US History: Resources by Decade: 1950s

This engrossing anthology assembles classic New Yorker pieces from a complex era enshrined in the popular imagination as the decade of poodle skirts and Cold War paranoia--featuring contributions from Philip Roth, John Updike, Nadine Gordimer, and Adrienne Rich, along with fresh analysis of the 1950s by some of today's finest writers.   The New Yorker was there in real time, chronicling the tensions and innovations that lay beneath the era's placid surface. In this thrilling volume, classic works of reportage, criticism, and fiction are complemented by new contributions from the magazine's present all-star lineup of writers. The magazine's commitment to overseas reporting flourished in the 1950s, leading to important dispatches from East Berlin, the Gaza Strip, and Cuba during the rise of Castro. Closer to home, the fight to break barriers and establish a new American identity led to both illuminating coverage, as in a portrait of Thurgood Marshall at an NAACP meeting in Atlanta, and trenchant commentary, as in E. B. White's blistering critique of Senator Joe McCarthy. The arts scene is recalled in critical writing rarely reprinted, including Wolcott Gibbs on My Fair Lady, Anthony West on Invisible Man, and Philip Hamburger on Candid Camera. Also featured are great early works from Philip Roth and Nadine Gordimer, as well as startling poems by Theodore Roethke and Anne Sexton, among others. Completing the panoply are insightful and entertaining new pieces by present-day New Yorker contributors examining the 1950s through contemporary eyes. The result is a vital portrait of American culture as only one magazine in the world could do it. Including contributions by Elizabeth Bishop * Truman Capote * John Cheever * Roald Dahl * Janet Flanner * Nadine Gordimer * A. J. Liebling * Dwight Macdonald * Joseph Mitchell * Marianne Moore * Vladimir Nabokov * Sylvia Plath * V. S. Pritchett * Adrienne Rich * Lillian Ross * Philip Roth * Anne Sexton * James Thurber * John Updike * Eudora Welty * E. B. White * Edmund Wilson   And featuring new perspectives by Jonathan Franzen * Malcolm Gladwell * Adam Gopnik * Elizabeth Kolbert * Jill Lepore * Rebecca Mead * Paul Muldoon * Evan Osnos * David Remnick Praise for The 50s   "Superb: a gift that keeps on giving."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "[A] magnificent anthology."--Literary Review

Have the 1950s been overly romanticized? Beneath the calm, conformist exterior, new ideas and attitudes were percolating. This was the decade of McCarthyism, Levittowns, and men in gray flannel suits, but the 1950s also saw bold architectural styles, the rise of paperback novels and the Beat writers, Cinema Scope and film noir, television variety shows, the Golden Age of the automobile, subliminal advertising, fast food, Frisbees, and silly putty. Meanwhile, teens attained a more prominent role in American culture with hot rods, rock 'n' roll, preppies and greasers, and--gasp--juvenile delinquency. At the same time, a new technological threat, the atom bomb, lurked beneath the surface of the postwar decade. This volume presents a nuanced look at a surprisingly complex time in American popular culture.

Fulfills the standards: "Culture," "Individuals, Groups, and Institutions," "Power, Authority, and Governance," and "Science, Technology, and Society" from the National Council for the Social Studies Curriculum Standards for High School. Fulfills the standards: "Chronological Thinking," "Historical Comprehension," "Historical Analysis and Interpretation," and "Historical Research Capabilities" from the National History Education Standards for American History, Grades 5-12.

American writers of the 1920s, such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald, have been heralded as The Lost Generation, while an earlier generation formed The American Renaissance. Far less critical attention has been paid to mid-twentieth-century literature and how a super-charged body of writing changed our perceptions of the world. Beyond the Gray Flannel Suit considers the books of our lives, which shaped our times, whether we realize it or not. Where did youth culture come from? Why do people argue over pop and high culture? What part do race and ethnicity play in an author's work? By examining a carefully selected range of books and authors, Castronovo shows the true significance of the remarkable literary explosion that took place between the late 1940s and the JFK years.

This is Who We Were, provides the reader with a deeper understanding of day to day life in America in 1950. this new series is sure to be of value as both a serious research tool for students of American history as well as an intriguing climb up America's family tree. The richly-illustrated text provides an interesting way to study a truly unique time in American history.