As indicated, television seemed in the 1950s to have taken over the press conference, a venerable institution whose very name reflected the extent to which

John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, the Democratic and Republican nominees for President in 1960, respectively, engaged in a series of four nationally televised

During the 1940s, there were only a few television receivers in American homes. Some called television an invention for stupid people to watch. By the

Pop singers Judy Collins, Neil Young (age 5), Donovan, and Joni Mitchell (age 9) had polio in the early 1950s. (McKay, p. 344.) As a

Derided for its conformity and consumerism, 1950s America paid a price in anxiety. Prosperity existed under the shadow of a mushroom cloud. Optimism wore a

The period after World War II was a period of significant economic growth in America. (See section above on the growth of the suburbs.) For

During wartime, women had to fill the jobs of the men who were off to war. These jobs were important to the country and women

In 1941, Popular Science magazine first coined the term “teenager,” and by the middle of the 1950s members of this age group viewed themselves not

Actors Marlon Brando and James Dean were the quintessential rebels idolized by the teenagers of the Fifties. While the 1950s silver screen lit up mostly

The teenage rebel scene was not limited to the Hollywood screen. Street gang hoods were also in the spotlight on the Broadway stage. West Side