The Golden Age of American Childhood
The 1950s “stands out as the golden age of American childhood. It serves as the yardstick against which all subsequent changes in childhood are measured.” (Mintz, 276) However, the “1950s was a period of outward optimism but inward anxiety and fear.” (Mintz, 293) A variety of circumstances caused this anxiety and fear including the concern that a Russian education was superior to American education as evidenced by the launch of Sputnik, concerns about juvenile delinquency and the rise of gangs, concerns about the effects of this new thing called TV and the recognition that youth are now targeted “as a distinct audience” (Mintz, 296), anxieties about sexuality and the consequences of unexpected pregnancy with little access or knowledge about birth control, a focus on desegregation of schools, and the emergence of the civil rights movement. The social issues that rose to the forefront in the 1960s were fermenting in the 1950s. There were a lot of anxieties bubbling beneath the outward appearance of a “golden age of American childhood”. (Mintz, 276)
In 1957, Russia launched the Sputnik satellite. This satellite sent messages back to Earth for three weeks before the batteries died. A few months later Sputnik fell back into the earth’s atmosphere. The successful launch of Sputnik caused intense pressure to raise academic standards and improve American public education. Was America falling behind Russia? A stronger focus was placed on mathematics and science.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1
The focus on raising standards also addressed how students learned to read. The “whole word” method was the standard method to teach children to read at the beginning of the 1950s. In the early 1950s, 85 percent of U.S. schools used Dick and Jane readers to raise student literacy. (Mintz, 295) With the intense scrutiny of education, this method of teaching came under fire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_and_Jane
In 1955 Why Johnny Can’t Read by Rudolf Flesch became popular with its focus on phonetic reading, causing a shift in how reading was being taught. Phonetic reading was now considered the best way to teach reading.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Why_Johnny_Can_t_Read/EQcNmgSym-oC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
The intense focus on improving American education put pressure on children to be better readers, to excel in math and the sciences, and to achieve higher academic standards. College admissions testing emerged, adding a new pressure on students. The idea was that college entrance should be based on “merit and ability rather than wealth and social standing” (Mintz 290). These new pressures added to the anxieties of young people undermining the myth of a “carefree childhood” (Mintz, 2)
Postwar Childhood and the Baby Scoop Era
In postwar America, as the 1950s dawned, so too did a far more conservative America. Popular culture pushed marriage and children, especially the nuclear family, as “childlessness became a sign of maladjustment and parenthood a symbol of maturity and success,” according to Steven Mintz (277). Further, Mintz says, those who had a difficult childhood due to war and the insecurities bred in that time had a strong “impulse to marry, bear children, and provide them with a protected childhood…” (276).
Of course, some couples, particularly teenagers, found themselves entangled in the expectations of the culture with a girl who has ended up pregnant without being married. Prior to the 1950s, it would not have been unusual for parents to push marriage on such a couple. But the 1950s were more conservative and a rushed marriage that resulted in a baby six or seven months later did not reflect the family image that was so desired.
At this time, according to Mintz, “abortion was illegal and unsafe and few teens had access to reliable forms of birth control” (286). Additionally, Mintz writes, those babies born out of wedlock had their “birth records stamped ‘illegitimate'” (286). Worse still, many girls had little to no sexual education and did not realize how pregnancy actually happened; instead, sex education was focused on hygiene (Ghanoui). Because of this, more and more teenaged girls found themselves pregnant without real knowledge of how it could have happened. My own grandmother, born in 1939 and growing up in the 1950s, told me she had believed that one got pregnant when one wanted to and not before or after.
All of this combined to form a problem that parents of pregnant teens were unprepared to deal with and became known as the Baby Scoop Era. Pregnant girls were often sent away to maternity homes to deliver their babies—and give them up for adoption—in secret (O’Connor McNees). It didn’t matter what the mother wanted in the majority of cases, they were forced to give them up, sign away their rights, and never see their child again.
The following video offers a few stories from women who had given up their children and worked to reunite with those children decades later.
As is clear from this video, the Baby Scoop Era and the practices of that time had lasting effects on those involved. O’Connor McNees more specifically says that these practices had lasting psychological and emotional effects on the mothers and the children taken from them. The official end of maternity homes such as these appears to be debated with Google offering a variety of dates between 1970 and 1988. Thankfully, choice has been returned to the women to whom it should have belonged in the first place: the pregnant mothers.
The Dawning of Television
Television was introduced to Americans in 1939 and began to gain a foothold after World War II (1939–45). In the 1950s, the sale of TV sets and the boom in programming made TV America’s favorite source of entertainment. Consider the numbers: in 1946, 7,000 TV sets were sold; in 1948, 172,000 sets were sold; and in 1950, 5 million sets were sold. In 1950, just under 20 percent of American homes contained a TV set. Ten years later, nearly 90 percent of homes contained a TV—and some even had color TVs. The number of TV stations, channels, and programs all grew to meet this surging demand. The 1950s truly were the decade of the TV.
“The 1950s marked the first time that all the mass media specifically targeted youth as a distinct audience.” (Mintz, 295) This era was the beginning of shows such as Watch Mr. Wizard (1951), Romper Room (1953), The Mickey Mouse Club (1955), Captain Kangaroo (1955), and The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (1959). Teenagers were also drawn to Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, which began its decades-long run in 1952.
“The television shows boys watched reinforced a simplistic view of life as a struggle between good and evil.” (Mintz, 283) The Adventures of Superman first ran in 1952, but there were also a number of Western-themed shows including The Lone Ranger (1949), Davy Crockett (1954), Gunsmoke (1955), The Rifleman (1958), and Bonanza (1959).
“They were part of a conserted effort to combat the deepening disengagement of fathers from family life.” (Mintz, 298) Family-oriented shows also gained in popularity, including The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet (1952), Father Knows Best (1954) and Leave It to Beaver (1957).
Programs depicted young boys in various roles – the trouble-making Dennis the Menace (1959), the dog-loving owner in Lassie (1954) and in The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin (1954). Young girls did not have many starring roles, but adult females were depicted as strong-minded and funny in shows such as The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1950), I Love Lucy (1951), and The Honeymooners (1955).
Although Mintz claims that “Television broadcasting produced a shared children’s culture unprecedented in history, one that stretched across all social classes and regions.” (298) there were very few shows in the 1950s depicting non-whites. African-Americans starred in Amos & Andy (1951) and The Nat King Cole Show (1956). Zorro (1957) starred a Hispanic actor, although he changed his name from Armando Joseph Catalano to the more Americanized name of Guy Williams. As someone who grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, I watched Chief Halftown (1951) on Saturday mornings. He was a Seneca Indian born in New York, and I even remember him coming to visit my elementary school in the 1970s.
Nostalgia or Reality? Juvenile Delinquency of the 1950s
When people today reflect on the 1950s, they often do so with a sense of nostalgia. They think of rock and roll music, poodle skirts, dances, and in general, teenagers hanging out and having a good time. In the movie, Back to the Future, when Marty McFly travels back in time to 1955 in the DeLorean, audiences see images of clean-cut teenagers and hear feel-good songs, such as “Mr. Sandman,” instilling a sense of nostalgia on the part of the viewer. The video, “1950s Juvenile Delinquency: Nostalgic Myths and Historical Reality,” highlights many myths, that today’s culture holds when thinking of the 1950s. The video points to popular films of the 1970s, such as Grease and American Graffiti which painted the ’50s era as “quaint.” However, as the video argues, the 1950s were anything but “quaint.” In fact, violent crimes committed by youth at the time were on the rise in urban areas throughout the country.
When President Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke at the White House Conference on Children and Youth in 1960, he stressed that “juvenile delinquency in America needed immediate attention” (Holt, 2010). Although delinquency was not a new problem prior to the 1950s, the nation was experiencing a shift in the rate of violent crimes and in the demographic of those committing crimes. According to Mintz (2004), for more than a half-century before, gang related crimes had been perpetrated by “lower- and working-class teens who had turned to gangs to assert their manliness and to police ethnic boundaries.” During the 1940s, latchkey children had to take on more responsibilities while their fathers and brothers were off fighting in WWII, and their mothers were helping on the home front. A reason, the movie, Blackboard Jungle, highlighted as a salient cause for the increase in gang related violence in America (Mintz, 2004). As a result, teenagers began to reject “social hierarchies of authority which led to an increase in youth crime in the 1950s” (Trueblood, 2021). Mintz suggests that these latchkey children got involved in gangs because they offered places where they could find a sense of belonging, identity, and manliness. According to Mintz (2004), the number of gangs in urban areas such as New York City increased dramatically and were often “racially charged and violent as ice picks, knives, and homemade guns replaced sticks, stones, and bottles.” A Saturday Evening Post article, posted in 1955, stated that “crimes committed by teenagers increased by 45% in the first half of the 1950s” (Holtzworth, 2021). The Children’s Bureau, in a 1954 conference pointed to increases in juvenile delinquency in small cities and town – “in more fortunate neighborhoods and homes” (Holt, 2010).
Consequently, this created a moral panic among adults as they sought to identify the cause of increased crime and delinquent behavior among the youth in the nation. Many placed the blame on movies, comics, and television programs that depicted violent scenes, delinquent behavior, and gang violence. Films, such as Rebel Without a Cause and Jailhouse Rock promoted the images and ideas of teens rebelling against authority figures, as well as fights and drag racing. Especially troubling for audiences was the awareness that scenes like those depicted in Rebel Without a Cause could occur in white, suburban towns (Holt, 2010). Comic books came under heavy scrutiny after Frederic Wertham, in his 1954 publication of Seduction of the Innocent, accused the comics of causing youth to act out the violent crimes and sadistic scenes depicted in them (Mintz, 2004). Blame was also placed on the rise of rock and roll music and its popularity among teens, partly because the music originated among the Black and lower-class communities. The pulsating rhythmic music contained sexual connotations and rebellious themes that made youth want to listen to the music more, while ignoring their parents requests not to. Adults feared rock and roll would cause their children to “disrespect authority” and contribute to juvenile delinquency.
Regardless of the causes of juvenile delinquency in the 1950s, delinquent behavior among teenagers continues today. Is it the cause of violence in movies? Video games? Books? Or perhaps, it is because of the breakdown in families like the latchkey children of the 1940s?
Works Cited
1950s: TV and Radio | Encyclopedia.com
“1950’s Juvenile-Delinquency: Nostalgic Myths & Historical Reality.” YouTube, YouTube, 25 Apr. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl0WNjpWUtM.
“Children as Topic No. 1.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2010/summer/youth.html. Accessed 17 Feb. 2024.
Dick and Jane. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia,org/wiki/Dick_and_Jane
Forgeard, Author Valerie. “Shaking up Society: Why Was Rock and Roll Controversial in the 1950s?” Brilliantio, 31 July 2023, brilliantio.com/why-was-rock-and-roll-controversial-in-the-1950s.
Ghanoui, Saniya Lee. “From Home to School: Menstrual Education Films of the 1950s.”
Mintz, Steven. Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.
“Mister Sandman.” YouTube, YouTube, 29 Apr. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKnPrbPK5vA.
National Library of Medicine. Accessed Feb. 16, 2024. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK565596/.
O’Connor McNees, Kelly. “What History Teaches Us About Women Forced to Carry Unwanted Pregnancies to Term.” Time Magazine. Accessed Feb. 16, 2024. https://time.com/6103001/baby-scoop-era-abortion/.
Sputnik. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1
“The Chicken Run: Rebel without a Cause (1955).” YouTube, YouTube, 2 Nov. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGtEp7zFdrc.
The End of the Golden Age and the Rise of Television | DPLA
“The Enduring Myths of the 1950s People Should Unlearn – Page 8.” History Collection, 16 Feb. 2022, historycollection.com/the-enduring-myths-of-the-1950s-people-should-unlearn/8/.
“The Girls Who Went Away: Author Chronicles ‘Hidden Adoption’ Stories.” YouTube. Who13. 29 Apr. 2022. https://youtu.be/A-4hV_4YexI?t=1.
Why Johnny Can’t Read. (n.d.). In Google.
Hello and thank you for your work on this side exhibition!
In response to your statement and questions: “Regardless of the causes of juvenile delinquency, the 1950s, delinquent behavior among teenagers continues today. Is it the cause of violence in movies? Video games? Books? Or perhaps, it is because of the breakdown families like the latchkey children of the 1940s?”
Certainly the constant exposure to violence in movies, video games, and media is not healthy. However, I don’t think we can simply put the blame for juvenile delinquency on that alone. I feel it is the lack of many factors in the home environment. Children need to experience love, care, and compassion. However, there seems to be a growing problem with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s). As Nadine Burke Harris explains in her TedTalk, we need to ask ourselves the question “What the hell is in this well?” What is at the root, the cause of the illness. We need to do more to educate parents and society about the implications of ACE’s… do more in the way of preventative care.
https://www.ted.com/talks/nadine_burke_harris_how_childhood_trauma_affects_health_across_a_lifetime?hasSummary=true&language=en
Karen, thanks for sharing this link to Nadine Burke Harris’s TED Talk! Just to have this in our discussion, here’s a link to the Burke Foundation’s website: https://burkefoundation.org/what-drives-us/adverse-childhood-experiences-aces/
Focusing on the creation of television and the number of consumers who bought one was a great way to emphasize just how many individuals in society are exposed to its viewing content. Children are impressionable and even humorous shows amongst others can have an impact of emotional and psychological development.
Hi Julia! I agree with you wholeheartedly. Children are human sponges and absorb the media. I wonder the effects that social media has on children today vs 10-20 years ago.
Your team makes so many great points!
I love that you write, “Worse still, many girls had little to no sexual education and did not realize how pregnancy actually happened; instead, sex education was focused on hygiene (Ghanoui). Because of this, more and more teenaged girls found themselves pregnant without real knowledge of how it could have happened.” Similar to the connection you made with one of your grandmothers, my great-grandmother experienced the same. It is interesting how we (society) want children to be innocent and unknowing, but in this case, ignorance is not bliss. They may grow up faster than we want if they become teenage parents due to a lack of education on safe sex and birth control.
These experiences of your grandmothers are so informative, Melissa and “Postwar Childhood and the Baby Scoop Era” author! Thank you for sharing their stories with us.
It seems like these examples are a way of showing that in some areas, it can allow children to stay young longer when they have the information needed to protect their own youthfulness!
Hi everyone! This is a great exhibition! I love how you ended with questions to leave your audience wondering why this behavior occurs in today’s generation. I know that when I was growing up myself, friends, and peers did not act how teenagers did in the 40s and 50s. I wonder what the reason could be now. Could it be due to lack of internet protection by parents? Students at school? People in the students lives? In addition, I always say children and like sponges. Anything and everything you do or say, they take note which can psychologically/emotionally alter their thinking/actions.
I loved the exploration of “delinquent” culture in your side exhibit! I immediately think about ‘The Outsiders’ and ‘Back to the Future’ (which is the exemplar case of 70s doing 50s nostalgia). In my opinion, I don’t think the 50s had a particularly tough message on “those rascal kids”; this seems to be a pretty universal dichotomy between adults/kids, right? I think about last week’s examples of “the knowing (and rebellious) child” with examples like ‘Ferris Bueller’s day Off’ ‘The Breakfast Club’ and other classics. If we look back to antiquity, in Greek mythology, there are plenty of stories of kids rebelling against their elders (see: Cronus). What I’m getting at is that while the 50s may not have been particularly special in its acts of rebellion by children, perhaps there are other factors that make us think it is.
Hi Group E! Wow, these artifacts you’ve shared with us are powerful. I felt so emotionally involved in seeing “The Girls Who Went Away” and hearing about how Tom Taylor was finally able to hug his daughter after decades of not knowing her. Btw, I see on Ann Fessler’s website that an adoption stories audio archive is coming soon (https://www.annfessler.com/). I’ve heard of the movie Rebel Without a Cause, and I had not seen a clip from it before. In watching the drag racing scene, I kept thinking this didn’t have to happen, and there was such a stark reality in the trauma that they would have to process. And I’m realizing, too, in looking for information about James Dean that he died at age 24 the same year this film was released.
You’ve given us much to consider! Thanks for your engaging and thought-provoking exhibit!