C. Wright Mills analyzed people in the 1950's a "cheerful robots" and he was completely correct. It was the 1950's where America was once again in a state of prosperity, we were out of the war, out of the depression, and ready to embrace life again. Many changes were to take place during this time period, for one the housing market became extremely cheap with the birth of suburbia. Individual houses for smaller families were now readily available all across America, though all the houses were almost identical giving people identical surroundings.
The ideology of the "nuclear family" took the forefront of American expectations with family, the father as the bread winner happy to commute from his mint green house in suburbia to his desk job in the city, the housewife who was all too pleased to constantly surround herself with housework and her new electric appliances, the two kids and a dog. Of course in retrospect we know that this was all a facade (especially in the case of the housewife, who was often lonely, depressed, and acted so cheerful because she was completely drugged out on uppers), it was the identity all Americans desperately tried to display. The dawning of the 1950's was the dawning of conformity, Americans wanted everything to be the same as everyone else. I personally believe that after the war the rebirth of the American Spirit and American Dream caused Americans to unify under one banner, the surburban family.
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Very nicely done. Maybe a little more about the changes would have been nice.
ReplyDeleteStefani
ReplyDeleteWhat you wrote was well written. I believe that you could have had a little more detail. Also some of what you wrote were false statements. The part where you were talking about the smaller family is inaccurate because this was the time of the baby boom. Also the women at home were following the norms that society established with house work.
I agree with Sharon and Megan. However, you got your point agree and I got the idea about what C. Wright Mills meant by "cheerful robots". Good job.
ReplyDeletePossibly, by smaller families she meant the new focus on nuclear, rather than extended, families.
ReplyDeleteI like how you included the idea of the "perfect family" being a nuclear family. It's sad how at one point Americans were so conformist that they risked their happiness for a stupid idea of what was socially correct.
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