The Culture of the 1950s
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Another Part of the Fifties by Paul A. Carter reassesses the 1950s from an 80s perspective. Carter establishes the fifties as a decade worthy of another look because this period has traditionally been slighted. The "anti intellectual" (x) era is of particular interest to the author because the early part of the decade coincided with his graduate school years, and his first teaching appointment occurred during the remainder. He rejects the popular view among academicians that the Eisenhower years were an intellectual vacuum, preferring to consider them a vital decade, less "shallow" (xii), and possessing more integrity than the eighties. Even though he acknowledges that his study is subjective, it is valid both as memoir and history.In the author's words, Another Part of the Fifties is a kind of "overall synoptic work" (ix) in the manner of the American historians Commager (1950), Gabriel (second edition, 1956), or Persons (1958). It contains two parts, one devoted to the political framework of the fifties and the other to intellectual life. In his overview, Carter frequently takes a defensive stance in an attempt to vindicate a decade thought to be naive and moralistic. In the preface to the book, Carter decries the "counter moralizing" of the sixties (xi), and he says that "far from being anti intellectual, Americans in the fifties would never dream of closing down a university" (xi). Instead of evading a personal judgment of the fifties, Carter welcomes the opport
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period, as the small screen offered a free stay at home alternative. Movies offered Cinerama, Smell O Vision, and 3 D, but these options were to no avail. The free alternative offered by television was sometimes exceedingly good. As Carter points out:
drama from the starving New York theater world people like Paul Newman, Kim Stanley, Rod Steiger, or Joanne Woodward now moved on to Hollywood ... a teleplay could win critical applause and awards as a movie (on TV) ... and be made a good deal cheaper. (219)
This period has been called "the golden age of TV," no doubt due to the pouring through of enormous theatrical talent with no live stages on which to perform.
Carter spends a good deal of time defending Eisenhower in his book, but there is one point at which even Ike supporters are at a loss to defend their hero. Eisenhower's handling of the McCarthy problem "was, and remains, one of the most hotly controverted issues of his presidency" (42).
Carter is no more able to defend Ike's inability to act than the next historian:
Younger historians, put off by the war waging administrations of the sixties and attracted to Ike's manifest good will for the world, have in recent years been revising his reputation upward; but they co
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1658
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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