HIS 359

Yaolee Chen

Robert McCoy

The Culture of 1950s

Elvis Presley, 1935-1977, a rock singer, represented the culture of 1950s with a great affluence by his rock music. The culture of 1950s or called the rebellion generation had great to do the Elvis Presley.

The 1950s were the years of the complexity feeling about the racism for the southern whites. Shortly before the culture of rebellion, Harry S. Truman called for the loyalists to lunch for the anti-communists crusade, a crusade that encouraged the Americans to have the unequal right of the prosperities. Then, in Eisenhower’s administration, the equal right of prosperities were protected by the laws. Many poor white southerners had the same feeling like Elvis Presley that we were not the communists; yet, we had to share the prosperities with the blacks. So in the music of Presley, he combined the affection and respect for the traditions of poor white southerners, with his blues conveyed rebellion against defiance of those traditions. ‘The pattern of respect and rebellion gave Presley’s early music its remarkable emotional complexity and power.’

‘In his 1956 television appearances Elvis, shaking his hips and swiveling his knees, shattered the world of bland family entertainment with his raw, unruly power. Adults were outraged over the “vulgarity” of “Elvis the Pelvis”, and most programs showed him only from the waist up when he was performing.’ Presley was one of the very example that the children of 1950s took, while others wrote books, like “On the Streets” for example, and brought children out of their comfortable home to spend children’s days and nights on the streets. In 1950s, the media, the actors and the writers played an important role in our American society.

Few parents of the 1950s expected their children to be of a rebellion generation. Following the post-war prosperity, the American adults first time in the U.S. history had the hypor-sexcial energy to buy their own houses, to spend the money on education, and to invest on their children--- giving them nice housing and nice TV sets to watch. As Eisenhower believed, marriage was necessary for each couple. Parents of 1950s was hoping their children to follow the tradition of nuclear family; but the results of their expectation ran into an opposite direction, children of 1950s ran away from home and pissed at the nuclear family. Elivis Presley was one of the important singers who had a great influence in the culture of 1950s in America.