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Culture of the 1950s

Perhaps more pointedly than anything else, 1950s TV ads take you directly into the mindset of the time. I have also included runway films that showcase the fashions for women and men.

Trigger Warning: be forewarned that you will be shocked by the objectification and limitations put on women in particular in these images/ads. Advertisements pushed a woman to groom herself to attract, marry, and then keep a man through her pleasing appearance and expertise at running a clean, neat household. According to these ads, her primary purpose was to support her husband in his goals and to nurture well-behaved, successful children. Often, husbands were presented as “long-suffering,” putting up with her “frivolous” expenditures on clothes and new hairstyles—the very things she has been inculcated to believe granted her worth. SUSPECT RED’s Abby and Teresa are examples of 1950s women who managed to find themselves within those constraints. Natalia and Ginny are the future—poised to break them open.

The ads are also a reminder of the pressures put on men. Being a stalwart member of the community, popular with the guys, a reliable breadwinner, motivated by the promise of owning a house with a two-car garage—not much room to show emotions or much incentive to choose professions that didn't guarantee steady income and affluence.

Look at today’s ads and see if you think our society has taken enough strides forward.

Montage of Different Ads

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tC41U8lvVs

Alka-Seltzer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxjb2UJZ-5I

Hoover Vacuum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O82VA87g4o

Coca-Cola

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4hlH-lX5r4

Yo-Yos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2BJpMtv71k

Toys of “the Future” (including an atomic canon and flying saucers)