# Is the late 1940s ignored in American pop-culture history?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 30, 2023, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283 "2023-10-30T01:57:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/41 "2023-10-30T19:31:59Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> Remember when the Puerto Rican nationalists were shooting from the gallery in Congress, and tried to kill Truman when he was staying at Blair House while the White House was under repair?
I was kinda young then, but I still know those incidents took place in 1954 and 1950, respectively.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/42 "2023-10-30T19:38:55Z")
Does Arthur Miller count as pop culture, or is that too high a literature? Because his key work “Death Of A Salesman” premiered in 1949. We read it in my English class in the mid-80s (in Germany) and took it as both a period piece as well as a timeless depiction of American society. Is it still relevant?
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/43 "2023-10-30T20:10:56Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> There was a connection here; Harold Russell. Russell appeared in _The Best Years of Our Lives_ and won two Oscars. He was also heavily involved in veterans’ groups. When Truman fired MacArthur, Russell went on a national tour to veterans’ groups, defending Truman and the principle of military subordination to civilian authority.
I was discussing Oscar trivia with a friend of mine, and Russell’s name came up. I googled him and discovered he’s buried in a nearby town. I had some free time there and searched the small town cemetery until I found his grave.
Sounds like he was an interesting guy.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/44 "2023-10-30T23:01:03Z")
Bebop and Abstract Expressionism: begun before the end of WWII, and continued well into the “Happy Days” version of the 50s, but their heyday was within the OP
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/45 "2023-10-30T23:23:04Z")
Zoot suits were common though before the late 1940s - the Zoot Suit riots were in 1943.
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### Author:  [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/46 "2023-10-30T23:28:57Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> _ **Noir** _ is the first thing I think of when it comes to movies of the late '40s
Two important films were Key Largo, Bogart,1948, and The Third Man, Orson Welles. The anti-hero who no longer knows, or doesn’t care, what is right in theaftermath of Nazism and the of capitalism in both films set important tones and tropes, I think.
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2023, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/47 "2023-10-30T23:56:03Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#):
>
> Zoot suits were common though before the late 1940s - the Zoot Suit riots were in 1943.
Yes, but what I said was that I associate zoot suits with the late 40s. I believe there was a relatively brief period (45 or 46, I think) when zoot suits were the rage among the hipster crowd. (Well they didn’t call them hipsters then, but the people who the first to adopt all the fads.)
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### Author:  [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/48 "2023-10-31T00:09:19Z")
> [@dtilque](#):
>
> (Well they didn’t call them hipsters then, but the people who the first to adopt all the fads.)
Actually Wikipedia says they were called hipsters then. Or also hepcats.
> **[Hipster (1940s subculture)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipster_(1940s_subculture))**
>
> The terms hipster or hepcat, as used in the 1940s, referred to aficionados of jump blues and jazz, in particular bebop, which became popular in the early 1940s. The hipster subculture adopted the lifestyle of the jazz musician, including some or all of the following features: Conk hairstyles, loose fitting suits with loud colors, jive talk slang, use of tobacco, cannabis and other recreational drugs, relaxed attitude, love for Jazz or Jump blues music, and styles of swing dancing especially Lindy...
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/49 "2023-10-31T00:14:58Z")
Ah, understood.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/50 "2023-10-31T01:06:56Z")
There seems to be some debate over when the events in _The Catcher in the Rye_ took place (the book itself was published in 1950-51), but in one passage Holden alludes to his brother’s death in 1946 as being three years earlier.
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### Author:  [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/51 "2023-10-31T06:41:56Z")
In sports there are some distinguishing characteristics to this time period.
Baseball of course had Jackie Robinson. Pro football also re-integrated during this period, the NFL did feature a smattering of black players before going all white for about a dozen years. Baseball also featured a big attendance boom for a few years, with many franchises drawing a million customers for the first time ever. That boom extended to the minor leagues with a record number of leagues and teams. The 1950s saw an abatement of this boom, with reduced attendance due to TV and other reasons, shrinking minor leagues, eventual major league franchise shifts.
Pro football also had its first successful competitor league in the AAFC, which ran during this period. The last season of the AAFC was 1949, when three teams were absorbed in the NFL. The NFL, particular post 1952, then entered a period of statis (no franchise shifts) and growth until the AFL came around in 1960.
Pro Basketball also exploded during this time with two competing leagues for a time. Eventually the NBA settled down to eight teams for most of the 1950s. There was also a big point shaving scandal that happened in 1950 but really feels more connected to the 1940s athletic scene.
Seems there was more wildcatting and sorting out in this late 1940s period with the 1950s being far more stable and conservative.
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### Author:  [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/52 "2023-10-31T10:02:41Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> Bebop
Bebop, with its fast and harmonically complex chord changes, was definitely a game-changer in the history of jazz.
It had a profound influence on the following 30 years, either in extensions of it (hard bop and arguably free jazz) or against it (cool jazz and modal jazz), but its high water mark is definitely the mid-to-late 40s.
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/53 "2023-10-31T11:20:11Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#):
>
> Posters aren’t finding much current pop culture about the late 40s because there is next to none
You’re right. I think the Coen Brothers film mentioned early in this thread — The Man who Wasn’t There — comes closest so far, but even that isn’t exactly current (it’s from 20 years ago — it features a teenaged Scarlett Johansson, and a subtle performance by Billy Bob Thornton.)
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### Author:  [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/54 "2023-10-31T12:31:18Z")
As far as pop-culture, long before the Beatles and Elvis, Frank Sinatra was America’s first teen heartthrob in the 40s—_Swoonatra_. Teenage girls screamed and fainted in the audience; teenage boys imitated his slicked-back hairstyle and cock-sure attitude.
Of course, Franz Liszt preceded them all a century earlier, with [Lisztomania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisztomania).
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### Author:  [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/55 "2023-10-31T12:47:30Z")
> [@aurora\_maire](#):
>
> And a whole lot of people were busy getting married and having babies. Hence, the baby boom. The suburbs were being built. Woman stopped working and stayed home. Men started working in developing industries. It was a huge transition time.
I think this sums up the latter half of the decade. In many respects, the 40’s can be cleanly divided in half: WW2 where women got out of the home and into the workplace and then after the war the start of the cultural counter-revolution where women were compelled to return to the home when the GI’s came back from the war. The ensuing cultural counter-revolution reached its peak in the 1950’s. We can see this emphasis in the mass media of the time with the idea to conform CONFORM to the idealized nuclear family model where pipe smoking dad works at the office, the little woman stays home vacuuming while wearing pearls and the 2.5 children live in a house in the suburbs. Picket fence optional.
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2023, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/56 "2023-10-31T18:18:46Z")
Chicago (the group) had a song about Harry Truman. It made it all the way to #13. Hell, it even made it to #16 in Canada.
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC6z0nz03JI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QC6z0nz03JI))
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### Author:  [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2023, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/57 "2023-11-03T04:13:38Z")
but during 40’s you also had the Big Bands like Ellington, Basie, Miller
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### Author:  [@martyg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/martyg)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2023, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/58 "2023-11-03T05:50:24Z")
Late 40’s to me means the Miles Davis Nonet.
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### Author:  [@sb1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sb1953)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2023, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/59 "2023-11-03T15:25:01Z")
I wasn’t born until '53 so this is speculation. I have read that when the Berlin airlift happened (1948) many people thought that there was an inevitable war coming with the USSR. I know that when I went to catholic school in 1959 the nuns were convinced of it AND TOLD us so.
With the “red scare” going on in the US in the late 40’s and the USSR acting like they wanted to invade the rest of Germany many otherwise reasonable people believed it. This background level of anxiety HAD to affect the decisions people made.
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### Author:  [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2023, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-late-1940s-ignored-in-american-pop-culture-history/992283/60 "2023-11-03T17:15:19Z")
> [@cormac262](#):
>
> The movie **The Best Years of Our Lives** comes to mind.
When that movie came out the late 1940’s weren’t history. They were the present.
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