Social Changes In The 1950s

I believe that this question will cover the main points of the article, which are the changes happening in the 1950s in terms of social and economic aspects. The changes in 1950s were positive as compared to the decades before it, which is the Great Depression following with the instability of post-World War II. Moreover, it inspires my peers to talk about the difference between the 1950s and now, and how the differences contribute to people’s nostalgia for the 1950s as a better time. For example, while there may be social problems such as teen pregnancy and lower education, these problems were not serious since teenagers got married before the child was born, and men could get jobs that paid well even with high school or lower education.

Those that befitted from the social prosperity were white men. Groups that were excluded from the positive changes of the 1950s were people of color, the poor, the LGBT community, and those affected by the “Red Scare”. They didn’t get to enjoy the same opportunities for home subsidies or support for higher education, as people of color were forced to congregate in shabby neighborhoods, and those who were targeted by the Red Scare saw their career and reputation destroyed. White women didn’t completely experience positive changes of this period either, as they had to give up their jobs and the freedom that they fought hard to gain in the previous decades, and they were told to send their parents to nursing homes to fully devoted themselves to families, and at the same time they had to be willing to send their male children out to the world earlier, which led to alcohol and substance abuse in women in this time period, according to the

At the beginning of the article, Coontz argued that what we miss about the 1950s is not the family structure, but the economic prosperity and an optimistic outlook for the future of the children. These were in fact created by the government, through the government subsidies for higher education, higher taxes on corporations, and corporations were forced to share extra earnings they made in this period with their employees, from janitors and secretaries to CEOs. Government assistance programs allowed families to remain stable and not fall back into poverty even if they were struck by bad