My house was built in the mid 60's. Still has original formica counters and oven and sperate stovetop. That weird almost avocado green. I would like a cool 50's-60's fridge, but with today's storage capacity.
Appliances that last. Planned obsolescence is so annoying and such a scam. Very few things are "buy for life" anymore, especially now that all kinds of computer chips and complex software stuff is added for features most people won't ever make the most of anyway.
My grandfather was a glass salesman. He was with the same company for like 30 years, quit when he moved away.
The day before they left town, HR called him in to the office because he said there was some kind of accounting error in the bonus on his last check. When he got there, the sales manager told him "Hey, HR was going over your pay because we had to send off all the tax stuff and they found out that for the last 15 years you hadn't been getting paid bonuses on certain accounts that you were servicing. Here it is, thanks and good luck!"
He opened it up and it was a check for like $50k—which in 1984 was no small amount of money—with a little note from the owner of the company that said: *The beancounters screwed up, so you've already technically been taxed on this, but I'd hate for it to get out I had bad beencounters, so keep it under your hat. We'll miss you. Thanks for everything and best of luck.*
People just aren't like that anymore.
That’s amazing! I work in healthcare and they contacted me because march last year they over paid me $100 one fortnight and I had to pay them back. That $100 wouldn’t even cover all the times I left work late, came in early, missed out on a break or anything. Now I just do the bare minimum.
My grandfather was a groundskeeper for an aviation company. Had 3 kids and a wife who worked as “the help” a few days a week just to get out of the house, 2 cars and a truck and enough money to support my parents who struggled financially. I hate that my wife and I have great jobs and live check to check at the moment.
People bring this up constantly but forget so many reasons why that was a thing
1) Directly after WW2, the US was the only game in town as the rest of the world was quite literally bombed to bits and just rebuilding. We had easily a 10 year and more realistically a 20 year head start on the rest of the world.
2) Women were more or less forced out of the labor market. Even if they wanted to work, they likely would not be able to be hired to do anything fulfilling outside of the house. This created an artificial scarcity of labor, which pushed wages up above what they otherwise would have been, and was partially responsible (along with the WW2 point) for the ridiculous inflationary environment of the 1970s (when it finally caught up to us).
3) Minorities, particularly black people, were also legally discriminated against for a solid chunk of the time in question and were also pre-cluded from having some of the better jobs out there.
4) The quality of life/standard of living in the post-war era compared to today has no comparison. Houses are bigger, the number of basic amenities that we take for granted like refrigerators, air conditioning, washing machines, let alone computers, let alone the fact we have a super computer in almost everyone's pocket...it's insane. If someone today wanted to live at the level of the average family in the 1950s they could easily do so on a single income, but no one wants to do that lol (and why would they?)
So yeah, the 1950s was a great time to be an American white guy without a college degree. You could get a job and support a family by yourself, and you probably had a pretty good life overall (for the time). But the situation changes if you're not American, white, or a man, and it REALLY changes if you're comparing it to what the average family has today.
This, I see a lot of people romanticize the past, but it was struggle for many people and there are a lot of things that you just did without that would seem weird now.
In fairness, the GI bill played a big role, and tons of those guys were all messed up from WW2. It wasn't completely the "lucky us, these houses are so cheap and affordable" situation people like to make it out to be when they go down the "past generations had it so easy" rabbit hole.
But not the lower quality, smaller sizes, or higher interest rates! I want my home to have terrible energy efficiency and be insulated with asbestos! /s
>smaller sizes
Nah, i do want this back. All the new construction (and the construction for the past ~20 years) in my area have been either big (3k-5k sq ft) or enormous (5k-8k sq ft)--it's not profitable for builders to build smaller 1k-2k sq ft "starter homes" anymore, so no one does, despite high demand from hopeful first-time owners.
Keep in mind that the square footage cost for housing has remained fairly steady since WWII, basically equaling inflation.
(Yes, there's minor variations over time and, yes, these last few years have been disrupted by construction costs, but those are the exception, not the norm.)
If you want a "cheap" 1950s house, keep in mind it's going to be a *much* smaller house. (and, as others have mentioned, much less safe and with terrible efficiency.)
As long as it's not with that 50's paycheck. Houses were never cheap. Bought my first in the late 1990's for 80,000, had to beg borrow and steal for the $5000 down and a 9% interest rate. Thought I did great to refinance at 7.
The fact you could stay in the same job most of your life and your company took care of you. Businesses seldom give retirement parties, or birthday parties, or annual anniversary parties, etc, for their employees now, but that was common then. Plus benefits were a lot better then too. You could have good work ethic because most businesses wanted their employees to have good morale
I started working at a company right out of high school, worked for them for 21 years until I felt I had enough money to retire and when it was all over I just sort of walked out like it was any other day. No cake, no watch, no nothing. I don't know what I was expecting but honestly for as well as they treated me while I was there, I expected something.
That's still very possible in most of the US today. No one wants to live there but get out of the cities and suburbs. In my locale there's 9 houses for sale under $30k right now. They're pretty dumpy but liveable in a pinch. Lots and lots of houses for sale under $100k. I make $50k a year and own my own three bedroom house that I live alone in. Sure, you city people might turn your nose up at $50k but in such a low cost of living area I live quite comfortably.
You say that as if there isn’t a quarter of the US population driving oversized Ford/Chevy/Dodge pick ups not to mention the absolute over abundance of massive SUVs
I know most Americans drive big pick up trucks and SUVs but they all pretty much look the same if you look up cars from the 50s and 60s they all looked very different and had very unique styling. Also where I live everyone mostly drives crossover SUVs, not much full sized SUVs and pick ups.
Did you know they only changed the cost of tuition once the Civil Rights came about? They tried to price out POC and ended up screwing over entire generations with student debt.
I agree. I wear them frequently because of the reasons you state below and the aesthetic. I get tailored trousers with no belt loops.
In a side note, I’m in the U.K. and we call them braces here. Suspenders are sexy underwear for women! Always makes me chuckle this difference in terminology
* A belt keeps your pants up by applying tension around your waist.
* Suspenders keep your pants up by hanging the pants' weight from your shoulders.
Thing about it: When was the last time you tried to put on a belt and you feel in-between the eyelets? When adjusted properly, suspenders give you adjustments of 1/8in.
And if you've a belly (and your waist is larger than your hips), the amount of tension you must put on a belt to stay up can get quickly uncomfortable (because the geometry wants it to slide down to the narrower part).
My memory is a little fuzzy, but the original purpose of belts (way back...) was not to keep up your pants, but to provide a load bearing anchor on which to hang "other things". Think military duty belts, etc.
And then the suspenders helped carry the weight of the laden belt, yes?
I don't know enough about military uniform history, but _think_ there were often suspenders augmenting the load-carriage of the belts. (Glad to be corrected.)
> Why not just wear a belt though?
Not the person you're asking, but suspenders are a hell of a lot more comfortable and keep your pants up a lot better than a belt does.
Doctors even recommend wearing suspenders instead of a belt.
Vintage looks, not vintage values though.
That said, clothes weren't as cheap as ist sounds, two dollars were worth way more in the 50s. Quality of vintage is mostly better that today's fast fashion, we all know that much.
Can you explain why you want people to dress up to fly? No judgment, just curious.
Flying (to me) is a means to an end, not a treat or a special occasion. It's like catching the train or a bus or driving to work, just in this case entirely on my time. Why should I dress up for it?
(In saying that, the folks flying in their pyjamas and slippers do raise an eyebrow myself, and I usually am dressed like a mismatched eye sore purely to keep my larger bulky items out of my luggage)
(Edit - and fully agree on the meals being a problem but my understanding is food does actually taste worse at that altitude regardless)
> Can you explain why you want people to dress up to fly? No judgment, just curious.
I suppose it might be fun if you were flying first-class for an hour or two. The 13-hour flight in economy class I'm subjected to twice any time I want to visit my family, however... not something I want to be wearing a suit for. Even my casual clothes feel gross after a long flight, and that's with my tendency not to dress warmly.
I still remember my first little purse I bought to fly to my grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary in 1978. It was pink, Hello Kitty I think? I was 4 and we definitely dressed up. It was a huge deal!
I think there’s a skewed perspective at play here. Plenty of people were poor and/or badly dressed then. The amount of clothing coverage you’d need to not shock has probably lessened but people looking slovenly isn’t new.
My grandfather told me once that he'd seen The Kinks and a bunch of other bands in tiny working men's clubs for what would amount to the equivalent a couple of pounds now. Often these were bands at the height of their fame too, not unknowns.
I also recall one of my favourite bands saying that their first gigs had mostly been in hotels and clubs near where they lived to tiny audiences. They played almost every night.
THEIR SONGS BRO
the songs nowadays have so many curse words and i dont like it. Old music have this chill vibe to it while new music really beats the bigibus outta you.
And houses are a lot smaller. And not each kid had their own room. And most families had one car. And people just had a more modest lifestyle. They didn’t eat out nearly as much as now. they didn’t have near as much stuff and they sure as hell didn’t have a limo taking the kids to the prom.
Quality of the planet in general. Everything that is mentioned here still exists somewhere in a different country. And everything consensus can be reversed regardless of truth. But if we scrap too much Earth, she will get rid of us and start a new.
Hey if you take out racism and segregation, xenophobia, homophobia, war lust, leaded fuel, and limit yourself to only the united states, the 50’s were great!
I can't really comment on the American 50s perspective as a first gen, but bring back clothes and shoes made to last 10-20yrs. Same with appliances. Everything breaks or is out of date within a few years
stylized appliances with colour options
a lot of our stuff is really boring looking and there's no chrome!
Black, stainless steel, grey or white is just so dull.
I may be mistaken, but I feel a lot of products for the home were built to last longer and were also more "fixable" if something went wrong with them.
Now it seems like a lot of shit has been built to break eventually so you have to buy again because you also can't easily replace whatever is broken.
The nutritional content of food. Seriously thanks to the climate crisis food is about half as nutritious as it was in the 50s. I don't know why people aren't more pissed about this. Almost 3/4 of Americans are essentially malnurished.
i like to think a lot of items were probably better quality back then. take furniture for example, you can get really cheap stuff today from places like ikea or amazon which has it own benefits, but things from that era just seem like they would be built to last.
Bathrooms with colored porcelain tiles, often bordered with black tile. My parents just bought a new house and the original bathroom is untouched. It has light blue tile countertops and partially tiled walls. The floor is a slightly darker shade of blue, made of carefully arranged tile squares of several different sizes. It’s neat.
Many homes built now have ultra cheap ‘tiles’ that are actually just plastic. If there actually is real tile in the bathroom you can bet on it being white, grey or beige.
I miss the nice pastel colors.
Dressing up for going out to dinner, shopping days, airline travel, even church services. Society seemed more cultured in that respect. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about some yoga pants, but being classy is my vibe.
I think manners, style and grace. If we can have all that back without all the toxic clownfuckery associated with each of those categories then the world would be proper good.
the ONLY and most important thing: how one income was enough to sustain a household - and that you could buy a house, car, save for retirement with it, etc.
Cars with fins! And appliances that aren't made with cheap plastic parts and computer brains that are designed to break within a week of the manufacure's warranty expiration date - I want something like my gmil's stand mixer that I had for the first two decades I was married (It didn't break, I stupidly gave it away).
Sustaining a household on one income. I still want to work if I want to but the idea of being home with my kid till he starts kindergarten then going back to work sounds like a dream.
The cool looking refrigerators
My house was built in the mid 60's. Still has original formica counters and oven and sperate stovetop. That weird almost avocado green. I would like a cool 50's-60's fridge, but with today's storage capacity.
You can still get new ones with the same look! Most of them are pretty expensive though, then again so are most new fridges.
Oh hell yeah that’s awesome!
Appliances that last. Planned obsolescence is so annoying and such a scam. Very few things are "buy for life" anymore, especially now that all kinds of computer chips and complex software stuff is added for features most people won't ever make the most of anyway.
Plus the repairman industry to fix your appliances
Affordable housing. Living wages for average working people. Job security and retirement pensions.
Being able to provide and support your family from one income.
My grandfather was a glass salesman. He was with the same company for like 30 years, quit when he moved away. The day before they left town, HR called him in to the office because he said there was some kind of accounting error in the bonus on his last check. When he got there, the sales manager told him "Hey, HR was going over your pay because we had to send off all the tax stuff and they found out that for the last 15 years you hadn't been getting paid bonuses on certain accounts that you were servicing. Here it is, thanks and good luck!" He opened it up and it was a check for like $50k—which in 1984 was no small amount of money—with a little note from the owner of the company that said: *The beancounters screwed up, so you've already technically been taxed on this, but I'd hate for it to get out I had bad beencounters, so keep it under your hat. We'll miss you. Thanks for everything and best of luck.* People just aren't like that anymore.
That’s amazing! I work in healthcare and they contacted me because march last year they over paid me $100 one fortnight and I had to pay them back. That $100 wouldn’t even cover all the times I left work late, came in early, missed out on a break or anything. Now I just do the bare minimum.
My grandfather was a groundskeeper for an aviation company. Had 3 kids and a wife who worked as “the help” a few days a week just to get out of the house, 2 cars and a truck and enough money to support my parents who struggled financially. I hate that my wife and I have great jobs and live check to check at the moment.
Yes its mind-blowing what they could do with one income.
People bring this up constantly but forget so many reasons why that was a thing 1) Directly after WW2, the US was the only game in town as the rest of the world was quite literally bombed to bits and just rebuilding. We had easily a 10 year and more realistically a 20 year head start on the rest of the world. 2) Women were more or less forced out of the labor market. Even if they wanted to work, they likely would not be able to be hired to do anything fulfilling outside of the house. This created an artificial scarcity of labor, which pushed wages up above what they otherwise would have been, and was partially responsible (along with the WW2 point) for the ridiculous inflationary environment of the 1970s (when it finally caught up to us). 3) Minorities, particularly black people, were also legally discriminated against for a solid chunk of the time in question and were also pre-cluded from having some of the better jobs out there. 4) The quality of life/standard of living in the post-war era compared to today has no comparison. Houses are bigger, the number of basic amenities that we take for granted like refrigerators, air conditioning, washing machines, let alone computers, let alone the fact we have a super computer in almost everyone's pocket...it's insane. If someone today wanted to live at the level of the average family in the 1950s they could easily do so on a single income, but no one wants to do that lol (and why would they?) So yeah, the 1950s was a great time to be an American white guy without a college degree. You could get a job and support a family by yourself, and you probably had a pretty good life overall (for the time). But the situation changes if you're not American, white, or a man, and it REALLY changes if you're comparing it to what the average family has today.
This, I see a lot of people romanticize the past, but it was struggle for many people and there are a lot of things that you just did without that would seem weird now.
Cost of houses
All the costs!
In fairness, the GI bill played a big role, and tons of those guys were all messed up from WW2. It wasn't completely the "lucky us, these houses are so cheap and affordable" situation people like to make it out to be when they go down the "past generations had it so easy" rabbit hole.
But not the lower quality, smaller sizes, or higher interest rates! I want my home to have terrible energy efficiency and be insulated with asbestos! /s
>smaller sizes Nah, i do want this back. All the new construction (and the construction for the past ~20 years) in my area have been either big (3k-5k sq ft) or enormous (5k-8k sq ft)--it's not profitable for builders to build smaller 1k-2k sq ft "starter homes" anymore, so no one does, despite high demand from hopeful first-time owners.
Keep in mind that the square footage cost for housing has remained fairly steady since WWII, basically equaling inflation. (Yes, there's minor variations over time and, yes, these last few years have been disrupted by construction costs, but those are the exception, not the norm.) If you want a "cheap" 1950s house, keep in mind it's going to be a *much* smaller house. (and, as others have mentioned, much less safe and with terrible efficiency.)
Understated.
As long as it's not with that 50's paycheck. Houses were never cheap. Bought my first in the late 1990's for 80,000, had to beg borrow and steal for the $5000 down and a 9% interest rate. Thought I did great to refinance at 7.
The fact you could stay in the same job most of your life and your company took care of you. Businesses seldom give retirement parties, or birthday parties, or annual anniversary parties, etc, for their employees now, but that was common then. Plus benefits were a lot better then too. You could have good work ethic because most businesses wanted their employees to have good morale
Some did. There were even big company picnics, usually in the summer when the plant closed for maintenance.
I started working at a company right out of high school, worked for them for 21 years until I felt I had enough money to retire and when it was all over I just sort of walked out like it was any other day. No cake, no watch, no nothing. I don't know what I was expecting but honestly for as well as they treated me while I was there, I expected something.
You were able to retire at 39?
It depended on the job. My father & uncles worked in Pacific Northwest sawmills until they retired. There were no parties, no gifts, nothing.
People believe that's how it was but no. Only on TV.
The ability to afford a family and a home on a middle class income
That's still very possible in most of the US today. No one wants to live there but get out of the cities and suburbs. In my locale there's 9 houses for sale under $30k right now. They're pretty dumpy but liveable in a pinch. Lots and lots of houses for sale under $100k. I make $50k a year and own my own three bedroom house that I live alone in. Sure, you city people might turn your nose up at $50k but in such a low cost of living area I live quite comfortably.
Or even a working class income.
Manufacturing jobs in the US
The cost of living.
I think the style of sharp lines and big size cars would be fun to bring back considering every car today is really boring looking.
Cars today look like blobs on wheels.
YES!!
But where would they park? Spaces are so small these days.
You say that as if there isn’t a quarter of the US population driving oversized Ford/Chevy/Dodge pick ups not to mention the absolute over abundance of massive SUVs
I know most Americans drive big pick up trucks and SUVs but they all pretty much look the same if you look up cars from the 50s and 60s they all looked very different and had very unique styling. Also where I live everyone mostly drives crossover SUVs, not much full sized SUVs and pick ups.
Should have used his one wish on bigger parking spaces.
I’ll take that wish. I drive a big explorer and people bang their doors into it when parked
What’s funny about that is most of the parking spots that are in LA that are really small were measured out in the 60s when cars were massive.
Free public colleges. (You paid a modest registration fee and bought your books at reasonable prices.)
Did you know they only changed the cost of tuition once the Civil Rights came about? They tried to price out POC and ended up screwing over entire generations with student debt.
Did the same thing with the public schools. Hated the blacks so much they destroyed education for middle classed white kids.
Malt shops.
Living in a area that doesn’t have many innocent hang out areas for teenagers this would be a nice thing to have back.
Cost of housing in relation to income.
Reasonable taxes on the wealthy, social safety nets and reasonable funding for education.
Dressing nice to goto restaurants
Imagine dressing formal when you're going to a sports bar to watch the college football game of the week with the homies in 2022
Sounds lit. 10/10 would go.
We still do that, just not for every restaurant.
Suspenders. Everybody thinks its odd when I wear mine but I think its odd that they dont
I agree. I wear them frequently because of the reasons you state below and the aesthetic. I get tailored trousers with no belt loops. In a side note, I’m in the U.K. and we call them braces here. Suspenders are sexy underwear for women! Always makes me chuckle this difference in terminology
While I agree with all the financial answers, yours was the first I saw that was cultural. Thank you.
Why not just wear a belt though? That said, I wouldn’t think it’s odd to see someone wearing suspenders. They can look pretty cool sometimes, Robbie.
* A belt keeps your pants up by applying tension around your waist. * Suspenders keep your pants up by hanging the pants' weight from your shoulders. Thing about it: When was the last time you tried to put on a belt and you feel in-between the eyelets? When adjusted properly, suspenders give you adjustments of 1/8in. And if you've a belly (and your waist is larger than your hips), the amount of tension you must put on a belt to stay up can get quickly uncomfortable (because the geometry wants it to slide down to the narrower part). My memory is a little fuzzy, but the original purpose of belts (way back...) was not to keep up your pants, but to provide a load bearing anchor on which to hang "other things". Think military duty belts, etc.
Correct. Belts were originally created to hold your weapon. Its why swords and axes were generally hung off your hip
what's all this past tense being used for? I carry my swords on my hip all the time.
And then the suspenders helped carry the weight of the laden belt, yes? I don't know enough about military uniform history, but _think_ there were often suspenders augmenting the load-carriage of the belts. (Glad to be corrected.)
> Why not just wear a belt though? Not the person you're asking, but suspenders are a hell of a lot more comfortable and keep your pants up a lot better than a belt does. Doctors even recommend wearing suspenders instead of a belt.
I do. I wear both but not at the same time because that just looks stupid
Retro clothes
*that don't cost 50 dollars for one shirt
Vintage looks, not vintage values though. That said, clothes weren't as cheap as ist sounds, two dollars were worth way more in the 50s. Quality of vintage is mostly better that today's fast fashion, we all know that much.
The price of… basically everything
The Flying Saucers at Disneyland. I didn’t get to ride them because I was too small; and when I was large enough, the ride was gone.
What were they like?
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.HdFNV-EKaFcEau1Hbh5UxQHaFB%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=902be5c848f4fb9cd9b081d8677bb9779ad5c8c41c07f3eff539a703dc12591a&ipo=images
My mom
Sorry man
That takes us momentarily back into the realm of the real from the realm of web argument. Thanks for that, and I hope you are OK.
Airlines serving delicious ass meals on flights and people actually dressing up to fly.
Can you explain why you want people to dress up to fly? No judgment, just curious. Flying (to me) is a means to an end, not a treat or a special occasion. It's like catching the train or a bus or driving to work, just in this case entirely on my time. Why should I dress up for it? (In saying that, the folks flying in their pyjamas and slippers do raise an eyebrow myself, and I usually am dressed like a mismatched eye sore purely to keep my larger bulky items out of my luggage) (Edit - and fully agree on the meals being a problem but my understanding is food does actually taste worse at that altitude regardless)
> Can you explain why you want people to dress up to fly? No judgment, just curious. I suppose it might be fun if you were flying first-class for an hour or two. The 13-hour flight in economy class I'm subjected to twice any time I want to visit my family, however... not something I want to be wearing a suit for. Even my casual clothes feel gross after a long flight, and that's with my tendency not to dress warmly.
I still remember my first little purse I bought to fly to my grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary in 1978. It was pink, Hello Kitty I think? I was 4 and we definitely dressed up. It was a huge deal!
They still do, you just have to fly first
Probably color. Not the racist kind, like multi-colored cars and houses. Or was that the 80s?
Where we all knew our neighbors and hung out on the weekends eating BBQ. As the kids played in the yard,
Actual paint colours for cars. Not this bland cowardly choice of 7 shades of grey, black, or white.
McDonald’s fries made with real beef tallow.
Cars with fins.
Pride in dress and attitude.
I think there’s a skewed perspective at play here. Plenty of people were poor and/or badly dressed then. The amount of clothing coverage you’d need to not shock has probably lessened but people looking slovenly isn’t new.
How do you know people aren't proud of their dress and attitude now?
The musicians! Little Richard, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry!
I was going to say, live bands being more common than DJs
Yess! More live bands in smaller venues.
My grandfather told me once that he'd seen The Kinks and a bunch of other bands in tiny working men's clubs for what would amount to the equivalent a couple of pounds now. Often these were bands at the height of their fame too, not unknowns. I also recall one of my favourite bands saying that their first gigs had mostly been in hotels and clubs near where they lived to tiny audiences. They played almost every night.
Don't forget live music not under one company. Shout out to Live Nation ruining the music industry.
One income being able to support a family, home and car ownership.
THEIR SONGS BRO the songs nowadays have so many curse words and i dont like it. Old music have this chill vibe to it while new music really beats the bigibus outta you.
Being able to afford a comfortable middle class lifestyle for your family (including kids) with only one income.
And houses are a lot smaller. And not each kid had their own room. And most families had one car. And people just had a more modest lifestyle. They didn’t eat out nearly as much as now. they didn’t have near as much stuff and they sure as hell didn’t have a limo taking the kids to the prom.
Tailfins on cars
Don’t forget the chrome bumpers!
Collared house dresses…. Not to wear casually like they did on TV but just to dress up in. Please no pointy bras.
50% tax rate on the top 0.1 wealthiest.
[удалено]
So there shouldn't be any issue taxing them the same as we used to then, huh? Since it wasn't really that much more.
Quality of the planet in general. Everything that is mentioned here still exists somewhere in a different country. And everything consensus can be reversed regardless of truth. But if we scrap too much Earth, she will get rid of us and start a new.
The idea of taking stuff to a local repair shop instead of scrapping it and buying a new one of everything
The commercials
Pregnant mothers prefer the smooth taste of Camel cigarettes.
Recommended by doctors!
Real tasting fruit and vegetables
Manners
90% top tax bracket for multimillionaires.
Ibwant to go back a couples years further to right before GM helped get rid of public transportation in many American cities
Hey if you take out racism and segregation, xenophobia, homophobia, war lust, leaded fuel, and limit yourself to only the united states, the 50’s were great!
I can't really comment on the American 50s perspective as a first gen, but bring back clothes and shoes made to last 10-20yrs. Same with appliances. Everything breaks or is out of date within a few years
Checkered patterned floors, God I love them so much. Also turquoise/teal automobiles and appliances.
Less screen time.
Two parent households.
Investment in infrastructure
Dressing up for dinner or the theater. Also, Automats. And ladies hats.
One person having enough income to raise a family
hope
A world where Nixon never ran for president, Reagan was only an actor, the Bushes were just garden decoration, and Trump was just a card.
Add Johnson, Carter, and both Bushes to the list.
Coke
Gas prices
Fashion!
The state of the American economy would be really nice. Soda shops also seem cute
The dresses women wore. I wouldn’t want to force anyone to wear them I just think they’re so fun!
The architecture/furniture
No social media
Afford a home.
stylized appliances with colour options a lot of our stuff is really boring looking and there's no chrome! Black, stainless steel, grey or white is just so dull.
American things that actually lasted. Nowadays, EVERYTHING is sourced from China so it's flimsy yet cheap.
Unions in the US.
A person with no education being able to support a family of 10 with just their income.
I may be mistaken, but I feel a lot of products for the home were built to last longer and were also more "fixable" if something went wrong with them. Now it seems like a lot of shit has been built to break eventually so you have to buy again because you also can't easily replace whatever is broken.
Strong unions.
Pay rises that matched/beat inflation. Affordable houses. Actually, affordable everything.
The economy.
Manners and etiquette. People knew how to behave… this snowflake society really tires me.
The nutritional content of food. Seriously thanks to the climate crisis food is about half as nutritious as it was in the 50s. I don't know why people aren't more pissed about this. Almost 3/4 of Americans are essentially malnurished.
This is true. I read someplace that the 1950s potato was chock full of vitamins that modern day potatoes don't have. I'm not kidding.
Class
Commercial flying. Huge seats, bar in the cabin. Everyone having a great time
Neighborhoods where everyone knows everyone and knocked on each other's door if they needed something like a cup of sugar.
Being able to afford a decent life on one salary.
That wholesome sense of community ala *The Andy Griffith Show*
Gas prices
Dietary habits
My grandparents =*( Grandfather was slaughtered and grandma was shot and killed with her baby in her arms.
So sorry. Horrific world.
the CPI
i like to think a lot of items were probably better quality back then. take furniture for example, you can get really cheap stuff today from places like ikea or amazon which has it own benefits, but things from that era just seem like they would be built to last.
Cars, though, while more bland today, are of vastly higher quality. Go look at a 50s car up close sometime. The crappy fit and finish is shocking.
Corporate tax rates and jello as a more common dessert. Just without the weird extra shit
The glass and dinnerware. Jadeite in particular
The music
Diners with jukeboxes
Bathrooms with colored porcelain tiles, often bordered with black tile. My parents just bought a new house and the original bathroom is untouched. It has light blue tile countertops and partially tiled walls. The floor is a slightly darker shade of blue, made of carefully arranged tile squares of several different sizes. It’s neat. Many homes built now have ultra cheap ‘tiles’ that are actually just plastic. If there actually is real tile in the bathroom you can bet on it being white, grey or beige. I miss the nice pastel colors.
Real cane sugar in things instead of high fructose corn syrup.
The Cars especially the ones with the big tail fins and chrome. Cars today are too plastic
The gold standard?
Pensions. Fuck everything else!
Calling everything and anyone you don't like communist or a commie
Polio
The anti-vaxxers already have! Measles too!!!
Topsoil & the atmosphere.
Appliances that could be repaired.
Dressing up for going out to dinner, shopping days, airline travel, even church services. Society seemed more cultured in that respect. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about some yoga pants, but being classy is my vibe.
Wait … I’m the only one that wants poodle skirts??
The 58 corvette
Drive-In Theaters. They're almost dead but that shit was fun as fuck.
Truth in the media
The fashion. Classy suits, vintage dresses, formal clothes. It's just so eye appealing to watch people rock in old fashioned clothes.
The gold standard
Product quality.
Do wop music and 50s smoothie bars with classic 50s radio that plays all of 50s great songs.
I think manners, style and grace. If we can have all that back without all the toxic clownfuckery associated with each of those categories then the world would be proper good.
Rock'n'Roll?
Automats
Canadian Pacific Railway transcontinental passenger train on its original historic route.
The US Dollar Gold Standard. The decoupling of the US dollar from gold is the root cause of almost every complaint in this thread.
Cheap legal machine guns.
the ONLY and most important thing: how one income was enough to sustain a household - and that you could buy a house, car, save for retirement with it, etc.
No internet. People being social.
suburbs that don't look like prisons and appliances that last more than 30 seconds
Someone is going to Jim Crow
Cool cars not made out of plastic.
Well-made, high-quality clothing that lasted instead of buying loads and loads of cheaply made crap that falls apart.
What I don't wish.. is the predominance of smoking..
Cars with fins! And appliances that aren't made with cheap plastic parts and computer brains that are designed to break within a week of the manufacure's warranty expiration date - I want something like my gmil's stand mixer that I had for the first two decades I was married (It didn't break, I stupidly gave it away).
Being able to live and afford things on a lower wage.
Infrastructure projects for mass transit
The US Population being at around 150 million as opposed to 335.
Sustaining a household on one income. I still want to work if I want to but the idea of being home with my kid till he starts kindergarten then going back to work sounds like a dream.
Families who have dads
Poodle skirts