Thursday, November 1, 2007
How did the 1950s family become "traditional?"
Building off of yesterday's class: how did the media, sociologists, and others construct the ideal family model of the 1950s and how did this model become what we think of as the "traditional" family, even as it bore little resemblance to families of the 1800s, 1700s, etc.?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I think that the idea of the 1950's family was able to become the "traditional" family simply because of the technological boom which occurred in the late 40s and early 50s. With the advent of television, people could see and hear video recordings of advertisements or shows, and this ability greatly affected the public's view of what was desirable.
The traditional family, while being more of a constructed ideal made for film and television, could still claim to be traditional because one of the large aspects of it was the return of the women from the factories during the war to the home. New appliances made this seem more appealing, and one is able to see how some people could have thought that this was going to work out very well, with the positive attitudes people had after the war. People were willing to accept it even if it didn't bear any resemblance to the previous centuries partly because of the blind trust in the government and other authorities which was a prevailing notion in the public consciousness after WWII.
There seems to have always been seeds of desire to create the "traditional" family. Even in the early centuries of Republic, women were supposed to stay in the home, the husband be the breadwinner, and children help out at home and eventually go out on their own and start their own traditional families. This idea was thwarted though because of economic reasons. Children were taken out of the home and put in factories to help support their families. Women too, often had to get supplemental incomes.
Following World War II, the stable economy provided the family with the economic ability to take on the characteristics of the "traditional" family. As Gillian wrote, the advent of new technology made it easier to label what the "traditional" family was.
In response to Gillian and Claire:
I agree that the media is playing a significant role. I wonder, though, did Euro-Americans always seek a "traditional" family? It seems that Republican Motherhood/Wifedom - of the early Republic, was a decided break from the past and the "traditional" drudgery of domestic life that Americans thought about when they looked to the "old country" - Europe.
In one sense, Americans in the nineteenth century looked forward - they saw themselves as the forerunners of civilization, paving a new path with a new kind of family order, as opposed to the "backwards" (read: traditional) customs of "savage" peoples and nations.
Also - what about the Cold War? What effects could this have had on asserting the normalcy of the "traditional" family?
The cold war was largely about propoganda so I would have to say that once again this plays into the issue of the normal family. Part of the american tradition in this post war and during war and prewar era was a resonding investment and pride in the military and its service men. Part of the splendor of the "modern family" was that it lived under a nation that would protect and serve the family through economics and foriegn policy
Post a Comment