Just to shed a few facts on that hazy, crazy nostalgia.
They was doin’ it like bunnies.
My dad is on the late end of your demographic – he was born in 1936 and graduated from high school in '53 or ‘54. He was from a working-class family in Northern California and certainly didn’t wear a jacket and tie on dates. He wore Levis jeans with a sport shirt (similar to the type Kramer wears on Seinfeld) to school and plain white tee shirts for casual. He listened to the typical rock-and-roll type music of the day – Teresa Brewer is one artist I always remember him saying he liked when he was a kid. He also liked folk music (the Kinston Trio being one example I know he liked) and Grand-ol’ Opry style country music, which his mother also loved. He was (and is) a motor-head and bought his first car at age 16. He had a job from age 14 (he worked as a dishwasher in several restaurants and also stocked shelves at several different grocery stores). Once he atarted working, he bought his own clothes and sundries. His father insisted that he graduate from high school, although my dad didn’t like it and would have dropped out at age 16 had he been allowed to. After he graduated, he looked for work as a car mechanic, but wasn’t able to find a job in his small town. So he worked one season on the railroad and then joined the Navy. According to Dad, there was a lot less casual swearing in public in his day. His mother was unusual in that she had a bit of a mouth on her – limited to the lesser-swears like ‘hell,’ ‘damn,’ and ‘shit’ and only among her family – but nice women did not swear publicly at all. When men were amongst themselves – like on the railroad, in most Navy spaces of the time, or at the sawmills and blacksmith shops where my grandfather and great-grandfather worked – they used quite bad language, even by modern rap-star standards. But never, NEVER, in front of a woman. Once in while, a man might slip and use a lesser-swear in public, but this was considered a faux pas and the man would apologize to any ladies present. And the use of a big-swear – the F-word or worse – in front of someone’s wife or mother was liable to get you a punch in the mouth.
My mom is 4 years younger so a bit too late for your sample.
I’d also bet in many areas, country and early R&B were probably the main thing. And there was a rather strong Latin music scene, even though I think the Mambo was more a fad among adults than popular with teens.
My grandfather (class of '50) was a fan of drummers like Gene Krupa and Max Roach. My grandpa’s interest in drumming led him to like some Latin Music, like that of Tito Puente, as well. I don’t know if those two were stars like Frank Sinatra, but their drumming appealed to a lot of teen boys I believe. My grandpa didn’t like rock and roll because he felt a lot of it just used the same drumbeats over and over.
One thing I’m curious about is whether there was any type of “musical snobbery” among young listeners in this period and the “swing era” before it. Obviously, there were lines drawn between those who exclusively liked “classical” music and those who liked “popular” music, but were there people in the same age group who thought they were more “hep” for liking–for example–Benny Goodman or Duke Ellington rather than Glenn Miller or Paul Whiteman?
What a nice jog down memory lane this thread has been. 
I wrote a really long thing here, but it was getting glurgey so I deleted it.
The only thing we did (in rural Iowa) that I haven’t seen mentioned is that we rented local halls for parties – we had a lot of parties.
Someone would bring a portable record player and we’d all bring our 45’s, we’d chip in for cokes and chips, or maybe somebody’s mom would make a bunch of maid-rites, and we’d dance all night.
Oh, and I had most of the music on straykat’s list on sheet music, for my clarinet. We couldn’t play popular stuff in the school band, of course, but we’d get together on our own and play the stuff we heard on the Hit Parade.
It was fun.
I remember a lot of slightly humorous songs from the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane was one long pun about a nine day old baby, for example. She’s Too Fat for Me, Open the Door, Richard, Abadaba Honeymoon.
Music from Broadway, especially Rodgers and Hammerstein, was big. (Just a bit of trivia, but Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip’s love song was People Will Say We’re in Love from Oklahoma..
Folk music was around but didn’t really make it big until about 1957.
There was nothing wrong with liking Krupa and Sinatra both. Some of us still do. Count Basie was big. One of the earliest songs that I remember was Johnny Mercer singing his own Accent-u-ate the Positive. Another was Doris Day’s Sentimental Journey.
I can’t speak for other parts of the country, but young men did not wear ties to school in the rural South. In many Southern small towns, we started to school in July so that we could be out for six weeks in the fall for “cotton picking.”
Nice girls didn’t curse. Your were brazen if you said “damn.” I got belted once for saying “good grief.” (But that had more to do with my mother than the times.)
Drugstore soda shops were big too. That’s where so many of us headed after school. Limeades and a Goo Goo bar.
My mom was in that age range. She used to tell me that me & my brother listening to screaming guitar music was just like when she was a teenager and they liked to hear “honking sax”. Their parents hated it, so they loved it, etc…
Oops, forgot to add…
I give my mom credit for expanding my musical horizons sooner than I might have on my own. She taught me that other music in other times could be “badass”, too, and that it was relative to the era…
biggirl, there were a lot more teenage brides back then too. And the statistic you quote does not account for the fact that a higher percentage of teenage mothers in that era were married (perhaps your link discusses this – I was unable to access the link to view it myself).
So while I agree that nostalgia makes us overstate how innocent people were in the past, the fact that people married earlier clouds things a bit.
Apologies for the hijack – back to music.
Abortion had a lot to do with that decline in childbearing, gal. I don’t think you can conclude that sexual activity among teens in the 1950’s are comparable to those of teens today, based on the statistics which you provdied.
Mind you, I’m not saying that they didn’t do it back then. I’m just saying that we can’t conclude much based on your stats.
Killing North Koreans and Red Chinese?
My dad was born in 1937. He grew up in Salisbury, NC–a little town in the Piedmont of North Carolina. He worked at a soda counter in high school. Played a lot of baseball and did a lot of drag racing late at night on country roads. Most of his school mates didn’t expect to go to college. He won a scholarship to a state university, but joined the Navy at 18 instead, just like his older brothers. A lot of his friends also went into the service. When you think about it, it really was the best way to get out of a little podunk town and see the world.
My aunt got married her senior year of high school. A number of other girls in her class did, too. I’ve seen my dad’s high school yearbook, and it had a special page for girls who got their “MRS degree.”
One of the big differences between then and now, at least in the South, was the casual racism that existed when my dad was growing up. He remembers calling Brazil nuts “nigger toes,” for example. I’ve never heard him say anything racist as an adult, though. I suspect serving in an integrated Armed Forces had a lot to do with that.
Yes, abortion had a lot to do with the reduction of childbirth. This does not mean that teenagers weren’t doin’ the nasty. Just like today. Only back then, when the girl got pregnant, the girl got married.
I’m not trying to ruin anybody’s good time. I’m just injecting a little realism into the idealized idea of “the good old days.”
In which case it’s irrelevant to cite the rapid decline of teen childbearing, Biggirl. While it’s perfectly obvious that there were 1950’s teens who did engage in sex, the particular argument which you used (i.e. comparing teen childbirth rates in the 1950’s to those today) does not support the claim in question. That argument cites the relative incidence of childbirth, not pregnancy, and is therefore irrelevant to the subject at hand.
Additionally, don’t forget that it was far more common for teenagers to be married back in the 1950’s. Hence, one should not be quick to conclude that the teens of the 1950’s were just as promiscuous as the teenagers of today.
Well now, we won’t get into a debate over the difference between having sex at 17 in 1950 and being promiscuous in 2003. Because debates, even over semantics, belong in GD.
The graph in the PDF that Biggirl linked suggests that most of the drop in teen pregnancy occurred before Roe v. Wade.
RealityChuck:
Um, what exactly was this for?
To limit the girl to only ten dances? Was it to make sure she didn’t dance with any one guy too much? Was it just to keep strict records of even these seemingly mild ‘teenage shananigans’? Did she turn the card in or keep it?
The mind boggles… :eek:
Due to contraception and illegal abortions, probably. Besides, even before Roe v. Wade, some states had already legalized abortion. That’s part of what prompted the Roe v. Wade decision in the first place.
I’d just like to pop in and point out that my Human Sexuality textbook states that the number of abortions in America has been in constant decline for decades. I would say Roe v. Wade has less to do with declining teen births and convenient, reliable contraceptives a whole lot more.
OK, I started a thread in about teenaged sex.
Sorry to interrupt all the interesting stories.