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The Myth of the 1950s
The 1950s are a time of transition between the conservatism of the 1940s and the anti-establishment free love of the 1960s. It wasn't the conformist version of the country that survives in film and television, an idealized America that is built of popular myths.
When were the 1950s?
It seems obvious to say that the 1950s were between 1950 and 1959. But the cultural era that we think of as the 1950s actually spans from about 1945 (right after the end of World War II) until about 1964. Picnic opened on Broadway in 1953, and although Inge doesn't pinpoint a specific date, it seems to take place in the years around the turn of the decade.
The 1950s are often held up as the American Golden Age, before sex, drugs, and rock-n'-roll corrupted the country's impressionable youth in the 1960s.
Was it a Simpler, Better, Easier Time?
To put it simply... no. Old television shows from the period give a nostalgic view of the American nuclear family, with a mother and father fulfilling traditional household gender roles while raising two or three obedient and respectful kids. A man's salary was enough to buy a house and support a cheerful, stay-at-home mother and the entire family. But I Love Lucy and Leave it to Beaver are no more an accurate portrayal of the era than Full House or Friends are accurate depictions of life in the 1980s or 90s.
Who Are We Talking About?
Often when we bring up World War II, we think of the Baby Boomers. But the Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964, beginning with an explosion of births that occurred when the soldiers overseas came home. In the play, which is in part about the differences between the generations, the older characters are from the Greatest Generation (born between 1901 and 1927), and the younger characters are part of the Silent Generation (born between 1928 and 1945). Both generations lived and came of age through major hardship and strife: from World War I, the Great Depression to World War II and the Cold War.
But They Were More Traditional and Modest, Right?
Again... no. What we see in films and television from the period is heavily censored by the Hays Code, a set of rules that were enforced by Hollywood studios between 1934 and 1968, after the Supreme Court's unanimous 1915 decision that the right to free speech doesn't apply to cinema. The Hays Code, which stuck around for sixteen years after the Supreme Court overturned their ruling.
All of the studios complied with and enforced the code through professional pressure and censorship.
Even Betty Boop was deemed scandalous and had to cover up. Here she is before and after the code began:
Films from the pre-Hays era of Hollywood (in the 1920s and early 30s) showed plenty of scandalous things: sex, interracial and same-sex relationships, violence, abortion, and prostitution. Characters who were morally corrupt would sometimes get away with and even profit from their crimes.
And while onscreen characters became essentially neutered and beholden to a strict idea of morality, real people were also having sex (pre-marital, same-sex, interracial, and otherwise), sharing beds instead of sleeping chastely in matching twin beds, using drugs and drinking alcohol, and [gasp] dancing.
The 1950s weren't a more innocent time at all. It's just that this popular and enduring understanding of the era, which only existed onscreen, has overshadowed real lives in the national imagination.
Don't believe me? Here are some famous actors cursing on blooper reels from old Hollywood movies:
What About the Economy?
While it's true that the economy and capitalism were booming, in large part due to wartime spending that helped to pull the country out of the Great Depression, it's important to remember that economic prosperity has never, in any era of modern history, been available to everyone. This play isn't about nuclear families with high-earning husbands and stay-at-home wives. It's about people for whom the American Dream is always out of reach. Like the playwright himself, the characters in Picnic live in the American heartland of rural Kansas, where opportunities are minimal and leaving town is harder than it looks.
Historical Context
Post-War Americanness
After the Great Depression in the 1930s and the sacrifices and rationing during World War II, the country was finally coming into a period of prosperity. The women who had followed Rosie the Riveter into the workplace to keep the country afloat during the war were able to return to the kitchen and the housekeeping. The 50s are often called the Golden Age of American Capitalism, which may sound a little dystopian from the vantage point of 2024. Everything was "booming." The economy was booming with higher wages, higher employment numbers, and lower inflation rates. Consumerism was booming, as the middle class left big cities and flooded the suburbs (which were also booming) and bought houses that they filled with televisions, new-fangled appliances, and two cars in the driveway. And they filled them with kids, since birthrates were also booming, resulting in about four million "baby boomer" births per year. Materialism and "family values" became synonymous with American identity and tied into the American Dream.
The 1950s are sometimes called an "Era of Consensus," but this "consensus" is really a positive spin on an era of enforced conformity. There were significant social - and sometimes legal - consequences for those who failed to conform. They might even be labeled un-American. The prosperity that makes this decade notable was only available to certain parts of the population, and the fifties were a time to fight for equality. Most of the significant historical events and changes that we'll talk about here aren't explicitly mentioned in the play. But they're essential to understanding the world of the play as it shapes these characters and feeds their hopes and dreams.
Historical Context
The Cost of Living in the 1950s
Average Annual Full-Time Salary:
$4713 for men/$3008 for women
Average Costs:
A single-family House: $7,354
A New Car: $1,741
A Quart of Milk: $0.14
A New Television: $200-500
A Year of College Tuition:
A Gallon of Gas: $0.25-0.30
A Day in the Hospital: $20-30
Public: $200-500/Private: $600-1000
Historical Context
World War II and National Politics
In 1945, Winston Churchill said:
In the first years of World War II, Americans were divided among interventionists (who believed that the U.S. had a duty to get involved in the war) and isolationists (who believed that the U.S. should mind their own business and stay out. After World War I, many Americans were not interested in another international war, especially since World War I didn't live up to its promise of being the "war to end all wars." But when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in December of 1941, the U.S. declared war on Japan. A few days later, Italy and Germany declared war on the United States. The U.S. set to work building up its military, utilizing a draft system that was implemented in 1940 - the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.
"America at this moment stands at the summit of the world."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt served an unprecedented four terms as president, beginning in 1933 during the Great Depression and through World War II until he died of a stroke in 1945, only a few months before the war ended. Once the U.S. entered the war, American identity and patriotism became central to the war effort. Millions of men and women joined the military to be deployed overseas. Meanwhile,
those who stayed behind - mostly women, children, and older people - were tasked with keeping the "homefront" going. This meant rationing, buying "Liberty bonds" from the government to help finance the war, and leaving the home to go to work in the jobs left vacant by men on the warfront.
In 2024, it's hard to imagine the United States as an isolationist country that didn't involve itself in international affairs, since this policy changed completely during World War II. The war was widely considered righteous, a war against fascism, although of the ten million men and women who served in the military, nearly half a million died and 700,000 came back with physical injuries. Countless more had shellshock, or what is now known as PTSD.
With the strength of the military that was built up during the war and the rising value of the U.S. dollar, the United States became a major world power. The U.S. formed a military alliance with Canada and ten European countries called NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in which each member promised to treat an attack on one country as if it were an attack on their own, solidifying the U.S.'s new position of interventionism.
After FDR died in office only three months into his fourth term, Vice President Harry S. Truman was sworn into office. Having only served as vice president for the few months of FDR's final term, Truman had not even been informed about the development of the atomic bomb or the budding conflict with the Soviets that would become the Cold War. Truman made the decision to drop the atomic bombs that would end the war. He took part in the formation of the United Nations to promote peace. After carrying out the majority of what
would have been FDR's fourth term, Truman was elected for another term in 1948, then deciding to retire instead of running for another term.
In 1951, Congress passed the 22nd amendment, which enacted a two-term limit for presidents, a measure intended to prevent the possibility of tyrannical rule. Truman was succeeded by Dwight D. Eisenhower, who served from 1953 until 1961, making him the newly-elected president during the period in which Picnic takes place. Along with the powerful military that the U.S. built during wartime, American manufacturing was at a peak, due to innovations that streamlined the production of weapons,
munitions, planes, and other war necessities. Unemployment dropped from 25% during the Great Depression to a historically low 1.2% by the end of the war.
Economists debated whether this wartime productivity could be translated into peacetime, many doubting that the United States could maintain its booming economy without the demands of war. But the United States did continue booming, and G.I.s returning from war had little difficulty finding employment. The G.I. Bill and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) allowed many veterans to get college degrees and buy homes. Mass-manufacturing techniques were used to produce cars and houses, which led to the creation of the first suburbs. The increase of consumerism plus the continued build-up of the military-industrial complex due to the Cold War pushed the United States to become the richest and most powerful country in the world.
Historical Context
The Atomic Age
On August 6th and August 9th, 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing Japan to surrender five days later and ending World War II. The bombs instantly killed an estimated 120,000 Japanese people - mostly civilians - followed by tens of thousands more who died from the radiation.
The destruction was unfathomable - two entire cities were practically blown off the map. ​Some people were vaporized on the spot, which turned out to be lucky compared to those who died more prolonged and painful deaths.
Now that we've established that nuclear weapons are terrifying, imagine learning this for the first time and also living with the knowledge that the U.S. isn't the only country developing these bombs. This started the Atomic Age, in which the United States continued to develop and test atomic bombs, and everyone lived in perpetual fear of nuclear war. The country that caused the most concern was the Soviet Union, which led to the start of the Cold War.
Historical Context
The Cold War (1947-1991)
The Cold War was about nuclear weapons, Communism, and competition. The United States has been terrified of Communism since 1917, when the Bolsheviks in Russia overthrew the government, installed a Communist regime, and became the Soviet Union. The U.S. government started an intense anti-Communist propaganda campaign that still heavily influences American attitudes about Communism and Socialism. The United States and the Soviet Union were in an arms race, competing with each other to build the biggest arsenal.
How did this affect the average American?
First, there was rampant distrust and suspicion. Anyone might be a Communist spy. People were encouraged to turn each other in, and Senator Joe McCarthy started conducting hearings in the senate for those who were accused. People were ostracized and had their lives and careers ruined for being suspected of Communism, which should technically be protected by the first amendment.​​
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Second, Americans began to live in constant fear of nuclear war and annihilation. In schools, students practiced for a nuclear attack in air raid drills, in which they were taught to duck under their desks and cover their heads. Of course, it seems ridiculous now to think that this would save anyone from a nuclear bomb, but it's important to remember that the idea of a weapon of mass destruction - especially one that might be dropped on the U.S. - was brand new. America's panic levels were certainly high, although the United States is still the only country to ever drop nuclear weapons on another.
And third, since Communism was seen as a great evil, and Capitalism is basically the opposite of Communism, Capitalist consumerism became a big part of American identity. Spending wages on consumer goods such as televisions, cars, and appliances was pro-America. In fact, buying a new TV was a great way to fight the Russians!
Historical Context
The Lavender Scare (Late 1940s - 1960s)
There's a good chance you've heard about the Red Scare(s), but what is the Lavender Scare and why don't we talk about it? At the same time that the U.S. government was trying to root out alleged communists, they also started panicking over the increasingly visible gay community. In fact, despite its relegation to the footnotes of history, the Lavender Scare lasted longer than either of the two Red Scares, and it directly affected many more lives. Although the play doesn't mention the Lavender Scare, it certainly would have been significant in Inge's consciousness, as he was a closeted gay man who was never able to come out in his lifetime.
The persecution of LGBTQ+* people is an ongoing issue that is far from solved. It took sixty years to make it from:
This...
1958
...to This
2015
Although same-sex sex has occurred in every era of humanity (with or without identity labels such as gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc.), and it has been observed in over 1500 species of animals, each generation seems to be discovering its existence for the first time in human history. World War II allowed people to escape their small towns and see the world, and LGBTQ+ people were finding each other, forming social families despite remaining closeted. In 1948, Alfred Kinsey's bestselling Sexual Behavior in the Human Male argues that same-sex sex/relationships are normal and even common.
Getting Lavender from Red
After World War II, LGBTQ+ people began to migrate from rural towns to big cities, where they could find communities and take advantage of the anonymity. Then, in 1947, the U.S. States Park Police enacted the
"Pervert Elimination Campaign," which was a homophobic crusade to arrest gay men who were known to cruise in the parks. This campaign
led to at least 500 gay men being arrested, of which 76 were charged. Then, in 1948, Congress passed an act that pledged to provide in-patient psychological treatment to "sexual psychopaths," a term for those who are not mentally ill, but they are "sexually deviant" and unable to control their deviant urges. Despite the use of a broad term, the purpose
of the initiative was to root out those who have expressed or demonstrated - or possibly only been rumored to have - homosexual desires. They would be arrested and committed to a state mental hospital. But what really catalyzed the Lavender Scare was when Senator Joseph McCarthy linked homosexuality to communism in a now-famous address from the senate floor.
Prior to 1950, non-hetero sexualities were certainly not socially accepted. Same-sex attractions were sublimated, viewed as perverse
and strange. But by associating homosexuality with communism, which was considered the greatest threat to truth, justice, and the American way, McCarthy made it dangerous. It was something to hate and fear. And just like the model by which Americans are told communism can spread - sort of like a communicable illness - Americans become afraid that homosexuality can be caught and spread, infecting the good boys and girls and removing them from the reproductive pool, the nuclear family, and the American Dream, thus threatening the very existence of humanity. Fears that same-sex attraction or transgender identities are contagious, which is, for the record, utterly ridiculous and false, led to a scramble to shield the nation's
children from exposure and possible "infection." The scramble is still occurring today, despite the complete lack of evidence that LGBTQ+ people are either a threat to children or in any way infectious.
Instead of acknowledging that their hatred of LGBTQ+ people wasn't based on logic or reality, but instead arising from a reasonless "ick" at the thought of gay sex, lawmakers began deliberately conflating homosexuality with communism and treating the two identities as co-morbidities in the great social ill of the Cold War. They used phrases like "loyalty risk," "unusual morals," "moral risks," and "moral weaklings" to malign gay people as social outsiders. Since being gay was a considered a moral failing, alongside addictions like "habitual drunkenness," being financially irresponsible, or having a criminal history, gay people must also be too weak-willed to resist the advances of communist recruiters. And of course, they couldn't be trusted with government secrets. Naturally, with all the paranoia about communists infiltrating the U.S. government, concerns arose quickly about gay people in federal or civil service jobs. So the firings began.
In 1952, the APA* added homosexuality to the DSM* as a sociopathic personality disturbance, and it would remain there until it was removed in 1973. In 1953, President Eisenhower issued Executive Order #10450, which required the intense scrutiny of government employees and applicants to prove their trustworthiness. Since gay people were thought to be easily led into treachery, any hint of homosexuality - or even the proximity to alleged homosexuality - meant being fired (or asked to resign). Approximately 5,000-10,000 people lost their jobs for alleged homosexuality. In addition, their lives were destroyed. They were forcibly outed to the community and their families. Some even resorted to suicide. As with communism, employees were pressured to report their colleagues if they suspected homosexuality. While the firings were occurring in Washington D.C., LGBTQ+ people across the country were afraid to congregate at gay bars lest their employer find out.
Needless to say, coming out of the closet in the 1950s was extremely risky, even for those without aspirations to government employment. William Inge lived in the closet all his life, undoubtedly contributing to his depression and eventual suicide. Despite rigorous picketing outside the White House in the mid-1960s, Eisenhower's executive order remained active for forty years. In 1995, President Clinton signed an executive order to ban discrimination due to sexual orientation in issuing security clearances. He signed another in 1998 barring sexual orientation discrimination in hiring for government jobs. In many ways, the Lavender Scare is still alive and well. In 2017, Donald Trump decided to ban transgender people from serving in the military, which Biden overrode in 2021. At a civilian level, many right-wing parents are terrified of exposing their children to LGBTQ+ people, viewing them as the bogeyman in the public bathroom, the indoctrinating drag queen at library story hours, or the enemy within, or the hypersexual monster in the closet.
*American Psychological Association
*The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
*The use of the LGBTQ+ initialism is an anachronism here, as its first form, LGB, didn't come about until the 1990s.
Historical Context
The Holocaust
Although the atrocities of the Holocaust are not referenced in the play, it's essential to mention that the characters in the play are living in a recently post-Holocaust world. When Allied soldiers liberated the prisoners from Nazi concentration camps, they captured the unthinkable horrors of the camps on film. Americans would have seen footage in newsreels. Although it was generally known that the Nazis were persecuting Jews, the utter cruelty of the way Jewish (and other) prisoners were treated was almost beyond comprehension. The enormity of six million Jewish lives extinguished for no good reason, and survivors who were often so traumatized that they became permanently catatonic, alive but like the walking dead, created a new consciousness of what Hannah Arendt called, "the banality of evil" or what many have described using a phrase coined by poet Robert Burns (1784): "man's inhumanity to man."
Like the invention of the atomic bomb and the threat of nuclear war, the Holocaust changed the way people thought about life and death. If six million people can be brutally and systematically murdered, if death can be so mechanized and depersonalized as to rob murder victims of their identity and humanity, what is the worth of human life? How might one renegotiate their sense of self and self-worth in a world where it can be taken away? In response to this new consciousness, Albert Camus wrote "The Myth of Sisyphus" (1942), in which he compares humanity to Sisyphus of Greek mythology, who is doomed by the gods to spend eternity endlessly rolling a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll down. Camus suggests that if we accept that life is meaningless, we can find freedom in that.
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Historical Context
The Korean War (1950-1953)
Just about every American student learns about World War II and the Cold War at some point in their education, but little is said about the Korean War, which is why it is often called "the forgotten war." The United States's interest and entry into the war was certainly a part of the Cold War and the fear of Communism. The Communist Northern Korean People's Army, backed by China and the Soviets, invaded non-Communist South Korea with the goal of unifying the country and installing a Communist regime. UN forces* joined South Korea to fight with the counter-goal of uniting the country under a non-Communist government.
President Harry Truman sent close to two million American troops because, "If South Korea fell, the communists would attack other nations, resulting in World War III." About 37,000 American soldiers died, 92,000 were wounded, and 8,000 were missing. When Eisenhower entered office in 1953, the war ended with a peace treaty, although North and South Korea remained separated and hostile.
The United States used the draft to populate the troops that invaded Korea, although World War II veterans were exempt.
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*U.N. forces included the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Turkey, Australia, Philippines, New Zealand, Thailand, Ethiopia, Greece, France, Colombia, Belgium, South Africa, Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
Historical Context
The American Dream
Over time, the American Dream has changed, but it always been about self-determination and the ability to fill one's potential regardless of the circumstances of one's birth. Of course, we know that the circumstances of one's birth matter a lot. Someone like Alan was born into generational wealth and with a father who has the connections and standing to ensure a prestigious future for his son. But Hal was on his own. He managed to pull himself up by his bootstraps to get a football scholarship, but he wasn't accepted by his peers, and he didn't have the educational preparation that would have helped him to stay in school.
In the 1950s, the American Dream centered on raising a family, owning a nicely-decorated home in the suburbs, and having a car for the husband to drive into the city for work while the wife stays at home and raises the kids. Capitalism was American, so spending money was patriotic.
But the American Dream wasn't available to everyone. It promised the potential of social and class mobility, but this was only really for white men. Unmarried women had limited options for work if they didn't have a husband to support them, or if their family was poor and needed their paycheck. Additionally, Black Americans were denied opportunities and were in the midst of the fight for Civil Rights in the 1950s.
Historical Context
The Civil Rights Movement
When we discuss the Civil Rights movement, we usually talk about the mid-1950s, but the fight for freedom and equality began as soon as the first enslaved people were forcibly kidnapped and taken across the ocean to the United States in 1619. Slave rebellions, uprisings, escapes, and abolitionism occurred throughout the history of U.S. slavery. After the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished by the 13th amendment in 1865, a new fight began to legitimize Black Americans as equal citizens with equal rights. The 14th amendment (1868) promised equal protection under the law and the 15th amendment (1870) granted Black men the right to vote.
At the same time, southern states enacted Jim Crow laws, or the legal apparatus that enforced segregation. Black Americans were marginalized and kept separated from white people, forced to use different public facilities, attend Black-only schools, and live in certain areas. Interracial marriage was illegal. In 1896, in Plessy vs. Ferguson, the Supreme Court decided that facilities for Black and white people could be "separate but equal." However, facilities for Black people were never actually equal. Some states implemented literacy tests that would effectively bar many Black men from exercising their right to vote. And although Jim Crow laws were only enacted in southern states, northern states operated with just as much discrimination - it just wasn't codified into law.
The roots of the modern Civil Rights movement began with World War II, when over a million Black men and women served in the military. They were in segregated units that were often commanded by white officers, but they fought just as hard both in Europe and on the homefront. Even as soldiers, they were treated as second-class citizens, often receiving fewer privileges than white German POWs. Black Americans had to fight to even join the military and the war efforts, which Roosevelt only allowed through executive order in 1941, when thousands of Black
Americans threatened to march on Washington.
During the war, Black servicemen and women proved themselves and broke racial barriers, but after the war ended, they returned to the same country that oppressed them and denied opportunities. In 1948, Truman issued Executive Order 9981 to outlaw discrimination in the military. This was a significant step in the fight toward Civil Rights that would dominate the 1950s.
Here's John Green and Crash Course History with a great overview of how the Civil Rights movement worked. The video discusses Brown vs. the Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that desegregated public schools and how schools fought to stay segregated, which is especially useful for understanding the environment in which the teachers in the play are working.
And here's Clint Smith with Crash Course Black American History speaking specifically about segregation in schools and Brown vs. the Board of Education:
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