Not only wasn’t it common, in some states it was still illegal in 1959 to marry someone of a different race. 1959 was the year that the Lovings were first arrested for being a mixed race married couple in the state of Virginia, at the time a felony offense, but it wasn’t until 1967 that the landmark Supreme Court decision abolished all such laws across the nation.
They were in Hawaii though. Considering the high proportion of Asians and native Hawaiians in the population, the racial dynamics there were probably quite a bit different than the mainland.
I would think they’d be pretty impressed with the time machine.
The different racial dynamics might well have been a reason such a marriage was legal in Hawaii where it wasn’t in other parts of the country.
A couple not mentioned already, and some mentioned just once or twice.
DVDs. When I was 8 in 1959, you got to see movies on TV when the channel wanted you to see the movie, except for some fairly rare 16 mm film strips.
CDs and, even more, MP3 players. Having a living room full of LPs in your pocked is pretty cool.
Birth control, as mentioned, and the sexual revolution in general.
Suits being the same was mentioned, but what would be striking is the large number of people going to work not in suits.
PCs would be pretty amazing, but not as amazing as the large number of computers embedded into things - CD players, cars, washing machines, picture frames. Computers back then did big things like payrolls or atomic research. Now they run dolls.
That long distance no longer exists. Most people can call anywhere in the country for one prices. You can get cheap packages to let you call anyone in the world for one small monthly charge.
As for space flight, the fact that we have a space station and no one cares.
Men don’t have to wear snappy fedoras; women don’t have to wear hats to church.
Blunt and perhaps rather sad, but oh so true. Plus the fact that the ISS can sometimes have Americans and Russians on it at the same time.
Surely another eye-opener would be air travel: how commonplace it is, how affordable and luxurious it is (relative to 1959), and of course all the security theatre that goes with it.
Not only that, but sometimes the Americans even serve under a Russian commander! (head explodes)
And let’s not forget the ubiquitous device for torturing household pets around the world.
The laser pointer. I’ve got one on my keychain in combination with another modern marvel, the bright white LED flashlight.
They had water pistols in 1959; almost as much torture.
Others have already said as much:
The Internet as a source of endless information, some of it accurate, shopping, nekkid women, e-mail that someone half a world away can receive in seconds (translated to another language if you want). This builds upon the ubiquity of personal computers, high speed data networks connecting everything, and then the creation of the huge amount of content available. The Internet is only useful because it builds upon such a huge infrastructure, and I don’t think many would have predicted it (other than, say, “easy” applications such as shopping and reading the news).
Then, on top of the internet just existing, we have smart phones allowing us unfettered access to it so that I can, as an example from last week, make stock transactions whilst waiting in my doctor’s office. (Probably unchanged from 1959, my prescription for the flu: cough medicine, rest and fluids.)
Satellites beaming high definition movies down to my apartment from space.
To a first order, women and minorities have equality in the workforce.
I’ve supported myself for over 25 years writing software; true, there were probably dozens of computer programmers around in 1959, but it wasn’t a typical career choice back then.
CAT scans, MRIs, video cameras that my dentist can stick in my mouth to show the horrors I visit on myself by drinking so much coffee, Lasik™, Anti-Lock brakes, Google. Try explaining Google’s business model to someone from 1959 (hell, try explaining it to me).
Black man as president – I was unconvinced this would happen until about a year ago.
Still no flying cars.
Flat panel big screen televisions, hardcore rock, gangster rap, female police officers, and porn. Porn has changed a lot since the 50s.
ETA Cell phones. That should have been number 1.
Heh, I’m reminded of an episode of Medium (mild spoiler for episode): Allison discovers the case of a woman who was committed to a mental institution back in the 1950s for having the “psychotic delusion” that she was a psychic named Allison Dubois, living in the 21st century. In one scene we see footage of the doctor treating her disparaging her science-fiction idea of having a portable radiophone she carries around with her.
Well, how about restaurants or bars where there is no smoking section, and if you go outside, (in some cases) you have to be a certain distance away before you start lighting up.
True, but I think the mainstreaming of black/Hispanic culture would have been mind boggling to them. Back then cross over music was sort of rare. Well, maybe rare isn’t the word–but there was a definite differentiation of white and black music. I mean, there was still the term “race records.”
In 1989 they’d have been male geezers…
Joe
MMOGs. That people spend hours/days/weeks sitting in front of an electronic box, guiding some little digital elf around living out some kind of fantasy novel instead of going out and playing football or inventing a better microscope or something. They’d probably think the Soviets invented it to overthrow our country 
And oh yeah, the soviets. They’re the Russians now. But sometimes they still like to pretend their the soviets. Its confusing to me, a man of 2009 as well 
Bluetooth! That you can have some little gadget, with no wires (or antennas) that can somehow connect with another little gadget and work with it.
That we’ve had so many data mediums since 1959 not only would our current ones seem exotic (you mean the whole movie is on that little plastic rainbow-y record? How do they fit all the film reels inside it?) but the fact that we have generations of storage medium that came and went in the past fifty years.
Changes in demographics in the US. A lot of places underwent ‘White Flight’ and what used to be a predominately white neighborhood now may not have a single white person in a five mile radius. That there are places (like where I live) surrounded by well-to-do, upper middle-class Indian families.
Diversity! Dr. Xu, Engineer Singh, Professor Hussein, etc. I think someone from 1959 would be shocked at how educated/skilled minorities are in the US, and how many of them are around.
This was totally valid. That was scandalous in 1959. Heck, I remember my mom (teenager in the '50s) telling me how much older people hated Elvis because he imitated black artists-- not to mention how she, a white girl, had to keep her love affair for Nat King Cole completely secret lest her dad find out.
Today? I know white teenagers who are more black/Latino than blacks and Latinos (and vice versa). Total cultural blur that would be very surprising to someone in 1959 (“Sooo, that rock music stuck around and turned into this???”).
After our time-traveler got over the demise of the Soviet Union, I’m sure they’d look around and be surprised that the Earth is filled with nearly seven billion people, the majority of whom DON’T starve. The fears of overpopulation manifested themselves in very different ways (i.e., food and water isn’t the problem, other environmental concerns are).
My vote, which I don’t know if I’ve seen here yet: the near-irrelevance of religion, particularly in public life.
Sure, America may still be a very “religious” nation, but how God is worshiped in 2009 vs. 1959 is starkly different. If our traveler was from Europe, they’d marvel at the empty churches (and be shocked at the very full mosques).
That last bit-- in 1959, no one thought much of Islam. Sure, Israel was around and having trouble, but to think that in 2009 the lines across the world would be drawn like this? Surreal.
Lastly-- I think folks here are going a little bit overboard with the race thing; I’m not so sure that’d be quite as radical an adjustment as people think, especially for people outside of the American South (and even there, the adjustment’s overstated). I think by 1959, a lot of Americans had seen the writing on the wall, or at least could conceive that things like Jim Crow were fighting a rearguard action.
The sexual politics, however, would simply be staggering to anyone from 1959. Equal rights, contraception, abortion, openly gay people, the hookup culture, omnipresent pornography and most importantly DIVORCE… truly a different world. Better in many ways, worse in others, but very, very different from 1959.
Another thing: the U.S. government in 1959 was a fraction the size it is today, even 20+ years after the New Deal. Welfare, Medicare, the collapse (and re-birth) of urban America, staggering deficits and crushing debt… all of those things were still in the future, but are here today. Americans from 1959 might wonder why we still have things like “states” at all, given the centralization of power in Washington.
I’d say just the opposite in the US. In 1959 while everyone assumed that you went to church, politicians didn’t make a big deal out of it. Back then JFK got brownie points for saying that religion (the Pope) would not influence his public decisions. Today Kerry got all sorts of grief for saying the same thing. Not that an atheist would do any better than one would today, but someone considering religion a private matter certainly would.
A visit to Starbucks, or even the coffee bar at a 7-11. Back then, your choices were regular or decaf, with some sombination of cream or sugar.