You receive a knock at your door. Opening up, a man in a very out of fashion suit and hairstyle walks in and introduces himself as “Rob”, insisting you write it in all capital letters and tells you have important news. Taking a seat, he informs you that in one week you will be forced through a time vortex to live in a standard suburban American town circa 1952. Your life will continue there from that point, and you can never return (although if you live long enough you might see the present day as an old man/woman)
As you reel from the shock, he informs you of further rules.
You will receive a fully paid off and furnished suburban house to live in, large enough to start a family but small enough that it wouldn’t be unusual if you didn’t.
You will be given a job that is the closest approximation possible of your current one. For example, a person in IT now will be given a job working on the very basic computers of the time.
You get one small suitcase to pack anything you want, technology can be brought but electronic items cannot have a total modern price value over 300 USD.
If you are economically dependent on someone else, they will come as well but will be mind wiped into thinking they always lived in that era.
If you are not American, you are given an excuse of having recently immigrated.
What can you do to adapt to your new life? Do you face any special challenges from 50s culture and/or technology?
I bring as much 21st knowledge and information back with me as possible. A cheap kindle/netbook/tablet with academic papers on it, plus a charger/adapter. Barring that, I’d print out important scientific papers to bring with me. In 1952 I probably won’t have time to scoop Watson and Crick, but hopefully I can ninja a few Nobel prizes.
Also, a stock market and sports betting cheat sheet.
I’d take a cheap laptop (and power supply!) loaded with as much data as I can find.
I actually have programmed a 1956 vintage computer. But forget about advancing the art. Even if you gave the chips in your laptop to someone, they’d be hard pressed to figure out what was going on inside it, and would only see the very top level of the circuitry, not the metal layers. And they wouldn’t have the technology to get down to them.
I lived then also, as a kid. Not all that bad, but I didn’t know what I was missing.
Since I was a teenager in the 1950’s that’s my reference decade. Being stuck there would probably get old after 30 or 40 years, but I wouldn’t mind being back there. I can’t think of another 10 year span (that I have lived through) that I would rather go back to.
If I had to go back could I get a different job from what I now have? I’d like to be a teacher, try to shake things up a little if I could, rather than a baker as I now am.
Anyone who isn’t a WASP male is going to face “special challenges”. As a woman it will be entirely legal to discriminate against me in the workplace, cutting me off from many potential professions. It will be completely legal to pay me less than a man for the exact same work. I can be summarially fired from any job for getting married or getting pregnant. Many marriage laws discriminate against me based upon my gender. I will not be able to get a mortgage or major loan without a male co-signer, and if I am married in most states everything I used to own prior to marriage will wind up in my husband’s name, not mine. Sexual harassment up to and including unwanted touching of ass and tits will not only be fairly common in the workplace, there will be absolutely no legal recourse for it. Should I have the misfortune to be raped my personal history and sex life will be ruthlessly dragged out in open court and dissected, assuming I can get anyone to take it seriously enough for it to actually get before a judge. It will be harder for me to obtain further education and as it is still considered laughable by many the notion that women can handle college or higher education.
That’s the lot of a white woman. Anyone who is, as we now say, “of color” will have it far, far worse than that.
On the upside, knowledge of future events and industries will likely enable me to thrive despite the obstacles in my way. Personally, though, I think the past largely sucked and I have no desire to go back there to live.
I’d fill it with my manuscripts and become a successful SF writer. (I may not be good enough to succeed today, but if they were written 60 years ago, they’d be a sensation).
I think I would literally rather kill myself, for all the reasons **Broomstick **mentions. I can see why my grandmother put up with it, because she honestly couldn’t imagine there was any other way the world could be, but I’ve grown up accustomed to having rights and voicing my opinions. First, I might get hooked on the really good diet drugs and enjoy some of the fashions. But the first time someone expected me to bite my tongue and “Yes, Sir” a doctor while he groped me in a broom closet, I’m done.
Although I probably wouldn’t be able to get a job as a nurse, anyhow, being that I’m married. While the nursing shortage after WWI made some workplaces change their standards and allow married nurses, it was still uncommon and a hard fought battle.
If I were younger I’d invest in real estate in Southern California, or just about anywhere, but at my current age and condition I might not live long enough to cash it in. There would be plenty of potential for me in software development, except there wouldn’t be enough computers to cash in all that much. The hardware was still pretty primitive at the time, so I could work out some kind of approach to a second generation mini-computer that competes with the emerging mainframes. Sports betting, or running a scam based on my knowledge of future events would be the easiest way to cash in short term.
I’m a biologist, so I probably have enough stuff in my head to set me up comfortably for life. But what I’d need to bring with me are protocols. Lots and lots of protocols. That is, I can stand in front of a class and explain, say, homologous recombination all day long no problem. But plop me in a 1950s lab and ask me to demonstrate it - or, worse, prove that it happens? No clue where to start. I’d waste years trying to recreate protocols.
Philadelphia or New York City suburbs where most computer technology was being developed in those days. Probably low level technician or just assembly work for a while. I knew someone whose father managed to become a programmer in the late 50s outside of Philadelphia. You’d do better with sports betting.
Oh, I’ll find a job, I’ll give you that. But this?
My first action will be to move back to the city amongst my people. I don’t have time for that BS, no thanks!
Bump the scenario up 20 years to the 70’s though, and I’m golden! My tech skills will be much more relevant, I could live in my suburban home with a reasonable expectation that I won’t wake up one morning with a smoldering cross on my impeccable front lawn or a nasty message painted on my garage door, and the babes and music were much hotter in the 70’s
