Speaking of 7-11s, all night groceries would be pretty surprising, not to mention all night convenience stores. all night groceries were just beginning in Boston in about 1971 when I was in college - a wonderful innovation for students.
If JFK hadn’t been a Catholic, though, but still a Christian, would he have gotten brownie points for saying that?
Exactly. A lot (not all, obviously) of Protestant Americans freaked out, worrying that JFK would take orders from the Pope, turn the USA into a Catholic nation, etc.
As someone who was around in 1959, I’m not terribly surprised by a lot of things mentioned in this thread. There are a couple of things that I’ve been surprised by.
-
We sent humans to the moon only 10 years after 1959 – and then stopped.
-
The internet.
-
That TV’s now work best when you have a cable plugged into them, and telephones work best when you don’t.
-
The Soviet Union collapsed without a war.
I remember the tiny B&W TVs. So the large screen TVs would be mind-blowing. Of course, I think the #1 thing would be the amazing accessibility of information via computer, cell phone, etc. Fifty years ago, if you needed to find out something, it was a trip to the library to use encyclopedias (what are those, some may ask) and other reference books, or you wrote people for information. And along with this easy stream of info is probably going to be the biggest shock of all – porn is so easy to get nowadays. Porn has come a long way, both in availability and content.
Which is what happened to Al Smith. But his response was not to stress how Catholics and Protestants all love Jesus just the same, but to say he would govern in a secular way. Politicians then didn’t wear God on their sleeves, not even conservative Republican ones like Goldwater.
Yeah, I’ve read lots of PK Dick and I would guess many people from that era would be surprised that the earth is not a charred cinder.
Bwah!
Strangely enough, I don’t think cell phones would be that surprising. The idea of a portable personal communication device is very common in science fiction.
They might be surprised at the particulars of modern cell phones, and I’d bet they’d be surprised that people spend so damn much time on the phone. But I don’t think the fact of their existence would be too surprising.
While 1960 is the pertinent date when discussing the pill’s impact on American culture and society, it was indeed available in 1959. It was not approved for contraceptive use until 1960, however. It was supposed to be used for “menstrual irregularities,” but its contraceptive uses were known.
Good one. And they might also be surprised at all the things that can only be made of plastic–like that gosh-darned clamshell packaging!
My vote is women’s underwear. The average woman on the street in 1959 was wearing a girdle and stockings and an armor-like bra and all sorts of pinchy and uncomfortable things. She’d probably be pretty surprised that everybody from teenage girls to grannies are walking around wearing nothing under their clothes but light cotton panties and a seemingly skimpy little bra.
She’d also be surprised at how often we wash our hair.
Quite. Even Dick Tracy was issued his 2-Way Wrist Radio in 1946. Alas, he had to wait until 1964 to be upgraded to the 2-Way Wrist TV and get the keys to his flying car which our visitor will have missed.
I believe they would be taken aback by the fact that the cell phone is also a still camera, a video camera, and can tell you exactly where you are and where the closest McDonalds is and then give you turn by turn directions to get there. Not to mention the thousands of other things that “there’s an app for”.
Heck, even touch-screen technology borders on magic.
Perhaps the lower real price of alcoholic beverages as it relates to real purchasing power. As far as I can see whatever increases there have been in alcohol prices isn’t nearly as much as prices generally, and that’s since the late 1970s, when I reached the legal age. I couldn’t help but scratch my head when, in a 1950’s novel, a suburban couple decides to celebrate a special occasion by having a bottle of sparkling burgundy (aka “Cold Duck”). I can’t imagine any such couple not sneering at such a choice now.
Lumpy, I’m afraid we went for that BBQ too. Everybody in town went to the same store. And by 1959 there were some ecumenical efforts in church camps so I was finally having a chance to get to know some black kids my age.
In 1959 I thought that by this time in the future, we would be beyond racial concerns and just living together “in harmony.” That was the big word then.
As a child, I had always found HIspanics culturally interesting although I thought of all of them as Mexicans. I didn’t know any personally, but I liked Mexican characters as they were portrayed in movies and on television. These were usually stereotypes.
Now I live in a multicultural neighborhood that would have knocked the socks off of sixteen year old Zoe! She would have been fascinated by the idea though. She used to have a set of dolls from different parts of the world.
I would have been surprised by the modern cities in China and in the Middle East. I would have laughed that women are allowed to fly big airplanes and people still board them anyway. I would be surprised that my 96 year old mother is excited that she has a stuffed dog that plays Jingle Bell Rock.
I would not be in the least surprised that I am driving a red convertible.
The complete dominance of credit and debit cards over cash and, particularly, cheques.
Maybe only in the UK, but our 1959 man would be amazed that he could drive from Scotland to the south coast on motorways without coming across a single junction.
Maybe this is more of an issue for a European time traveller, but the deregulation and privatisation of telephone companies, airlines, water and electricity would also come as a novelty. As late as the 1970s or 80s most of these were state-owned and there was only one of each per country.
The things that I considered unimaginable as a teenager (1970s) but were standard by the time I was in my 20s included video and personal stereos. I remember standing outside a TV shop at the age of 14 or 15 watching a video recording of an event that I’d seen on live TV the previous night and wondering what was going on. The idea of being able to walk around plugged into my favourite music as opposed to lugging round a tape recorder or transistor radio would have sounded like heaven to me, not to mention having a collection of my favourite movies on video to watch again and again. Maybe it’s just as well.
If you brought a person from 1959 to 1969, I think they would have a hard time believing they were on the same planet. Remember, things changed radically in the 1960’s, with 1968 being a very pivotal year in history.
The mainstreaming of the handicap. Back in the 1950’s, treatment for any handicap was very limited, and any handicapped child was usually put in an institution or kept at home to do nothing.
Women’s hair. Hairstyles, blow dryers, gel and mousse, changing hair color as a matter of course, no more rollers and sitting under the hood at the beauty shop for hours. (The only women who do I’ve noticed are over 60! They’re getting the same services as back in the early days.)
Ditto men’s hair.
Somewhat along the same lines, I think our 1959 person would be surprised at how frequently we now change jobs. Whether it’s due to layoffs, firings, or downsizings; or just because we found something better on our own, I’d guess that we change jobs a lot more now than occurred in 1959. Back then, jobs for life were not uncommon, and many of us had fathers and grandfathers who would work 40 years for a single employer.
Bobby Garwood, who as a controversial Vietnam War prisoner of war who returned years after the others were released, gave an interview to “Playboy” magazine in the early 1980s. He said the thing that shocked him the most was the language of women, compared to the mid 60s when he left the US of A. I’d imagine a visitor from 1959 would find todays acceptance of “foul language” even stranger. 30 years ago it was surprising for a female artist like Chrissie Hynde or Marianne Faithful to use “the f word”. Today a rap record or a “Die Hard” movie will use it as much as possible.Robert R. Garwood - Wikipedia
Thanks. That’s exactly what I was getting at when I referred to “the particulars” of cell phones, but couldn’t think of how to put it into words.