occurring. The report called a four-fold increase in defense spending. American officials...

Words: 770 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Hdfs

...EBSCOhost 7/2/13 12:23 PM Record: 1 Title: The American Family. Authors: Coontz, Stephanie Source: Life. Nov99, Vol. 22 Issue 12, p79. 4p. 1 Color Photograph, 3 Black and White Photographs. Document Type: Article Subject Terms: *SOCIAL problems *TWENTIETH century *FAMILIES *HISTORY SOCIAL conditions Geographic Terms: UNITED States Abstract: Discusses the similarities in family life and social problems in the United States in the beginning of the 20th century through November 1999. Improvements regarding childhood mortality, education, child labor, and women's rights; Why the 1950s are regarded so highly in history as a standard for family values despite the actual poverty rate, women's oppression and race relation problems. INSET: American Mirror by Sora Song. Full Text Word Count: 3077 ISSN: 00243019 Accession Number: 2377451 Database: Academic Search Premier Section: SOCIETY THE AMERICAN FAMILY New research about an old institution challenges the conventional wisdom that the family today is worse off than in the past. As the century comes to an end, many observers fear for the future of America's families. Our divorce rate is the highest in the world, and the percentage of unmarried women is significantly higher than in 1960. Educated women are having fewer babies, while immigrant children flood the schools, demanding to be taught in their native language. Harvard University reports that only 4 percent of its applicants can write a proper sentence. There's an epidemic...

Words: 3470 - Pages: 14

Premium Essay

Brain Change

...self-control, as we do with every other temptation in life. Turn off email or Twitter when you work, put away your Blackberry at dinner time, ask your spouse to call you to bed at a designated hour.” He argues that although these devices can distract us and interfere sometimes, they can easily be shut off to allow full focus. It is the users of these devices who are at fault, not technologies. In the essay, Pinker is very much disagreeing with Carr. While Carr takes the other side and argues that technology is altering the way we think in a negative way causing us to skim through things and expect the obvious answers, Pinker believes that using technologies like PowerPoint and search engines are causing us to be smarter and gain more knowledge effectively faster. With every generation, it seems people are finding a way to say something is making us stupid for example: When comic books were accused of turning juveniles into delinquents in the 1950’s, crime was falling to record lows, just as the denunciations of video games in the 1990’s coincided with the great American crime decline. The decades of...

Words: 1224 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Rhetorical Analysis Vintage Ad Essay

...Rhetorical Analysis Vintage Ad Essay Crystal Cash DeVry University Rhetorical Analysis Vintage Ad Essay This Palmolive soap advertisement’s headline reads: "Let your beauty be seen.” While looking at this headline from a modern prospective, one might find such claims absurd. When one considers the context of the ad, and that this advertisement targeted the female demographic in America during the 1950’s it kind of makes sense that the ad may have been persuasive. The 50’s can be regarded as one of the happiest decades in American history, it was the end of World War two and the economy was expanding to a global standard. There were two forms of advertising in the 50’s era, pathos and logos. Looking at it from the 50’s perspective, the housewife wants to use this product to look appealing to her husband because in that time the women stayed at home and looked after the home while the men worked. In this ad, Palmolive targets the growing population of suburban women and uses rhetorical strategies that will appeal to emotion and logic. The primary focus of the ad is Palmolive’s appeal to emotion. The depiction of the housewife looking very beautiful with a flawless complexion and the doting husband apparently hanging on her shoulder admiring her beautiful complexion suggests that with this product you “too” can have an adoring husband admiring your new flawless complexion when you use Palmolive soap. In the text of the ad, it states how Palmolive’s beauty plan brings exciting...

Words: 590 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Com-120 Written Assignment 4

...Written Assignment 4 John Nicolas Thomas Edison State College John Nicolas Introduction to Mass Communications I COM-120-aug15 Essay #1 Discuss the evolution of radio from the 1940’s to the present, reflecting on significant changes. Moving forward from the 1940s, radio went through several significant evolutionary changes. First, analog television broadcasting began in the 1940s ushering in the first major competitor in the mass media arena. Second, in the mid 1990s, several pieces of legislation affected the radio industry by changing the financial landscape of radio including the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995. Finally, in 2004, podcasting reshaped radio’s understanding of its audience. Therefore, radio has evolved from humble beginnings to a modern medium of assimilated technologies. The first television broadcasts in the United States began in the post-war 1940s, giving rise to the market for a visual mass medium. During the 1950s many radio personalities abandoned radio, preferring to take their careers to the screen, including Fred Allen and Jack Benny. Additionally, the first televised presidential debate occurred in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. While radio listeners generally found Nixon to be the winner...

Words: 1295 - Pages: 6

Free Essay

Ralph Waldo Ellison

...Emerson. Ellison's doting father, Lewis, who loved children and read books voraciously, worked as an ice and coal deliverer. He died from a work-related accident when Ellison was only three years old. His mother Ida then raised Ralph and younger brother Herbert by herself, working a variety of jobs to make ends meet. In his future book of essays Shadow and Act, Ellison described himself and several of his friends growing up as young Renaissance Men, people who looked to culture and intellectualism as a source of identity. A budding instrumentalist, Ellison took up the cornet at the age of 8 and years later, as a trumpeter, attended Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where he studied music with his eye on becoming a symphony composer. In 1936, Ellison went to New York over the summer with the intent of earning enough money to pay for his college expenses, but ended up relocating. He started to work as a researcher and writer for the New York Federal Writers Program, and was befriended by writers Richard Wright, Langston Hughes and Alan Locke, who all mentored the fledgling scribe. During this period, Ellison began to publish some of his essays and short stories, and worked as managing editor for The Negro Quarterly. Writing `Invisible` Man` Ellison started writing what would become “The invisible Man” while at a friend’s farm in Vermont. The existential novel, published in1952, focused on an African- American civil rights worker from the south who, upon his move to New York, becomes...

Words: 567 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

It's a Whole New World

...Your Name: Professor Name: Course: Date: It’s a Whole New World: The Past and Present of Camel Cigarettes Many corporations in America do not have the capability to stay afloat in the marketing world. The consumers of America demand far too much of a product and that is something that some of those corporations just can’t offer. However, the ones that do remain must, as Thomas Frank author of “Commodify Your Dissent” says, constantly redefine the product that they are trying to advertise. Camel cigarettes are no different. The corporation that is Camel proves Frank’s point that, “the countercultural idea has become capitalist orthodoxy, its hunger for transgression upon transgression now perfectly suited to an economical-cultural regime that runs on ever-faster cyclings of the new” (165). It is no longer an issue of how well an advertisement can influence its consumers. Where the greater challenge lies is, if that corporation can continually give its audience what it desires. It is a whole new world, and corporations must constantly modify their approaches on their products to be successful. Not only must they modify their products, but they must also create ads that will make their product memorable to the consumer or they will inevitably fail and become a part of marketing history. Camel cigarettes are a long-standing brand that has been around for almost a century. Throughout the 20th Century, Camel periodically adjusted their advertising methodology. Especially in...

Words: 1763 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Indian Inflation

...Essay on Inflation – a Major Cause of Inequality. Sri Bhabatosh Datta, the famous economist has clearly stated that: “The origin of inflation is often found in the panicky nervousness of unstable governments in olitically unstable communities. Given political stability there is no reason why India should not be able to carry out her future plans without generating serious inflationary pressure on the price level.” The percentage of inflation in regard to price movements and the purchasing power of the rupee need to be evaluated on the basis of wholesale price index (WPI) with 1950-51 as the base year. Unfortunately, the government with the intention of preventing a factual comparison of the purchasing power of rupee, keeps changing the base year every decade, from 1950-51 to 1960-61, later to 1970-71 and finally to 1980-81. Deficit financing in every five year plan and improper planning led to a 40 percent rise in food grains, 45 percent in cereals and over 70 percent rise in pulses during 1961-1966. The country was in the grip of a galloping inflation. This with 1950-51 as the base year. Keeping 1960-61 as the base year, the Fourth five year plan save the price index at an all time high of 331 in September 1974 (with 1961-62-100). This was due to a combination of several factors, the primary being the influx of refugees in large numbers from Bangaldesh and the expenses incurred by the government on them, failure of Kharif crops in 1972-73 and complete failure to take over...

Words: 1251 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

The Seventies

...Runninghead: THE SEVENTIES AND NIXON’S LEGACY The Seventies and Nixon’s Legacy Carlos Michael Padilla HIST145: The American Experience Since 1945 Marvin Frohock March 5, 2008 The Seventies and Nixon’s Legacy “Streaking to the 1970s” was a phrase a group of former high school students made up as they reminisced about the butt dancing, cheek planters, also known as the BBITNs (pronounced BEE-bittens), which meant buffalo buffs in the nude who dashed brazenly, almost daringly across a playing field, the heart of a school campus, and even across a television screen during a major award ceremony. Such was the decade that preceded the conformity and complacency of the 1950s, and the sexual revolution and cultural renaissance that echoed during the 1960s. The decade of the 1970s ushered in the resignation of a president, the ending of a major Southeast Asian conflict, and the birth of two new forms of youth culture identity – streaking and disco. The 1970s began with the Beatles releasing Let It Be, which would be their last album, the Kent State shooting involving the death of the four students, the conviction of Charles Mansion for the murder of actress Sharon Tate, and the conviction of American soldiers for killing entire towns of Vietnamese villagers. This action marked the beginning of the end for America’s support of the American soldier. The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War lasted between 1959 and 1975, ending with...

Words: 1041 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Cherished and Cursed: Toward a Social History of the Catcher in the Rye

...Rye STEPHEN J. WHITFIELD THE plot is brief:in 1949 or perhaps 1950, over the course of three days during the Christmas season, a sixteen-yearold takes a picaresque journey to his New YorkCity home from the third private school to expel him. The narratorrecounts his experiences and opinions from a sanitarium in California. A heavy smoker, Holden Caulfield claims to be already six feet, two inches tall and to have wisps of grey hair; and he wonders what happens to the ducks when the ponds freeze in winter. The novel was published on 16 July 1951, sold for $3.00, and was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. Within two weeks, it had been reprinted five times, the next month three more times-though by the third edition the jacket photographof the author had quietly disappeared. His book stayed on the bestseller list for thirty weeks, though never above fourth place.' Costing 75?, the Bantam paperback edition appeared in 1964. By 1981, when the same edition went for $2.50, sales still held steady, between twenty and thirty thousand copies per month, about a quarter of a million copies annually. In paperback the novel sold over three million copies between 1953 and 1964, climbed even higher by the 1980s, and continues to attract about as many buyers as it did in 1951. The durabilityof The author appreciates the invitationof Professors Marc Lee Raphaeland Robert A. Gross to present an early version of this essay at the College of William & Mary, and also thanks ProfessorsPaul Boyer...

Words: 12326 - Pages: 50

Premium Essay

The Particular Context/Socio-Economic Situation in Which Modern Marketing Emerged and Thrived

...by the edition of „the first formal analysis of buyers motivation”(Egan 2008: pg 5) by Thomas Aquinas (1225-74). This essay is about the histories of marketing, the changes that have occured and the changes in the future concerning marketing discipline. Concerning the conception of what we call modern marketing we need to observe the end of 19th centuries North America where thanks to several factors including both the first and second Industrial Revolutions the basics of consumer market has changed from sellers to buyers. At the beginning of the 20th century a new concern helped the extension of marketing theories: literature. Bartel (1976) belives that „The emergence of marketing research was itself the result of growing pressure to produce and apply accurate knowledge to the field and to bring the methods of science to the field of marketing”(Egan, 2008: pg 7). During the period of conceptualization (Bartel, 1976), which durated from 1910 to 1920, the word ’marketing’ gained new meanings. It wasn’t necessarily referred to commerce anymore, then Ralph Starr Butler (1882-1971), a pioneer in marketing, taught that ’’marketing was all about coordination, planning and the management of complex relationships”(Butler cited in Egan 2008: pg 7). The effects of the 1929 crisis were critical, nevertheless, instead of coming up with new theories in the decade between 1930-40 the development of existing concepts was the mainstream idea. (Egan, 2008:pg 8). However, despite the...

Words: 1495 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

The John Scopes Trial

...cockamaime parties, flappers, and roaring jazz music. Although the decade seems like a collection of rowdy social festivities, grander complications lied at the surface. Author and Harvard American History professor, Joshua Zeitz underlines the conjuncture between innovation and tradition in his essay The Roaring Twenties. Although major religious conflicts erupted, giving the conservatives a win, the 1920’s were a decade of liberalism because of backlash from government control and advancements in media A major disagreement between church and education was the John Scopes trial (aka the monkey trial.) In 1925, the Butler Act was passed to end the teaching of anything that goes against biblical teachings. That same year, John Scopes was challenged by peers to violate the anti-evolution law and teach Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution to his class. A Duke University Article, by Christopher Armstrong and Grant Wacker, entitled The Scopes Trial states that “Resistance grew especially acute when such conservatives saw their sons and daughters going off to college and, faced with teachings that contradicted their parents' beliefs, seemed to lose their faith entirely.” This reveals the parent’s conservative fears of a radically different America where there would be diversity amongst religions. Adding on to conservative victory, Zeitz claims that the conservatives were nowhere near close to being beat. Zeits states in his essay that after their court victory,...

Words: 1223 - Pages: 5

Free Essay

Skateboarding Cultural Awareness

... I have selected to write the essay on the ever-changing culture of skateboarding. I have chosen this culture because I have seen the way that skateboarding and skateboarders has been viewed and perceived by our society change time after time with the changing generations. I have not only witnessed it myself, but in both research of the past and present history of the sport and culture there has been a 180 degree spin on the way that the culture is viewed. Skateboarding dates all the way back to the 1950’s. Its origin comes from Californian surfers that wanted to turn the streets into waves. The first boards were simply wooden boards with roller skate wheels mounted on the bottom of them. In 1963, there were some of the first competitions for skateboarding, hosted by some of the big name brands that are still around today, like Hobie. One of the most known stories of skateboarding will forever hold one of the most influential times of the whole realm of skateboarding, was the story of Dogtown and the Z Boys. (Cave, 2008) That is a very brief explanation of the origin of skateboarding, but back in those days it was an extremely rebellious sport for kids to be involved in. Skateboarders had the stereotype of being trouble makers and losers. It was a stereotype that evolved along with the sport because skateboarders changed their appearances just like the many fashion fads that came with the decades. Skateboarding had somewhat of a dress code that the...

Words: 672 - Pages: 3