# When did the fifties metaphorically begin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 2, 2007, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-fifties-metaphorically-begin/414184 "2007-08-02T20:59:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![john\_b\_2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-fifties-metaphorically-begin/414184/42 "2017-01-05T20:37:21Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Here are a few other dates that are as worthy of consideration as those already mentioned. > > March 4, 1946 - Churchill delivers his “Iron Curtain” speech, considered by some to begin the Cold War era. > > June 27, 1947 - NBC begins regular programming on a three-station television network. > > August 15, 1947 - India and Pakistan receive full independence from Great Britain. > > June 25, 1950 - North Korea invades South Korea. > > IMHO, throw in Jackie Robinson and Chuck Yeager and I think a pretty good argument can be made that the 1950s actually began in 1947. I agree as to the Fifties: the Korean War is as good a “culture marker” for the decade as any. Jackie Robinson and start of network television were major news, for sure, that’s still Forties news, pointing to what lay just around the corner but not quite there. Korea and Joe McCarthy kicked off the 50s IMHO; and Eisenhower’s election in 1952 “cemented” the decade. Another marker: the ‘53 Chevy, the first aerodynamically designed car, the one that set the tone, the car look, of the Fifties, which signaled the end of “box cars”, the beginning of tail fins and swervy (sic) designs. Also, the Fifties was the last decade when baseball was America’s favorite sport. I’m not sure the exact years the NFL and NBA began, but after 1960 baseball had to share space in the nation’s consciousness. The Babe Ruth-Joltin’ Joe-Mickey Mantle era was coming to an end. The Fifties ended officially in 1960, and the start of the cultural Sixties as we came to know that decade can be seen in a TV show, Route 66, which premiered in the fall of that year; the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, Psycho, which was the highest grossing film of the year; and of course the election of John F. Kennedy as president in November. Also very 60s: the rise of beach or surf music, especially the Beach Boys. I disagree that the Beatles ushered in the decade. Culturally the Fifties lingered through the Kennedy era, but for all that, the brief, youthful and vigorous era popularly known as Camelot ushered out the old beginning in January, 1961. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-fifties-metaphorically-begin/414184/43 "2017-01-05T21:33:17Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > … but let’s not waste a perfectly good zombie thread … when did the 2010’s begin? > > I’ll start the bidding at Nov 2nd, 2010 … Republicans sweep into power all across the United States and to date they haven’t let go … I’m not sure how much this has effected the rest of the world … but for the USA, this is a good start … Maybe this recent election year has biased my thinking towards politics, but I’d say Obama taking office in January 2009 is when the current decade started. The Bush years were very different. Partly that’s because I got out of the Army (for the second time) in 2008 and graduated college in 2009, so the 2000s were my Iraq/Army years and once Obama took office I became a full fledged civilian again and then an engineer. Other people’s lives might not have that similarly clean break, but I think the draw down in Iraq was a pretty big cultural shift either way. ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-fifties-metaphorically-begin/414184/44 "2017-01-06T02:14:54Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The TV show “Happy Days” began in 1974. If there ever was a show that sold the fifties like cornflakes, it was “Happy Days”. > > It really shows how things have changed, because America in 1974 was radically different enough that 1954 seemed like another country. > > Try setting a show in 1997 and the only thing different is that people wouldn’t be glued to their phones. If you want to see a slice of life from 1997 you can just watch Buffy, or Seinfeld or Friends or the X Files. These shows are modern shows, they aren’t dusty artifacts from the Before Times. Good point, I hadn’t looked up when Happy Days got going, and I was only aware of it in the early eighties. But still, it supports what I’m getting at. You can find talk about what each “ies” was all about DURING each decade, too, but the overall mythos that ultimately comes together and becomes a SHARED sense of what each decade was about, only happens a VERY long time after the fact. I think it’s due to the organic nature of History. History, being defined NOT as the past itself, but rather as the stories we TELL ourselves about the past. ---
**Author:** ![Cadae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@Cadae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cadae)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-fifties-metaphorically-begin/414184/45 "2017-01-06T05:44:21Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > I’ll start the bidding at Nov 2nd, 2010 … Republicans sweep into power all across the United States and to date they haven’t let go … I’m not sure how much this has effected the rest of the world … but for the USA, this is a good start … That’s a good one to start the mood of the 2010s, but I’ll also argue the death of Osama did a lot psychologically to close the 2000’s chapter and start the next. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-fifties-metaphorically-begin/414184/46 "2017-01-06T09:52:23Z")
> [@AncientHumanoid](#): > > Arab Spring, early 2011 That was my first thought, too. Wiki gives a date of December 17, 2010 for the beginning of the Tunisian revolution, so that’s my pledge. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-fifties-metaphorically-begin/414184/47 "2017-01-06T14:15:11Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > That was my first thought, too. Wiki gives a date of December 17, 2010 for the beginning of the Tunisian revolution, so that’s my pledge. Yeah, but unless I’m misreading the OP, this is more about US cultural decades more than anything else. And the Arab Spring revolutions had exactly zero impact on that. I mean, literally nothing is significantly different in US culture/entertainment/zeitgeist for a long time now, and none of it has much to do with the Arab Spring in any event. I’d actually pin down the 2008 economic troubles (financial implosion, high gas prices) and Obama’s election as the real start to the 2010s- those things had a much larger and lasting effect on the country’s state-of-being than anything I can think of since 9/11. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2017, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-fifties-metaphorically-begin/414184/48 "2017-01-07T16:20:56Z")
This is a tough one to answer, because so much depends on just what you think the predominant theme of “The Fifties” was. If you think of “The Fifties” in a nostalgic way, if you picture “Happy Days,” malt shops, drive-ins and bobby socks… then maybe the Fifties start with Ike’s election and the end of the Korean War. That was the start of the prosperous, fat, happy, frivolous USA that old timers reminisce about. But of course, a LOT was going on in the Fifties that Richie Cunningham never dealt with. The Fifties were ALSO the Beat decade, the McCarthy decade, the Warren Court decade, the dawn of TV, the dawn of the Civil Rights era… which of those things defines the Fifties for you? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-fifties-metaphorically-begin/414184.md?page=2)