# What would surprise someone from 1959? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 14, 2009, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585 "2009-11-14T20:17:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2009, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585/141 "2009-11-27T02:31:19Z")
Some changes may be surprising because the direction has been opposite to that expected. I remember when I was a kid in the mid 60s (so not quite 1959) writing an essay about life in the year 2000. One thing I wrote was that the speed limit through our village was 200 mph. In fact, the speed limit is now lower than it was then. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Love](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Dr.Love](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Love)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585/142 "2009-11-27T03:34:41Z")
> [@Recliner](#): > > I don’t know what the price of milk actually was in 1959, but i _do_ know that milk, butter, and eggs are VASTLY cheaper today than they were then (not on a literal dollarl basis, necessarily, but adjusted for inflation). > > Chicken, also, is much cheaper. No cite, unfortunately. A little over a decade ago, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas published a fascinating report on the hours of work required to buy many different products, and how that changed over the past century. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of anyone who has updated this report, but you can find the original [here](http://www.dallasfed.org/fed/annual/1999p/ar97.pdf) (pdf). Highly recommended, even if you do nothing but look at the graphs. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2009, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585/143 "2009-11-28T03:06:17Z")
> [@Recliner](#): > > I don’t know what the price of milk actually was in 1959, but i _do_ know that milk, butter, and eggs are VASTLY cheaper today than they were then (not on a literal dollarl basis, necessarily, but adjusted for inflation). > > Chicken, also, is much cheaper. No cite, unfortunately. In my original cite, milk was quoted at a dollar a gallon. In [this](http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/CT1970p1-06.pdf) (PDF) official .gov document milk is listed at 50.6 cents on page 31. That would be about 7.5 cents today. ---
**Author:** ![Susanann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@Susanann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susanann)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2009, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585/144 "2009-11-28T04:54:26Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > In my original cite, milk was quoted at a dollar a gallon. > > In [this](http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/CT1970p1-06.pdf) (PDF) official .gov document milk is listed at 50.6 cents on page 31. That would be about 7.5 cents today. How do you get 7.5 cents? If milk cost 2 silver quarters in 1959, that would equate to about $6.00 or $7.00 in todays money/federal reserve notes. OF course I hope everyone realizes that nobody sold milk by the gallon back then, everyone sold it by the half gallon, quart, pint, half pint.. (Who the heck would ever want to buy a whole gallon of milk?) ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2009, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585/145 "2009-11-28T06:51:10Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > How do you get 7.5 cents? > > If milk cost 2 silver quarters in 1959, that would equate to about $6.00 or $7.00 in todays money/federal reserve notes. I get that by running the conversion backwards. Good catch. 😉 That would be about $6.75 today. ---
**Author:** ![Mikkel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikkel/32/13151_2.png) [@Mikkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikkel)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2009, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585/146 "2009-11-28T11:16:24Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > OF course I hope everyone realizes that nobody sold milk by the gallon back then, everyone sold it by the half gallon, quart, pint, half pint.. (Who the heck would ever want to buy a whole gallon of milk?) I remember (I was four at the time) that we bought milk in a liter jug (Denmark), a horsedrawn milkwagon came and we went out and got the jug filled at the wagon. Bottles was something people had in towns. Yes, without a fridge you just bought enough for a day. We had a cellar so the milk was cool but I still remember that I really didn’t like milk in summer. It always tasted a little off. My parents got a fridge in 1962 and it was a revelation to me that I actually liked milk in summer. ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2009, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585/147 "2009-11-28T11:18:02Z")
The flood of immigrants. There are so many in the Washington DC area now that, except for a couple of wealthy enclaves, the Washington area has no more “white neighborhoods.” ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2009, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585/148 "2009-11-28T14:47:52Z")
Going back to the bottled water … As a kid in the early 60s, it seemed that pretty much every retail store and gas station had publicly-available bathrooms and a drinking fountain. And public facilities like libraries, schools, or office buildings all had the same thing. So getting water while out in public was not hard. So the demand for purchased portable drinkable water was nil in 1959 except for people who worked outdoors away from anywhere. And those folks had been carrying their own water in canteens and later coolers since the 1800s. In the late 60s with the advent of inflation and massive cost-cutting by everybody, those were one of the things which disappeared. Most small retailers still had a bathroom, they just wouldn’t let patrons use it. With all the unrest and a large increase in the public perception of random crime, in the name of security (or keeping “dirty hippies” out), office buildings added front desks, guards, and started locking bathrooms, at least those near the lobby. So the public availability of free drinking water went way down. And the seeds of a market were born. Finally, the huge rise in sales of soft drinks at convenience stores (another mid-late-60s invention) led to a generation (the folks 40-ish now) who spent most of their youth sucking on something. The urge to carry & slurp is still there, even if they’ve decided that water, or worse, “vitamin water” is better than a 64oz cola. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585/149 "2009-12-02T17:03:13Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > We now have over 100 million extra people here in America. There are crowds everywhere, traffic, congestion, people in lines, road rage, pollution, energy shortages, water shortages, job shortages, etc. and none of these were part of the scene in 1959. I keep seeing “congestion” mentioned in these threads. A lot of that, I think, is a misconception. From 1929 to 1949, very few housing units were built in the United States, thanks to the Depression and World War II material shortages. After WWII, the suburbs didn’t pop up overnight; rather, there was infill in the long-dormant pre-Depression-era subdivisions for about ten years before new subdivisions were platted en masse. Low-density suburbs were a response to cities and housing conditions that were considered extremely overcrowded. Household sizes were much smaller, as were housing sizes. Today, a typical family of three would live in a 2,500 square foot house. In the late 1940s, it would be a family of six living in a 1,000 square foot house or apartment, often with extended family under the same roof. Roads were also crowded, and traffic congestion was a major concern of planners of the era. The Interstate Highway system was originally planned to serve intercity and interstate traffic, but was later modified to accommodate intracity commuter traffic, largely in response to extreme traffic congestion. Traffic signals weren’t timed, there were no left turn lights, and lannes on wide roads and highways were often unpainted, making traffic jams even more chaotic than today’s tieups. Ever see a photo of a 1950s shopping center? The parking lot was always jammed. I remember shipping plazas and malls being much busier back in the 1970s than today; it was rare to find a space within a reasonable walking distance to a store or mall entrance. Store aisles were narower, and there was far less space between shelves, store racks, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585/150 "2009-12-02T17:15:31Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > People pumping their own gas, including women. [Cite](http://www.planning.org/pas/at60/report15.htm). > [@](#): > > Also, assertions have been made that the driver, **especially** if elderly or **if a woman** (or if the weather is bad) will be unwilling to wipe the windshield and thus will fail to protect his own driving vision. > [@](#): > > The chief advantage offered by the self-service station is an economic one — **gasoline prices have been reduced in some areas from 4 to 5 cents per gallon, or about 20 percent.** > [@](#): > > Self-service stations tend to remain open 24 hours a day, partly because it is not feasible to move all items on display into a locked shelter. **They frequently use female personnel — girl cashiers may be hired for less money than men and they attract customers**. The American Federation of Labor Teamsters Union has launched a drive to organize self-service employees. According to contracts already signed, male employees will receive $260 per month for a 48 hour work week and female employees $240. Formerly, employees received $225 and $150 respectively. > > ($260 in 1950 dollars is $2216.91 today, or $26,602.92 a year.) > [@](#): > > There is no unanimity about the value of landscaping the area between the street and sidewalk or street and station. **Some operators believe that this helps present an attractive picture to the motorist, particularly the woman motorist.** > > (The men’s men of the 1940s and 1950s ain’t need none of that fancy landscaping! That stuff’s for the Communists and girlyboys who don’t smoke Lucky Stripes and Chesterfields!) > [@](#): > > Although Portsmouth, Virginia, has laid down no specific self-serve regulations, the fire marshall requires that automatic nozzles be used and **that no female be in charge of stations.** The use of roller skates by station attendants is also prohibited. > > (Might have well as said no negroes, “those of the Hebrew persuasion”, Democrats, immigrants, or non-smokers, too, and it wouldn’t have sounded out of place.) ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585/151 "2009-12-02T17:43:12Z")
> [@Susanann](#): > > Well, I am from 1959, and nothing anybody has said so far has ever surprised me. > > What DOES!!! surprise me, and still surprises me, is the population explosion. > > We now have over 100 million extra people here in America. There are crowds everywhere, traffic, congestion, people in lines, road rage, pollution, energy shortages, water shortages, job shortages, etc. and none of these were part of the scene in 1959. That would depend very much on where you were. If the time traveler were a Pittsburgher, he or she might be surprised how much the population here has declined. We had 604,332 people in 1960 and have 334,563 now. I don’t know what traffic, employment, etc, was like here in 1959, but I do know it’s not worse now because of population growth. A Pittsburgher from 1959 would probably be surprised at the lack of pollution here, too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-surprise-someone-from-1959/517585.md?page=7)