# What would you do if you had to live in 1950s America? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 1, 2014, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053 "2014-04-01T05:40:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/21 "2014-04-01T14:34:33Z")
> [@Dorjan](#): > > Oh, I’ll find a job, I’ll give you that. But this? > > [http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol2no1/whiteonly.jpg](http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol2no1/whiteonly.jpg) > > 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 😃 I don’t think you’d want to go back to 1952, and as you’re saying, the job part will be the least of your problems. You own that house, so you should get out before the neighbors realize you’re there and sell it through a proxy, then go … I don’t know where. I’d be pissed if I were you. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/22 "2014-04-01T14:37:54Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Are you freaking kidding? > … 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. … This supposition is not exactly correct. It’s true that such laws, called _coverture_ laws, were part of the common law of England and survived in the United States’ adoption of the common law. But in the nineteenth century, states began passing married womens’ rights laws, and by 1950 in no state in the United States would a marriage cause you to lose title to your separately owned property. Some remnants of coverture laws still existed, mind you: as late as 1965, the Supreme Court upheld a Texas coverture law provision that that a married woman could not use her separate property as loan collateral unless she had first obtained a court decree removing her disability to contract. But as the Court noted, the laws were consigned even then to the status of historical curiosity: > [@](#): > > At all relevant times she was a beneficiary of the peculiar institution of coverture which is now, with some exceptions, relegated to history’s legal museum. > > The impact of the quaint doctrine of coverture upon the federal treasury is therefore of little consequence. Even the Texas law which gave rise to the difficulty was repealed in 1963. (The loan in question was made in 1957 and by the time the case reached the Supreme Court, the law was repealed. And in this case, the Court decided that the law protected her separate property from foreclosure to satisfy a loan – in other words, it did not act to her detriment). Anyway, it’s an interesting trip through the discredited legal history wing of the museum, but your concern that in 1950 you’d lose title to your property by marrying is thirty to fifty years off base. ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/23 "2014-04-01T14:41:30Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > Designing the back of the computer bus? > > [sub]I honestly mean no offense and truely apologize if any is taken.[/sub] None taken, that literally made me laugh out loud at work! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/24 "2014-04-01T14:44:07Z")
**Broomstick** and **WhyNot** were kind enough to post almost 100% what I was thinking. Thanks, gals! 😉 I don’t think I could understate how awful that scenario sounds to me. Obviously there are worse scenarios to be sent back to, but that doesn’t make this scenario good. Let’s see… - My one advantage is that I’m white. - I wouldn’t be stupid enough to say I’m an atheist, but depending on where this shitty suburb is, Catholic won’t be great, either, especially with my clearly Catholic and “ethnic” last name. - It sounds like my husband isn’t allowed back with me? So now not only am I ripped away from him, I’m going to appear to be a single/divorced/widowed 31 year old with no kids. Oh yeah, THAT will go over well. My only hope would be to successfully lie that I’m a widow who had married her sweetheart before he shipped off to the war and was killed. - Which wouldn’t stop the gossip mill around town wondering what’s WRONG with me for not having found a nice new husband and it’s basically too late now and CHILDLESS? The best I could hope for is passive aggressive pity. - Hahahaha, sure I could get a job equivalent to the jobs I’ve had (IT) or the ones I’m finishing my grad program (historic preservation). Hahahahahahahahahahaha! Maybe I could hope to be some a-hole’s assistant and be condescended to and likely sexually harassed daily, but I’m getting to be an old bag at 31, so that complicates things. Or I could be lucky enough to actually do important and relevant stuff, as long as I’m fine with the men around me taking credit for my work. - Add in the rest they mentioned above (futility of getting financial accounts, lashing out against harassment, etc). This isn’t a scenario that’s fun to think about at all. 😑 ---
**Author:** ![Furious\_Marmot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dfb087/32.png) [@Furious\_Marmot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Furious_Marmot)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/25 "2014-04-01T14:53:30Z")
I would quit my geologist job, because it was a much suckier occupation in the 50’s. Then, like pretty much everybody else, I would become incomprehensibly rich through foreknowledge of the stock market, sports results, and land values. Then I would use my incredible wealth to find the asshole(s) who sent me back in time and torture them to death in the most protracted and awful way that money can buy. Unless they were willing to send me back to the future. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/26 "2014-04-01T14:54:25Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Are you freaking kidding? > 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. This deserves some comment as well. It’s not exactly untrue, but it’s a lot more situationally specific. If you were a good victim – that is, if your rape was accompanied by physical injury to unambiguously show you fought back, and you were not known as a woman of loose morals; that is, you were married or unmarried and chaste, and you were of good social standing – then those kinds of attacks would never be permitted. After all, men were convicted of rape in the 1950s. Of course, if you were unmarried and not chaste, then, yes, all bets are off, and your sexual history would be fodder for trial. And if you chose to save your life by not fighting against a threat to your life – say, a rapist with a gun of a knife – and therefore couldn’t show injury, equally all bets are off. Frankly, however, today differs in degree, but not in substance. Rape shield laws remove much of the legal relevance of past sexual history, but juries are still subject to the Good Victim / Bad Victim mentality. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/27 "2014-04-01T15:05:39Z")
I bring back a recent computer - not the latest whiz-bang ultra-thin notebook, but something reasonably compact and sturdy that will last. Load it down with historical stock prices, maybe some sports scores, then make some money. Hint, buy Microsoft in the 1970s! Get rich, retire to Hawaii. I should be able to pick up a decent used computer from, say, 2005 or something for less than $300. ---
**Author:** ![Melchior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Melchior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melchior)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/28 "2014-04-01T15:07:06Z")
Buy a Studebaker… [http://www.raylinrestoration.com/Stuff/50Stuff/50Studebaker%20Brochure8.jpg](http://www.raylinrestoration.com/Stuff/50Stuff/50Studebaker%20Brochure8.jpg) [http://image.hotrod.com/f/featuredvehicles/hrdp\_1004\_1950\_studebaker\_champion/28151188/hrdp\_1004\_01%2B1950\_studebaker\_champion\_starlight%2Bfront\_view.jpg](http://image.hotrod.com/f/featuredvehicles/hrdp_1004_1950_studebaker_champion/28151188/hrdp_1004_01%2B1950_studebaker_champion_starlight%2Bfront_view.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/29 "2014-04-01T15:13:15Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Frankly, however, today differs in degree, but not in substance. Rape shield laws remove much of the legal relevance of past sexual history, but juries are still subject to the Good Victim / Bad Victim mentality. Seems like saying that the electric shock I get from petting my cat is different only in degree from being tazered. Technically true, but I’d still rather avoid being tazered. Oh, and lets not forget that the best contraception available was the diaphragm, which would not be prescribed to an unmarried woman (and not to a married woman without her husband’s permission). And no legal safe abortion. But that’s okay, we can douche with Lysol after we get raped, because that totally works and isn’t completely terrifying, right? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/30 "2014-04-01T15:35:45Z")
> [@Max\_the\_Immortal](#): > > Also, a stock market and sports betting cheat sheet. Me, too, except I could run a brokerage house that would be like Bernie Madoff but legit. Hell, I’m in the business already. I could make that sucker move. So everyone let me manage your money and you guys go take over the technology world. We’ll live like kings! ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/31 "2014-04-01T15:51:39Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Oh, and lets not forget that the best contraception available was the diaphragm, which would not be prescribed to an unmarried woman (and not to a married woman without her husband’s permission). Not universally. By the 1950s, roughly half the states did not restrict the sale of contraceptives to unmarried women, and did not require a married woman to get her husband’s permission. > [@](#): > > And no legal safe abortion. But that’s okay, we can douche with Lysol after we get raped, because that totally works and isn’t completely terrifying, right? The “Lysol douche” was, as you suggest, ineffective in preventing pregnancy. In 1952, abortion was a felony in every state, although some states offered various narrow exceptions. However, for persons of means, procuring a medically safe abortion was not particularly difficult. There’s no doubt, though, that for anyone who views legal on-demand abortion as desirable, 1952 would be a wasteland. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/32 "2014-04-01T15:55:14Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Not universally. > > By the 1950s, roughly half the states did not restrict the sale of contraceptives to unmarried women, and did not require a married woman to get her husband’s permission. Spoken like a lawyer. 😉 There are really two issues there: what was \*legal \*and what was _done_. Even in states where it was legal, doctors were often reluctant or refused. Just as today, permanent sterilization is legal for young unmarried women, but good luck finding a doctor who will do it. There are a few, but your odds of finding one are not good. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/33 "2014-04-01T16:11:09Z")
An incomplete answer, but I’d buy and store cars. Corvettes. Ferraris. Cobras. Mustangs. Mega-block everythings, especially Mopars with wings. Coachbuilt '30s-'50s cars at their minimums. With the right data, I could easily be wealthy enough to amass the most enviable collection of all time. Oh, and maybe go kneecap Pierre Levegh on the morning of June 11, 1955. And pester James Dean for an autograph just long enough to change his timeline on 9/30/55. Busy year. And then there’s a place I need to be on the evening of August 4, 1962… ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/34 "2014-04-01T16:18:49Z")
> [@Zeldar](#): > > 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. What if you could have a teenager’s body NOW and and relive your life as a young man in the 2010s rather than the 1950s? That is, is it the 1950s that appeals or the youth? ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/35 "2014-04-01T16:24:05Z")
> [@Earth001](#): > > Do you face any special challenges from 50s culture and/or technology? Thinking about this some more…I’m not sure I’d be competent to practice law in 1952. I’d have to unlearn much of what I currently know. Hell, my state did not have what I know as the Rules of Civil Procedure back then–everything was statutory. On another note, I’d be older than my grandfather was in 1952, and my dad would be a teenager. This could lead to all sorts of confusion as we share the same name, with Sr., Jr., and III added as appropriate. I currently live on the other side of the state from where they’d be in 1952, but there is considerable risk of encountering them or other relatives in the area. Also, I have in my possession certain things that I inherited from my grandfather. It would be sorta awkward to meet him at a hunting club while I’m carrying his shotgun (this particular gun is pretty unique, and instantly recognizable)… ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/36 "2014-04-01T16:27:31Z")
> [@Dorjan](#): > > Oh, I’ll find a job, I’ll give you that. But this? > > [http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol2no1/whiteonly.jpg](http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol2no1/whiteonly.jpg) > > 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 😃 You’re a better man than me. My floor on time travel is 1980. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/37 "2014-04-01T16:28:54Z")
Aside from all the money-making techniques everyone has mentioned, I think I would move to the East Village in New York (which might also present a more positive option for those whose race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. would make suburbia impossible). It would be an exciting and interesting time to be there. Then I would head for Europe. Paris in the 1950s? Golden age! And one could live pretty well for fairly cheaply, too. I’d take a video camera around with me and position myself to be present at any number of historical events. Anyone interested in this scenario might like Stephen King’s book “11/22/63.” Although the title mentions the '60s, it starts off in the late '50s and has some interesting material on what a modern time traveler might go through in moving back to that era. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/38 "2014-04-01T16:32:53Z")
If you guys were sent back, the ham radio community’s vocabulary would be expanded to include “cite?” and “DNFTT,” “TL;TO” (too long; tuned out) etc. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/39 "2014-04-01T16:34:32Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > What if you could have a teenager’s body NOW and and relive your life as a young man in the 2010s rather than the 1950s? That is, is it the 1950s that appeals or the youth? The youth. And the fact that my notions of “good times” are related to the things a teenager would go through in the process of figuring out what “life” is all about. It wasn’t so much a happy time, but not a total bummer either. I meant to add to the earlier post that the period when my kids were going through their adolescence would rank second for me, and that period (mid-70’s through mid-80’s) was also a time I could go back to before some other times. Third on my list would be when I was first getting interested in the internet, so mid-90’s maybe. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2014, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053/40 "2014-04-01T16:36:37Z")
Hmm. I’m a black woman who is currently an environmental scientist. Maybe I can go find an HBCU somewhere and convince someone to let me be a biology professor. Or I suppose I can go up to NYC and try to carve out a niche in Greenwich Village. Maybe I can summon up the courage to get involved with the civil rights movement. But you won’t find me staying put in some random suburb, homeowner or not. Unless the suburb is predominately black. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-do-if-you-had-to-live-in-1950s-america/685053.md?page=3)