THE GOLDEN AGE ★^947War, insisted a reporter for House Beautiful magazine, was “the freedom offered
by washing machines and dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, automobiles, and
refrigerators.”
The TV World
Thanks to television, images of middle-class life and advertisements for
consumer goods blanketed the country. By the end of the 1950s, nearly nine of
ten American families owned a TV set. Television replaced newspapers as the
most common source of information about public events, and TV watching
became the nation’s leading leisure activity. Television changed Americans’
eating habits (the frozen TV dinner, heated and eaten while watching a
program, went on sale in 1954).
With a few exceptions, like the Army-McCarthy hearings mentioned in
the previous chapter, TV avoided controversy and projected a bland image of
middle-class life. Popular shows of the early 1950s, such as The Goldbergs (with
Jewish immigrants as the central characters) and The Honeymooners (in which
Jackie Gleason played a bus driver), featured working-class families living in
urban apartments. By the end of the decade, they had been replaced as the dom-
inant programs by quiz shows, westerns, and comedies set in suburban homes
like Leave It to Beaver and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Television also
became the most effective advertising medium ever invented. To polish their
image, large corporations sponsored popular programs—The General Electric
Theater (hosted for several years by Ronald Reagan), Alcoa Presents, and others.
TV ads, aimed primarily at middle-class suburban viewers, conveyed images of
the good life based on endless consumption.
A New Ford
“The concept of freedom,” wrote one commentator in 1959, “has become as
familiar to us as an old hat or a new Ford.” And a new Ford—or Chrysler or
Chevrolet—now seemed essential to the enjoyment of freedom’s benefits.
Along with a home and television set, the car became part of what sociologists
called “the standard consumer package” of the 1950s. By 1960, 80 percent of
American families owned at least one car, and 14 percent had two or more,
nearly all manufactured in the United States. Most were designed to go out of
style within a year or two, promoting further purchases.
Auto manufacturers and oil companies vaulted to the top ranks of corpo-
rate America. Detroit and its environs were home to immense auto factories.
The River Rouge complex had 62,000 employees, Willow Run 42,000. Since the
military increasingly needed high-technology goods rather than the trucks and
What were the main characteristics of the affluent society of the 1950s?