Primary Sources: The 1950s: Home & Family

"Sources are the raw materials that historians use to write history. This site offers a range of primary sources—published and unpublished documents as well as images—that begin to fill in the picture of adoption’s past, illuminating topics, people, organizations, and studies that shaped adoption theory and practice during the twentieth century."

"An afternoon and evening in the complicated lives of six teenagers."

"Etiquette for teenagers as demonstrated by well-dressed youth of Webster Groves (Missouri) High School."

"Explore more than 300 annotated primary sources focused on children and youth throughout world history."

"Designed to impress children with need to be on guard against molesters, w/out arousing fear or curiosity. Dramatizes circumstances & places in which children may encounter "dangerous strangers". Says that uninformed, naive children are most frequently "taken in" by molesters tactics & emphasizes that forewarned children can avoid such persons. A policeman acts as narrator & is shown as child's friend. "

"Social-sex development of Bill and Mary and how they came to meet, fall in love and marry."

"In the 1950s, parents, educators, religious leaders, and moralists expressed intense concern over the perceived harmful effects of modern life on the nation’s youth. This concern was not new, however. Fears of corrupting influences on youth have periodically flooded the public discourse, from child-rearing tomes of the antebellum period to congressional hearings in the 1950s on media and juvenile delinquency. The following editorial from 1950, in the popular magazine Collier’s, offered one perspective on the potential harm of such youthful indiscretions as radio programs, phonograph records, Western movies, and comic books and advocated tolerance for youth-oriented popular culture."

In "... testimony from the 1955 hearings, child psychologist Eleanor E. Maccoby discussed her research findings, while Lazarsfeld advocated the funding of long-term projects. Both stressed the limitations of research for providing reliable evidence that would definitively link juvenile delinquency to television viewing.

"In addition to providing the public with an abundance of affordable consumer goods during the 20th century, the service sector of corporate America also began to invade and interfere with the private lives of many of its customers. Not content to advertise in print, radio, and television outlets, corporations and their investigative subsidiaries collected information in order to more efficiently target their products to interested buyers. (With the advent of the Internet, corporate consumer information gathering has grown even more sophisticated.) Just how much of an annoyance this could be to the average consumer was documented in the following article about maternity and baby products in the 1950s, the peak years of the “baby boom.” During this period, the nation’s birthrate rose substantially as economic security became more widespread and Americans on average got married earlier and had healthier children than before. The report described how friends, neighbors, delivery personnel, and laboratory technicians were all suspected of selling the names, addresses, and other vital statistics of prospective parents of “boomers” to marketers. By including men as advertising targets along with women, the author acknowledged a changing role for fathers in the “modern” family." GMU History Matters

"While experimental television broadcasts were first transmitted in the 1920s, mass production of television sets did not occur until after World War II. By 1960 the number of sets in the U.S. had surpassed the number of homes. With this relatively swift introduction of television into domestic American life, concern was voiced over the harmful influence that watching television might have on the nation’s children. Earlier in the century, anxieties by both Progressives and traditionalists about harmful effects of movies on youth had led to Congressional hearings regarding Federal censorship. Reformers, however, lacked convincing evidence to support their claims and the motion picture industry developed an effective self-censoring mechanism to maintain control over screen content. Similarly, after Congress held its first hearing in 1952 on the effect of television on children, they chose not to take any action to interfere with the industry, in part because that year the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters adopted a code to regulate broadcast content. A Senate report issued after hearings in 1954 and 1955 on the possible influence of television on juvenile delinquency summarized studies to determine the quantity of criminal and violent acts on television shows accessible for children to view. The report also presented a range of views on whether a “cumulative effect of crime-and-horror television programs” could be harmful to children. Excerpts from the report are followed by additional opinions submitted by the National Association for Better Radio and Television, an advocacy group organized in 1949." GMU History Matters

" In the following Collier’s article from 1952, Dr. Judson T. and Mary G. Landis invoked Mead’s work to investigate contradictory assessments of the “typical” American male as either dominant and aggressive or blundering and dependent. The authors examined findings of social scientists that compared male and female survival rates, achievement, and sexual performance. "