been reading a thread on presidents various members lived under. A few guys said Truman and Ike.


So how much better off were we when Eisenhower was POTUS?

I doubt there are very many Arfcommers old enough to realistically remember Truman. That would put them in their mid 70s.



 

I was 5 when Truman left office -things were great.

I was three when Ike took over.  

Ike pissed me the fuck off a few years later.  We were standing around for an hour or so waiting for him and Nixon to parade past on their way to the Naval Airstation.  They flew past us about sixty miles an hour.  

It wasn't,but that's not the answer you want to hear.

 You want to be told that things were just like Leave it to Beaver,everybody's dad owned a WWII bringback MP-40,everyone had a job,the Commies were on the run,everyone loved their neighbor and nobody locked their doors etc etc etc but that's hardly a fair and accurate picture of the 1950's.

I am genuinely curious what it was like, because for many of us who weren't around back then, the only "history" we have of that period is movies and TV shows made then.

I was born in 1948 and became aware of the world around me during the 1950's and 1960's.  It was a calm and civilized childhood.  I had a good frame of reference to judge the hippie/commie/drug culture that sprang up in the mid-1960's and continued on to the present.  It was a very conservative time.

We've gone downhill culturally very dramatically during my lifetime.  Many things considered normal and trivial today were unthinkable in the 1950's.  I'm talking public beatdowns by an enraged general public and arrests by LEO's.

Every time you watch an old 1950's to mid-1960's movie pay close attention to the high school kids.  "Cool" was being as neat and spiffy as possible, compared to standards that have existed since about 1968 - look as trashy and worthless as possible, and think and act that way, too.

It's an old and trite saying that nobody believes any more, but take away the dress codes and behavior standards during the school years and you manufacture new people who don't have any standards except what they copy from the street.

I could go on on but I get a little too pissed off.  

I remember 1960 very well, if only from the perspective of a 7 year old. i tend to believe this year was the absolute high water mark of life in America.
 I grew up in South Bend,Indiana. My Dad was an Architect working on the Indiana portion of the Interstate highway system then under construction (I doubt we could even undertake a project of that magnitude now). We lived in a new subdivision. The house was small-maybe 1200 sq ft. One next door neighbor worked at Bendix, another at Wheel Horse. We made just about 100% of what we wanted and needed right here in the US. As far as I remember, NONE of my friend's Mothers worked outside the home-a man could buy a new house then,and raise a family with just him working. It probably helped that just about every one of them was a WW2 vet. This was the time of the Baby Boom, and this neighborhood was packed with kids. We played outside from morning until evening, and pretty much went wherever we pleased. There was always some mom watching us wherever we went,though.
 We didn't spend much time in front of a TV-we might watch Captain Kangaroo if we were sick and had to stay home from school, but TV didn't cater to children then-there wasn't much on that appealed to a 7 year old. So,we went out and played.
  My Mother walked the 5 blocks to school with me on my first day of kindergarten,and then I was on my own after that. You just followed the herds of kids,anyway. Most families only had one car,and dad had that,so no one got a ride to school. If it rained,we had those yellow raincoats and galoshes with buckles.
 At school, every teacher was dressed up-suits for men,and dresses for women. We wore decent clothes,too-no T-shirts and jeans. There were "School Clothes" and "Play Clothes". No one ate or drank anything in the classroom,including the teacher. If you messed up enough to get sent to the Principal, he (always a 'He') might get the paddle out. Then your Dad gave you another paddlin' when he got home from work.
 Fast Food was just starting to rear its ugly head-there was a new McDonalds just opened a few blocks from us, and it was a big deal to stop there. They only had one size of burger (small), and one size of fries,in a small envelope. You just did not see so many fat people then. In all the years I was growing up,we might have had pizza maybe TWICE-we ate a home-cooked meal every night, and carried our  waxed- paper wrapped baloney-on-white-bread sammiches to school in our metal lunchboxes. My parents only bought Coke or 7-up when relatives were coming over-then we got a glass of pop-we didn't drink from the bottle.
 It's hard to say if this sort of life was better than now-I'm sure I'm looking at it through rose-colored glasses, but I still feel America was still a much better place then.

You can believe it or not, but we played "war" a lot as kids in 1960, and we all had bits and pieces of WW2 Army gear to wear. One kid brought out a Mauser 98K that his Dad brought back,and we carried that all over the neighborhood. The barrel was packed with dirt and grass, but NO ONE ever stopped us. My brother traded something to that kid for the rifle, but his Dad came back later and got it back

The way I look at it, video entertainment is a reflection of the current culture.  Just take a look at the movies and TV shows of that time period and you realize that things were good, with the exception of the threat of atomic war (which we are still under) and Jim Crow in the South.



Things really were much simpler.

They were simpler. And much more boring.



People had worse medical care. But ate healther and exersized more.

People had less disposible income. But of course they didn't realize it.

People had less stuff to buy. But they didn't have all the cool toys.

.gov wasn't in peoples' lives as much. But there wasn't as many services (good ones also) and infrastructure wasn't as good.

Remember the interstate system was in it's infancy. You want to drive from coast to coast? Not 2-3 days, but 7-12 days instead.

If you were a minority, racism was still around. Real racism. Separate stuff for blacks.

If you were a women, you could work but wouldn't advance.

Taxes on the rich were actually higher. 91% top rate!!!!!!!

Few houses had A/C, only some had phones and TVs. No microwaves.

A MUCH larger portion of your day was just doing chores. Cooking, cleaning, washing, mowing etc... All took longer and was more tedious.





As we everything. Some things were better, others were worse.



I'd rather live now.

I was born in NYC and growing up there in the 60's was interesting. Harlem descended into hell, the crime rates rose and "liberalism" was the norm there. We took black kids out of the slums (called fresh air kids) and let them "experience" a "good" life for a week or two each year. It did no good what so ever. Leaving NYC for Connecticut was a shock. CT was quite conservative back then and life was great, and freedom was the norm. Freedom to do nearly what ever you wanted. Sadly, things are not the same now.

The single thing that was worse in those good old days... No ARs... only lever or bolt action long guns

I asked my Dad if this was the worst he had ever seen it over here with all the people pissed off, and he said it was the worst he has seen the gov't do in regards to listening, jamming shit down out throats, etc.

Hope this helps OP.

Did you live my life?  You brought back a lot of memories!

I would rather have lived then.  Back then women didn't work, because they didn't need to as most people were able to cover the basics without a second salary, this is due to all of the new taxes.  The 91% top rate is bogus, no one paid it because you could take all sorts of deductions.  The tax burden in the 50s and 60s were far lower than now as are the myriad of regulations and statutes.



Even in it's infancy, the lack of an interstate system did not prevent families from taking the iconic American road trip, an icon that has far faded.



I also have the feeling that the medical care of the 50s will soon make the future look like the dark ages.





 

I think people COULD live, in many ways, like we did in the 60's.  People would be unwilling to do so.  Nobodies mothers worked, but we lived very simple....it was the norm.  We had 1 TV in the house and 1 car.  Microwave ovens......those were for rich folks.  I never even got on an airplane until I was in college.  We went on simple, albeit it....tons of fun vacations in a simple pop-up camper that my parents saved for.   When one of us kids needed a bike, we scanned the want-ads and drove across town to buy a used bike.  Eating out was a big deal and I can remember doing it only a few times.  I never stayed in a motel, let alone a hotel, until I was married. I had a paper route at 10 years old.  I would get up a 4am on Sundays to get the papers on people door by 6am.  I did this by myself, my dad would drive only in the event of a blizzard.  Can you imagine sending your 10 YO out, by himself at 4am?!

I could go on, and on.

BTW.....racism was real, that was obviously bad.  Women's role is society was much better defined.

There were plenty of semi-autos then.

Yup; B.A.R.  

No doubt that many people would be happier back then.  



Medical care will continue to get better.  We will see how it all shakes out.  Worst case is it will be better but only limited to the ruling class.  Best case is the costs go up some and the people on the margins get screwed.  As usually happens with liberal policies.

I make that point in every one of these threads.





There is nothing stopping someone from buying a small house and only buying things that were avaliable in 1960. They could work in a local close hohum job and in reality the .gov probably would never bother them much.



The people that stick their head up are the ones that get noticed.



If you really wanted to get out you could find a place in AK or MT grow your own stuff and make a couple of trips for provisions a year and probably never see a Federal employee the rest of your life.

Arfcom back then was two cans and a string.

I would say you can see just fine, it was a great place and time to live.

We took a trip down south to visit some Civil War battlefields (one of my Dad's hobbies) back then, and what really sticks in my mind was seeing the "White Only" signs everywhere. Neighborhoods like ours had covenants that prohibited sales to any but White people. This was the very real racism that existed at that time. There was one Asian woman in our neighborhood-the only Asian person I ever saw until college. (She had been an officer in Chiang Kai Shek's army, and married an American Army colonel).
  We took a family vacation every summer, and drove somewhere,usually out west. We camped, with our heavy canvas tent and a Coleman stove. As another poster mentioned, the Interstates were either non-existent or under construction then, so it was regular roads all the way. You drove through every town along the way, and if you stopped for lunch, it sure wasn't at McDonalds, but some local resturant-it might be good,or it might be a greasy spoon-you never knew. One thing I remember is that once you got out to Wyoming or Colorado, paper money went away,and all you got in change were silver dollars (really!)
  Guns: My Dad also collected guns. He couldn't afford much, but he would see something he liked in 'Guns' magazine, and send in his money-just like that. Then a long,greasy box would come from "Ye Olde Hunter", and he would spend a few days out in the garage scraping cosmoline off that gun. He still has all of them,too.  If you had the money,here's something you could get:-this is an ad from a 1958 "Guns" magazine. Makes your .50 cal look a bit weak,doesn't it?

I was born in '60 in small town 250 miles up north of Toronto so this is much what I experienced. Being so far from big cities and America even we didn't see any of the strife of the 60s except on TV or in magazines. I saw the Viet Nam war through the eyes of Time magazine.

 








 

No AR15s, no internet, no thank you




In all seriousness, some things were better than now and some things were worse. Im happy I grew up in the 90s though.

ost

Here's another ad from 1958. Even then, German WW2 stuff was expensive. My Dad got one of those $5.58 Remington rolling blocks.