Post-war society: Social life in 1950's

What are you thinking when you see a pictures of your parents or grandparents back in 50's? Old black and white photos, people in simple clothing, sitting on the sofas with strange (looks almost shabby!!) upholstery, but, somehow, they seems happy. Life in the early 1950’s was still very strict and simple. Women were still obligated to the status of housewife and men were the main breadwinners in the family. Children, including teenagers, were to be seen and not heard but by the mid-1950’s, that was becoming more difficult because of newfound freedoms, rock and roll music, and other outlets teenagers had available to them. 

Family gathered around the radio

In USA, segregation and racism was still part of life and although there were some major changes to erase both like in 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation in public schools were unconstitutional, there were still problems forcing blacks to take drastic measures for equality and inclusion like in 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus. 

Rosa Parks arrested in 1955

Cold War paranoia

"Don't brag about your job" poster

The poster Don't Brag About Your Job was displayed in government and military offices dealing with sensitive material in the early 1960s. It is a strange cousin of the public health campaigns produced by the Central Office of Information, the government's communications agency after the Second World War. Using a genial cartoon style like that which encouraged children to cross the road with care or smokers to give up, this breezy design alluded to a period of deep anxiety when the Cold War seemed to be getting hotter by the day.

The designers, Reginald Mount and Eileen Evans, had tuned their skills during the Second World War with witty, economical images that delivered government messages without preaching or alarming their viewers. As their colleague Abram Games put it: "maximum impact with minimum means“. Don't Brag About Your Job reminded employees of the interest that Britain's enemies might have in this information. While not explicitly anti-communist, it captures the fear of infiltration and espionage that fuelled Cold War paranoia.

The poster dates from a period punctuated by notorious cases of espionage. In early 1963 British spy Kim Philby - one of the 'Cambridge Five' - defected to the Soviet Union. Within weeks, the Profumo Affair exploded when the British secretary of state for war was linked to a naval attache in the Soviet embassy through their shared attraction to Christine Keeler. The image of the spy infiltrated British popular culture, as Ian Fleming and Len Deighton's novels testify. Mount and Evans's charactet was, however. no James Bond: he was the office show off, no doubt a far more commonplace character.

When Hollywood destroyed New York

In 1953, the heat generated by an atomic bomb test near the North Pole releases a dinosaur from its Arctic tomb. The frenzied beast promptly heads for New York, where it wreaks havoc on Manhattan, before being killed at Coney Island amusement park.

Then, barely half a decade later, a superhumanly strong killer robot goes on the rampage through the Big Apple, causing destruction on an epic scale. Only the presence of mind of an heroic young American saves the city from being wiped from the face of the earth.

The scene from The Beast from 20.000 Fathoms