The Popular Toys!

Today the popular toys are Wi, XBox, iPad, iPod and laptops.  Not in the 1950s!!!!!!

Pogo Sticks

Silly Putty

Hula Hoops

Electric train sets

Red Ryder BB Gun

Its rare to see these things that were popular back in the day!! 

What were the trends?

Here are some trends 1950s people followed!

Going steady/Getting pinned

Wearing boyfriends class ring

Sock hops

These glasses

Having a crush on James Dean

Rock ’n’ Roll Music

Hanging out at the malt shop

Woman Hairstyles

Women hair styles consist of being long, curled and high maintenance!

Hairstyles were soft curly!

The Poodle Cut

This was during a fad that was named the poodle frenzy

(Lucille Ball) 

The Beehive

Other hair styles

Above To the left, is how to the hairstyle to the right!

No need for a hair dyer, all you need is curlers.

Anne Taintor

If you love the housewives of the 1950s you will love Anne Taintor brand! She has coin purses totes, shot glasses, baggage tags and sticky notes! AND MORE

 

Interstate System

Interstate System

By 1954 began an interstate system for making both civilian transportation and military transportation easier. This idea was from president Eisenhower over the German autobahn after being over seas during world war II. He though it was be a great idea for the country. So he created a commission to recommend a highway program that would cost as much as a war, and the budget of the federal budget was 71 billion dollars and the president wanted 40 billion of it to fulfill the highway program!

By 1956 the Federal Aid Highway Act passed through congress and the project was one of the most expensive public projects in American History. The act was based on the construction of an interstate highway system that would lay down close to 41,000 miles of road.

source:<http://onetwentynineapedia1950s.wikispaces.com/Science+and+Technology>

Fallout Shelters

The 1950 Fallout Shelter

In 1956

 Fallout shelters were used during the Cold War and from a nuclear attack! 

When the Civil Defense Administration was created. It  urged suburban Americans to prepare themselves for imminent disaster by building bomb shelters for their families.

Like this image about advertisements of the time showed mothers reading tp their children, while being comfortable as well in the shelter.

With only $3,000, anybody in the fifties could purchased a eight by fourteen foot steel shelter with enough food and water for at least five days. With the steel shelter it would have a radio and a generator and protecting suits incase of an aftermath of a attack. 

The Cold War

The Cold War (in the 1950s)

The word Cold War was first used in 1947 Bernard Baruch who was the senior advisor to the 33rd president of the United States, Harry Truman.

The Cold War was between the Soviet Union and the United States and it was a half century of military buildup, political maneuvering for international support and behind the scenes military assistance for allies and satellite nations that began in the late 1940s. This was caused from threats of mutual nuclear destruction. It latest for about four decades

 Berlin Airlift in (1948-1949)
Was the time when there were threats in bringing an open war with explosive situations.
By the end of WWII when Germany was defeated it was divided amongst the victors; the Soviet Union=eastern half, United States=western, Great Britain and France and the Soviet Union. There was four-power provisional government called the allied control council that was installed within Berlin and it was to control and rebuild the entire city of Berlin..

The Korean Conflict (1950-1953)

june 25, 1950-july 27,1953 and it was a conflict betwen North Korea and South Korea. South korea supported principally by the US, UK and the Philippines. While in North Korea it supported Peoples volunteer Army of comminist China and then later Soviet combat advisors, air craft pilots and weapons...

With the United States the conflict was termed to have a police action, as the Korean Conflict, under the united nations, rather then a war...They largely in order were to remove the necessity of a Congressional declaration of war. 

source:<http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_Korean_Conflict>

The Cold War latest for about four decades and it was very expensive. It costed the U.S. eight trillion dollars in military expenditures and over 100,000 lives in Korea and Vietnam. 

There is no exact cost for the Soviet Union, only that they spent a larger percentage of their gross national product on the war, maybe as much as 60 percent.

In december 1989, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S Pesident George Bush ended the war ofically at a summit in Malta. Although tensions still lingered... least the war still ended !!

Teen idols

Like teen idols today, here of some of the idols girls back then admired!

Frankie Avalon

"If a miss wants to be kissed instead of cuddled, And to this you are in  doubt as what to say, When a girl changes from bobby socks to stockings, Then she is old enough to give her heart away."

Bobby Darin

"We'll meet beyond the shore we'll kiss just as before
Happy we'll be beyond the sea and never again I'll go sailin'"

Fabian

 "Turn me loose, Turn me lose, I say.

Gonna rock and roll As long as the band's gonna play" 

Bobby Rydell

 

"Headin' down the shore (Wildwood days) to have a ball once more
Whoa whoa whoa whoa those Wildwood days, wild, wild Wildwood days"

Ricky Nelson

 "Some people call me a teenage idol, Some people say they envy me.

I guess they got no way of knowing how lonesome I can be"

Paul Anka

"And they call it Puppy Love just because we're seventeen.

 Tell them all, oh, please tell them it isn't fair to take away my only dream."