Let's talk about the wholesome 1950s....

I remember my mother packing a lunch for my brothers and I. We grabbed our canteens and set off down the railroad tracks to our cousins house, 9 miles away. We would walk all the way there in about 4-5 hours. Little kids could spend hours and hours unsupervised and nobody would bother them. Today a parent would be arrested for child neglect. First time, Mom asked, "What about trains?" Dad said, "If a train comes, get off the tracks." We were expected not to be idiots, so we weren't, and because of the times we were completely safe hours and miles away from home.

So, it existed in the Iowa I grew up in.

Thank you for the video share brother Chip.

I have a better idea...let's talk about WHY the 1950s are looked back upon with such "romanticism", and by whom, really.

I'm a member of "Gen X", renowned for our cynicism. Our parents' youth had largely been shaped by the Vietnam War, and we grew up in the shadow of the "Evil Empire". In a very general sense, I believe my generation came of age believing that the glass is indeed "half full"...it's just full of poison. That's likely why such a large number of us claim to be "Libertarians" (though I'm not among them), or at the very least....shape our political and social ideologies along very pragmatic lines. When it comes to the '50s, we're more likely to view them through a lens forever altered by "Happy Days" and "Back to the Future".

Our grandparents on the other hand...

The elder generation truly has my respect. Tell whatever tales you want, but there's simply no way getting around the fact that WWII was a battle between good and evil, for nothing less than domination of the planet. As a historian, I believe we should more accurately lump WWI and WWII together, as two acts of the same play. In that three decades, one way of life was literally murdered, another rose...and was likewise obliterated. We went from monarchy to anarchy, and then to post-modern "democracy", all within half an average human's lifespan...enduring economic depression, pandemic, and radical upheaval, all in the same breath.

Hell, I don't think it was rocket fuel that propelled us to the Moon...so much as sheer, unbridled energy born of desperation.

However, it's important to remember that in many ways, our modern view of the world's history began in 1948. Humanity proved to itself that we're capable of anything...and then some. We had to create an entire new glossary of words to describe our ability to kill one another. All of that, good and bad, got lacquered over the centuries-old veneer of national cultural conscience; The result? Fess Parker swinging Ol' Betsy atop the Alamo, and Charlton Heston nobly defending New Orleans alongside a Russian-born emigre of Stalin's particular brand of tyranny. The nation's enormous manufacturing muscle switched from building B-17s to Fords, and men who stormed the beaches of Normandy started raising families. Many women who had endured privation under rationing, fear of loss, and taken up the slack of industry...were probably all too happy to put back on their pearls and cook pot-roast. We found comfort in an idea that wasn't so much manufactured, as it was carefully curated; the notion that at the heart of what it meant to be an American was courage, integrity, and above all-order. The ideal life was working Monday through Friday, cooking out on Saturday, and going to church on Sunday. Lost in such thoughts were memories of the Great Depression, Reconstruction, the Civil War, or any of the myriad of social ills that created the same...and continued to lurk on the periphery of "Mayberry".

I believe what people "miss" about the "1950s" is that sense of order. We want to believe that everywhere the flag flies, there lies freedom. We want to have a consistent set of values and beliefs to rally behind; not a polyglot of socially-sensitive viewpoints that can never agree...let alone work together. Such notions grate on younger ears because many grew up taking the Founding Fathers at their literal word as opposed to transposing our values onto them...or attempting to understand what they really meant. However, doing so creates a Gordian Knot that is always challenging our sense of right and wrong, just and unjust, reasonable and unreasonable.