I Miss 1950's Traditional Values
 

Sometime we just need a break from today's political climate and I one way is to tune in old movies .

I watched Jennifer Jones in "Good Morning Miss Dove" It presented an idyllic America. I recognize that the 1950's had its problems but this movie represented pretty much the America I remember.

Miss Dove, an elementary teacher made demands on her students both stoic and scholastic and she reciprocated by taking a personal interest in each of her students.

Traditional values were apparent had work, self discipline, self respect, respect for authority, respect for others , calculated reticence , honor.

Personal Best Regards:

I passed those values to all my children. They adhere to them. That's all that matters to me.


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Where's the like button?

I second that! :thumbup:

The 50’s were a special time and I’m glad I got to experience them

By reading this board, it's hard to believe that a few of those were values from the 50's.
I know 25 year olds who show less self entitlement and more respect for others than many on this site or in TV.

Good teachers are great people.
 

I can name two or three teachers who unquestionably gave shape to my life with their encouragement of my efforts.

Great people.

I remember the fifties a lot differently -- it was a time of great fear because of the A-bomb. Women rarely worked outside of the home and, if they did, it was usually in a subservient role. Even professional women were pushed into the lesser roles (attorneys for estate planning, trusts, family law; physicians were ob-gyns) most of the time. It was okay for a male to have pre-marital sex and extra-curricular marital affairs were to be bragged about. A female was shamed. Minorities were kept in their place, separate but equal was the way of life, lynchings were common. It was acceptable to beat your wife so long as the stick was no bigger than the width of your thumb. Not only could parents spank their children, so could your neighbor or the principal and some of those spankings were flat out beatings. Sexual abuse was common and the girl was nearly always at fault, even if only ten. Miscegenation was a crime. So was homosexuality. And so on and so forth. The fifties were a time of violence, fear, cruelty and bigotry.

A lot of the values such as hard work, honesty, respect, trust are still prevalent today. Yes, the language is rougher today, chivalry towards females is gone, some of the niceties have disappeared. Even so, I'll take today's world. It's a lot more honest and, in many ways, kinder.

Wow. Thanks.

I agree with you Red. My memories of the 50's (I was age 1 to 11 in that time) are very fond. But I was the product of a white family in NH. I had no understanding whatsoever of what the black population especially, but not only, in the south was facing. Nor did I understand that women were expected to a great degree to stay at home or be teachers (many very happily I might ad! That's a good thing for them!) So while I am often tempted to refer to that era as a "kinder, gentler time", that's only from my very limited experience. For many, it was anything but that.

Since I was born mid 50s and raised in the south I don't remember much of it. But if you didn't yes ma'am, someone you could get smacked all the way in the next Tuesday.

Actually today in my family yes Ma'am is still used with great respect, so you don't get smacked in the next Tuesday.

My youngest transplanted from Michigan to Louisville, not only has picked up that southern accent, but yes ma'am is used without thinking. When he hears a 2 or 3 year old yes ma'am, it makes him smile that in this day and age respect to elders is still taught.

:BigApplause:

1957 Belair
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Chuck Berry
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Certainly agree with Redwitch here. However the 2010s over the 1950s are kinder in some places; nastier in others.

The 1950's were the very best. Things got better every year. Then in 1965 SAT scores peaked and it has been downhill every since.

...

The teachers I know today, including my daughter-in-law, face nightmare students and their uncivilized parents. The laws are such they have little ability to discipline the incredible number of children who are not being well parented today.

Teen beats up his teacher in front of the class | New York Post

Reading some of these post makes me more aware of how fortunate I was to have been reared in reared in my town.

Back then there was a lot of love, religion played a prominent role and the priest in our church helped many a youngster get a college education.

Our priest often spoke of the blight of blacks being taken to America without the benefit of family units as did European immigrants.

Harriet Tubman of the Underground Railroad home sits in this town.

Parents looked out for all the neighborhood kids and gave them a boot if they got out of line.

Threats from foreign evaders was met with planned discipline determination but absence much of the hyperbolic response of today's politic climate

Many of our mothers worked. My mother worked for as long as I can remember. Where I grew up men and women complimented one another

A society cannot thrive if it does not elevate its women. all one has to do is look to some of the Muslim communities.

Romance was truly romance back then. Sex today is equivalent to shaking hands. Our drug of choice back then was cigarettes. We never heard of marijuana, etc

People were grateful and joyous since many had lived through the Depression and WWII.

Have you noticed that people don't whistle anymore. My father constantly whistle a happy tune

Like I said the 1950's were not perfect but have you noticed that our young, those we should always treat as a "protected species" do in today's world lose their innocence and their childhood early on. And yet the irony is that many of our children don't make the leap from child to adult.

Personal Best Regards:

Red, leave it to you to hit the nail squarely on the head. Very well said!

:agree:

Rubicon, I agree with some of what you said in Post 19, but not quite all. No question our kids and grandkids lose their innocence much too early. I do blame the media for that -- books, television, movies have all gotten much more graphic, both for violence and sex. I have met more than one girl under 16 who has told me she is a virgin, but the only thing she hasn't experienced is intercourse. That's just sad.

My daughter was raised to say please and thank you, yes ma'am/sir not so much (I hate being called ma'am -- it makes me feel ancient and I work for a living tyvm). My grandson is yes sir/ma'am on a regular basis. He is not a bully nor subjected to bullying as much as I or my daughter was. The kids today are more willing to include the children that are different. Skin color really doesn't matter to them. Ability counts more than socio/economic background to these kids.

As to women working in your town -- what were their positions? Teachers? Nurses? Babysitters? Shop clerks? Secretaries? Any that owned a business not female related? A surgeon? Police officer (not meter maid)? Mayor? Working for pin money doesn't count.

How did you miss out having to see Reefer Madness in school? Funniest dang movie I was ever forced to watch. Marijuana was around in the fifties. So was heroin, cocaine, anti-depressants, speed. Most of us kids were too young and innocent to see it, but it was there. The punks existed in our schools. They were just as violent towards teachers as today's punks. Only difference is they didn't carry guns. And, back then, they were kicked out of school -- while education was free, it was more of a privilege than a right back then.

Personally, I'm grateful whistling has gone to the wayside. To me, it is noise pollution.

The main difference back then is that everyone was truly more innocent. Kids were still molested, killed, kidnapped. Women were raped and beaten. Beat cops were known for swinging their batons both on the street and in the station. It all happened, we just didn't know about it. There was no way to know. Newspapers carried little international, national news -- just the most important events. The paper was much like the Daily Sun -- feel good rags. Television was just beginning to make a dent. So, radio was the big news carrier and it rarely cared about social issues -- that took Vietnam, civil rights and women's lib to bring those items into the forefront. Today, thanks to Amber Alerts, we know a child is missing minutes after it occurs. Thanks to the internet, we know when a victim is beaten or murdered by a cop. We know who has slept with whom, when, how many and sometimes even what positions they used. Everything is out there. But the events happened in the fifties just as they do today. Father Knows Best, I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver were lovely fantasies but had little to do with reality unless you were a child.

1965 certainly was a turning point. One can only wonder why......


Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 - Wikipedia

The Evolution of the Motion Production Code in the 1950s...
 

... is quite interesting in what it says about society and the art reflecting it during that time.


Motion Picture Production Code - Wikipedia

The Supreme Court cases on the First Amendment rights of movie directors and screenwriters really changed things.

freedomforum.org: Landmark decision brought freedom to films

Exactly! :thumbup:


If you are a white male and a particular demographic over a certain age, I'm sure that you look back to the 50's...and wish things were still the same.


If you're a female or minority...not so much. :(

I remember the 50's but was lost in the 60's.

Lost in The Sixties--The Winds of Change - YouTube

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Congratulations Redwitch, you have an excellent way with words and I agree with everything you wrote:agree:. I even agree with your comment on whistling :agree:.... I have a fairly close neighbor who whistles continuously, not a tune, but a monotonous one note whistle .... I believe it is a nervous habit:cus:.

Very well said. Also, minorities as well as women have a better lifestyle today than in the good ole days.

Ahhhhhh, the old'n days, yesterday was so much better than today.

NOPE.

Today is great, tomorrow will be better.

Live Today.

I am a white cis gendered male over a certain age and there are lots of things I miss about the 50's. Strong labor unions, an America that was moving toward income equality, two sane major political parties, inexpensive higher education, but is was a culture of white male superiority. And we have moved the needle a little bit and have very far to go. I am very aware of how white privilege and male privilege benefitted me. It still does. So not all white males are blind to the truth or are wishing it were still the same.

everything changes, not always for the good.

:agree:

Spot on . . . great post.

Thank you.

My parents got married in 1957. When my mother married my father, the company she worked for had two shifts working in the office. My mother worked the day shift in the office before she married my father. The company rule in 1957 was that if a single female employee got married, she had to transfer to the night shift in the office within 90 days of marriage or leave the company. Most newlywed female employees did not want to work the night shift, so they quit. The underlying message was that the company was discouraging married women from being employees. When my mother told me this many years ago, I couldn't believe an employer could get away with this. But employers could in 1957.

??? Teen who punched principal in face gets sweet deal from judge | New York Post

I was dating a fellow employee from Information Access Company (Belmont, CA) who lived in Richmond, CA. She was African-American and a volunteer singer with the Oakland Chorus. She introduced me to her father a teacher at a Richmond, CA high school who had been on a long break because he was attacked by a student. This was around 1984. This has been happening for a long time that students get violent towards their teachers.

I do not believe that student got off lightly though.

I Was Happy.
 

I would argue that there were millions of women who did not share your point of view during the 1950s.

Among them would be those women who had been forced out of their preferred feminine roles as housewives and homemakers to work in the various defense industries during the 1940s, building airplanes, tanks, arms and munitions for our military forces engaged in a world-wide armed struggle that we were by no means assured we would win.

During World War II, American women demonstrated their ability to perform in the mechanical crafts and trades which had previously been closed to them, and they developed a new pride and self-confidence in their abilities. But, most of them preferred to removed to the traditional "feminine" roles of the pre-war era; and most did, welcoming home their husbands, and expecting to again be the ruler of their households while their husbands brought home a paycheck.

One of the greatest aspirations of our military men returning to civilian life was to settle down with a wife and family in their own home, working at a good job, and enjoying life.

Technology which was developed in war time found civilian applications which blossomed quickly into "modern conveniences" such as tape recorders, AM/FM transistor radios, and television. The 1950s was also characterized by the introduction of a wide variety of automobiles, and the American romance with cars began a decades-long love affair.

You mention lynchings, but you fail to mention that the Civil Rights Movement took wing in the 1950s, with such events as Brown vs. Board of Education, Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr., as leader of the Civil Rights Movement. By the 1950s the Armed Forces had been ordered integrated, and minorities were moving into the supervisory ranks.

I don't know where you lived in the 1950s, but in none of the places where I lived was wife beating legal or accepted.

You properly decry the disparity in moral values between sexual promiscuity of men and women in the 1950s, but seem to feel that lowering the standard for women was the proper solution, while there are those of us who argue that raising the standard for men would have been the proper solution.

In the 1950s, I was a white, male, heterosexual teenager with a beautiful high school sweetheart who I later married, and a nice late model car to ride around in for trips to church, parties, and the beach. I did well in high school, attended church regularly, grew up in a two-parent family, with a younger brother who also did well.

I was aware of alcohol and drugs, but did not use them. I had a part time job in which I worked with a Black male who I considered a friend. I lived in a city in which White, Black, Italian and Spanish influences were all in evidence. I read a weekly newspaper that had articles written in English, Italian and Spanish. I ate "soul food," Italian food, Cuban food, and lots of sea food.

And I was happy.

Clearly, we have very different memories of the 1950s.

The 1950s were horrible. The Mob controlled chigago and the murder rate in 1958 was a crazy 5.4 per 100,000.


Much better now with a more advanced progressive society.


27.2 murders per 100,000 in 2016, can't wait to see the 2017 numbers.

27.2 ÷ 5.4 = murder rate 5 TIMES higher.

Does not get any better, life is great today, much better than the 50's.

Got it.
 

DING, DING, DING. My Sarcasm Detector just went off.

Progress
 

Acccording to the Washington Post and Marine Corps Times, a female officer (a lieutenant) will make history next week when she becomes the first woman to graduate from the Marine Corps’ 84 day Infantry Officer Course.