Going Home to the Fifties

Rating:
Summary: At Long Last...
Review: a book that celebrates that wonderful decade known as the 1950's and does so without irreverance, parody, or sarcasm. I came across the wonderful gem of a book quite by accident. For years, I had wished that someone would write a book that highlighted this time in American history and Bill Yenne does a SUPERB job.

Not only is the text informative, but the wonderful pictures and illustrations, along with real advertisements, make this book a must-have for the serious afficianado. Unfortunately, you can find books out there about the fifties, but they are written by those who want to make fun of that time and use intellectual sophistication to castigate this era in America. How do I know it was such a good time?

Well, I don't recall high school students shooting and knifing other students. Teen pregnancy numbers were quite low, movies had a point to them, drug abuse wasn't rampant, and some things were still honored and revered, such as church, country, and family. (No, I am not a Falwell/Robetrtson/Dobson right-wing fundamentalist.) But I am a moderate and I guess one of the many things I love about that time was its moderation and its optimism.

Here we were right after a world war, eager to achieve and enjoy the promise of America and full of boundless optimism about our future. President Eisenhower led with a fatherly hand, and people grew and flourished. The malcontent and sociopath were the exception rather than what seems like the rule today. People seemed to have some reference to the whole rather than just an apathetic, "I don't give a damn" attitude. There were no violent gangsta rap songs flooding the airwaves with hate, and wonder of wonders, the music was really good-now considered classic.

Yes, those halcyon days are gone now and we've "grown up." Just about anything goes and you don't have to look very far to find a social or psychic cesspool to wallow in. Being born in the late fifties, I know that my generation is the last to have enjoyed the fruitage of that great decade. But for a time, it was ours and it was sparkling, and it was the real deal.

So get this book and spend an afternoon savoring each delicious memory and picture. You can't help but feel better after you put the book down and in fact, will find yourself returning there again and again.

Rating:
Summary: At Long Last...
Review: a book that celebrates that wonderful decade known as the 1950's and does so without irreverance, parody, or sarcasm. I came across the wonderful gem of a book quite by accident. For years, I had wished that someone would write a book that highlighted this time in American history and Bill Yenne does a SUPERB job.

Not only is the text informative, but the wonderful pictures and illustrations, along with real advertisements, make this book a must-have for the serious afficianado. Unfortunately, you can find books out there about the fifties, but they are written by those who want to make fun of that time and use intellectual sophistication to castigate this era in America. How do I know it was such a good time?

Well, I don't recall high school students shooting and knifing other students. Teen pregnancy numbers were quite low, movies had a point to them, drug abuse wasn't rampant, and some things were still honored and revered, such as church, country, and family. (No, I am not a Falwell/Robetrtson/Dobson right-wing fundamentalist.) But I am a moderate and I guess one of the many things I love about that time was its moderation and its optimism.

Here we were right after a world war, eager to achieve and enjoy the promise of America and full of boundless optimism about our future. President Eisenhower led with a fatherly hand, and people grew and flourished. The malcontent and sociopath were the exception rather than what seems like the rule today. People seemed to have some reference to the whole rather than just an apathetic, "I don't give a damn" attitude. There were no violent gangsta rap songs flooding the airwaves with hate, and wonder of wonders, the music was really good-now considered classic.

Yes, those halcyon days are gone now and we've "grown up." Just about anything goes and you don't have to look very far to find a social or psychic cesspool to wallow in. Being born in the late fifties, I know that my generation is the last to have enjoyed the fruitage of that great decade. But for a time, it was ours and it was sparkling, and it was the real deal.

So get this book and spend an afternoon savoring each delicious memory and picture. You can't help but feel better after you put the book down and in fact, will find yourself returning there again and again.

Rating:
Summary: Going home to the Fifties with Madison Avenue.
Review: I was intrigued when I first saw this pop up on Amazon while looking for another book about the Fifties and I placed an order. Now having read and looked through it a more apt title would be 'Going Home to the White Middle Class Suburban Fifties'. The author covers the period with a rather narrow focus, concentrating mainly on home life in the newly built suburbs and the reason for this is because nearly all the interesting illustrations (paintings and photos) are images taken from ads of the time. There are chapters about The Living Room, In the Kitchen, The Bed and Bath, Watching Television, all areas where pictures from ads would be available but no chapter, for instance, about suburban shopping, supermarkets and malls were not heavy advertisers in mass-market magazines back then. It does seem odd to allow the availability of ad images to dictate the contents of a book about the recent past.

This does create some odd situations, page thirty-seven shows a Saturday Little League game with an Oldsmobile taking most of the space, page forty has a painting to show a village theater but it is dominated by a 1957 Oldsmobile, on pages forty-one and forty-two the five-day-a-week trek to collect commuter hubby from the train station uses a painting with six Chevrolets taking more space than the train.

The author covers the period in a straightforward way and I get the impression that it is the pictures that count rather than the words (set in a rather large type size) which just fill out the space between the two, three or four pictures on each spread. The captions are redundant as they only describe what can be seen in the pictures. There is a good index but no bibliography.

'Going Home to the Fifties does capture some of the feel of this wonderful period for the white middle classes and it was a neat idea to use the very images that helped to create this feeling but I think another book does a better job, the stunning 'All-American Ads: 50s' by Jim Heimann, 960 pages of color ads including many that had the pictures used in Bill Yenne's book but now you can see and read the whole ad. Two other books I've enjoyed are Thomas Hines's 'Populuxe' and Time/Life books 'The American Dream: the 50s' both have interesting text and plenty of photos to capture the period.

Rating:
Summary: Going home to the Fifties with Madison Avenue.
Review: I was intrigued when I first saw this pop up on Amazon while looking for another book about the Fifties and I placed an order. Now having read and looked through it a more apt title would be 'Going Home to the White Middle Class Suburban Fifties'. The author covers the period with a rather narrow focus, concentrating mainly on home life in the newly built suburbs and the reason for this is because nearly all the interesting illustrations (paintings and photos) are images taken from ads of the time. There are chapters about The Living Room, In the Kitchen, The Bed and Bath, Watching Television, all areas where pictures from ads would be available but no chapter, for instance, about suburban shopping, supermarkets and malls were not heavy advertisers in mass-market magazines back then. It does seem odd to allow the availability of ad images to dictate the contents of a book about the recent past.

This does create some odd situations, page thirty-seven shows a Saturday Little League game with an Oldsmobile taking most of the space, page forty has a painting to show a village theater but it is dominated by a 1957 Oldsmobile, on pages forty-one and forty-two the five-day-a-week trek to collect commuter hubby from the train station uses a painting with six Chevrolets taking more space than the train.

The author covers the period in a straightforward way and I get the impression that it is the pictures that count rather than the words (set in a rather large type size) which just fill out the space between the two, three or four pictures on each spread. The captions are redundant as they only describe what can be seen in the pictures. There is a good index but no bibliography.

'Going Home to the Fifties does capture some of the feel of this wonderful period for the white middle classes and it was a neat idea to use the very images that helped to create this feeling but I think another book does a better job, the stunning 'All-American Ads: 50s' by Jim Heimann, 960 pages of color ads including many that had the pictures used in Bill Yenne's book but now you can see and read the whole ad. Two other books I've enjoyed are Thomas Hines's 'Populuxe' and Time/Life books 'The American Dream: the 50s' both have interesting text and plenty of photos to capture the period.

Rating:
Summary: A great look at the "good old days."
Review: I've been fascinated with the 50's since I was a child. Almost everything I've read on the 50's has been clouded with cynicism. While reading this book, I really felt like I was transported back in time and into the minds of people who were living in this time. I felt it did a great job of explaining "materialism" and "housewives" (that had normally gotten such a bad reputation). I just don't think I can say enough good things about this book. I'm glad I bought it, and will hopefully share it with others who share my fascination and enthusiasm.