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Compare And Contrast American Dream And Ideal Family Life In The 1950's

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During the Great depression, America’s economy crumbled causing money to be worthless, many to go years without jobs and unable to support their families, and many to become homeless and have to live in hard conditions because of the lack of resources and money, as well known, it was one of the hardest times in American history. As America healed from The Great Depression, and with the economy starting to stabilize again, the US started facing its new challenge of shaping social values and conflicts throughout the society. When looking back at the 1950’s, the first image that comes to mind is the “American dream” and “ideal family life” which was constantly pounded into people’s minds through advertisement and media. Throughout the articles, …show more content…

To start off, as the suburbs were described and built, the first viewpoint that I will discuss was the prediction of how these new city sections would outplay was that they would decrease status divisions. The “suburbs” were at first just another new healing strategy to help with leftover scars from the war. After the Great Depression, leading into the 1940’s, many began to get jobs again yet still were struggling and could not afford a home making the lack of shelter one of America’s biggest problems. By the 1950’s these groups of put together homes were the lifesaving answer to everyone’s problems! William Levitt along with his father and brother were the genius minds behind this entire operation with the construction of the first suburb which left everyone speechless because instead of crumbling under all the pressure like most, “Levitt took advantage of the housing crisis” (MAS 239). After years of downfall and failure, this new innovation was impressing almost every American around and with the new advertisement, positivity towards this project also spread very fast. Throughout the last global years, it was commonly accepted that social status and the desire for more social power rooted from the idea of some having an advantage in life or having

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Kenneth Jackson, the author of the book Crabgrass Frontier, provides an extensive overview of the history of and explains the causes to the suburbanization in the United States. He sees such development in the United States as unique due to the extent of cities’ suburban sprawl, the number of commuters, and the proportion of homeowners (190). Jackson explained that because of the inexpensive land, low construction cost, improvement in transportation technology and along with government’s involvement, Americans settle in the crabgrass frontier. However, Jackson describes that “[s]uburbs, then, were socially and economically inferior to cities when wind, muscle, and water were the prime movers of civilization… Even the word suburb suggested inferior

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1289 Words | 6 Pages

The social geography of the country altered dramatically. The encouragement given to homeownership helped spawn the suburban sprawl that would characterize postwar growth. As Michael Bennett, author of the main history of the GI Bill noted: “The GI Bill changed where and how Americans lived. Suburbs sprang up like mushrooms around every sizable city.... As surely as the Homestead Act of 1862 filled the prairies of the Far West, the GI Bill created and filled the suburbs.”

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671 Words | 3 Pages

In the 1920’s, World War 1 had just ended, but it left many Americans different from how it used to be. In Document A, it says, “They could not endure a life without values, and the only values they had been trained to understand being undermined. ”(Allen). This

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382 Words | 2 Pages

In the book “Suburban Nation, The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream”, Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck try to let their readers know another story about the suburban life. In their opinion, sprawl doesn’t help American

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1457 Words | 6 Pages

During the 1920s, the lifestyle of the ordinary American citizen had drastically taken a turn in comparison to prior years. Before World War I, Americans were careful to be frugal with their money; however, a new age of consumerism resulted in rash forms of spending in rising businesses and stocks. Although, life changed once again when the stock market crashed on March 21, 1929. The distinction in living conditions between the classes was extremely vast. While thousands of the working class and non-whites lost their jobs, the members of the upper ranks of society looked down upon them, believing it wasn’t their responsibility to provide for the less fortunate.

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672 Words | 3 Pages

Born into a working class family in 1920, I have seen many struggles. Family and God has always been important to me and how I was raised. Raised to work hard, love your family, and worship with the Lord to be thankful for what we have. The political, economic and social changes in this country from 1920 till 1950 affected our day to day living. The politics from 1920 to 1950 changed dramatically from governing the family with prohibition to assisting poor families, to security polices for protection.

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390 Words | 2 Pages

The objective of the post war time in the 1950s was American families striving to succeed in family harmony. The goals of these generations were to strive to provide more for their children, this would create a ‘generational gap.’ Motion pictures and TV shows made the idealize picture of family harmony after the end of World War II. Peyton Place, authored by Grace Metalious, proved something else. Depicting controversial occasions that took place behind closed doors of a ‘normal’ family home in the 1950s.

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469 Words | 2 Pages

The 1950’s in the United States was a very conflicting time in the country’s history. On one hand there was much economic prosperity, but on the other there was still massive amounts of segregation, discrimination, and the urge to conform to the idealistic “all American family”. The term that historians use when describing the 1950’s is an age of “consensus and conformity”. This means that due to the innovations of the time such as television, the consumer was told what they should buy, and how they should live their life. This restricted society by putting standards at which society should meet, and if they did not meet those standards they were considered odd, or out of place.

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The world is made of many races, cultures, traditions, beliefs, and values. America is considered to be a mixture of all those characteristics that define a person. However, in today’s world those characteristics combined and people who create North America define what America is all about reaching and the American dream. This dream is living a prosperous life by initiating a new beginning in moving forward to the ideal happiness of each individual reaching their goals and helping America be described as what it was meant to be the promised land of new beginnings. Nonetheless, for some races and genders, this was not the case especially during 1950’s to 1960’s because sexism and racism still existed.

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1475 Words | 6 Pages

Although the interpretation of the American Dream tends to vary from person to person, it is most frequently regarded as one 's standards of “the good life”(Hochschild). The general values constituting the American Dream have evolved throughout recent years leading to a decline in “the role of family”(Hochschild), and an increase in ,“the importance of having money”(Hochschild) in America 's ideal of “the good life”(Hochschild). For example, while pertaining to completely different age groups, Ellen a young woman in her early thirties and a senior Amerco Executive share the capitalistic ideology of prioritizing wealth over family. While Ellen admitted to the statement, “I do my e-mail during the calls, I’m not really paying to [my conversions with my grandparents]”(Turkle), the Amerco Executive admitted to not regretting prioritizing work over time with his daughters, stating, “put it this way, I’m pleased with how they turned out”(Hochschild). Both Ellen and the Amerco Executive, are subjects to, “a constellation of pressures [that are progressively] pushing [American] men and women further into the world of workplace and mall”(Hochschild).

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517 Words | 3 Pages

“A quarter of American employees make about $10 per hour, which creates an income below the Federal poverty level. These are the people who provide basic services for us on a daily basis: cashiers, fast food workers, and nurse's aides.” In the 1920’s and today, there are many cases in which families don't have sufficient income to obtain a substantial lifestyle. Now taking this into perspective, during the 1920’s this led to the Great Depression, and this event foreshadowed what has occurred today? Those who are affected by the income inequality have taken a different path from American Dream.

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648 Words | 3 Pages

America is known as “The Land of Opportunity” and it established the concept of the American Dream in the 1900’s. The fight for this dream was prevalent even before it was given a name in 1930. The founding fathers wrote this belief into the constitution with the words “All Americans are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” .Some Americans believe that the American Dream can still be obtained in the 21st Century with hard work and perservance ; however, a majority of the American population among race gender and class has a different point of view on what America still provides to their citizens because economic insta8bility and lack of equal opportunity.

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1487 Words | 6 Pages

What is the American dream? America always had that impact in other countries, as the land of dreams, opportunity, freedom of speech, and the list goes on and on. The American dream is about working hard to get were you want to be, make ours children lives better then what we had as child. Fitzgeral explains in his book, in 1920’s

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975 Words | 4 Pages

Over the years, a dream that changed the way the world saw the U.S. was created and it is the American Dream. As the years passed and the U.S. was developing the American Dream as well developed or as many say changed. The American Dream is a term that was introduced in 1931 by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America (Kamp 2). The term “American Dream” started with a meaning that was reachable: “a better, richer and happier life for all citizens of every rank”(3). Throughout the years the term`s meaning changed dramatically.

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3049 Words | 13 Pages

In areas like Park Slope, which was going through the gentrification process before the other parts of Brooklyn, was seen as an area with a lot “potential” to the middle class that was looking to work closer to the city (4). New York City also gave tax redemptions to people who lived in these areas or use these areas for private interest (4). People hearing this in the suburbs will slowly start to look to buy these houses in these areas since they will get tax redemptions and a potential to sell the houses in these areas for more they purchased making them more money. This will peak the interest for people to make more money rather than making a more livable city for all classes. This is seen in the borough of Barnsbury in London where landlords were starting to see tenants as unprofitable.

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