Why do conservatives like the 1950s? transcript

Hello friends. My name is JJ. And the other day I took a visit to Palm Springs, California. Now, Palm Springs is a very interesting city because while many cities try to attract [music] tourists with things like resorts and theme parks and landmarks and festivals, Palm Springs is one of the only places I've ever encountered that markets itself with a historic era. In this case, America's mid-century era, which is a term usually used to describe the 1950s and 60s.

Everywhere you go in Palm Springs, you see carefully preserved mid-century buildings, stores selling mid-century clothes and furniture and knickknacks, theaters [music] playing mid-century movies, bars and restaurants specializing in mid-century food and drinks. When I was there, they were hosting a thing called Modernism Week, which boasts itself as a world-renowned celebration of mid-century architecture, design, and culture.

People came in from all over to attend lectures about mid-century history, go on mid-century building tours, or attend exhibitions of mid-century art. Locals with particularly well-preserved mid-century homes even open their doors and let strangers come in and gawk at their talents at mid-century interior design. But, what exactly is mid-century? And why are people obsessed enough with it to sustain an entire city's economy?

I shall attempt to explain. So, exactly when the mid-century era ended can be a bit ambiguous. It's usually said to be sometime in the mid to late 1960s, [music] or possibly even in the early 1970s. But, what everyone agrees is that it started right after World War II. The Second World War erupted in 1939 and was very much the climax of a series of global crises that had been steadily accelerating since, well, the First World War.

This included growing geopolitical tensions between the most powerful countries on Earth, a terrible worldwide economic depression, the decline of democracy, and the growth of totalitarian dictatorships. The ensuing war was the worst in human history, killing over 60 million people and reducing many of the world's great cities to rubble. But, it ended decisively in 1945 with the United States and its Western allies achieving an unambiguous victory.

Since the war was fought outside of America's borders, the United States hadn't been scarred by the conflict in the way so many places in Europe and Asia had been, which made the end of the war feel like a much more clean and happy ending on this continent than it did elsewhere. And with the establishment of organizations like the United Nations and the World Trade Organization and NATO and things like that, Americans had good reason to believe that the world was finally going a safe [music] and orderly place from now on.

World War II had likewise seen an enormous amount of technological innovation in America through close cooperation between the federal government, big business, and the country's top scientists and universities. Employment in new sectors rose and all sorts of marvelous new things were invented to help make supplies for the military and overcome trade boycotts from enemy nations. The biggest revolution was probably the creation of a ton of new synthetic materials, including plastic, vinyl, fiberglass, Teflon, silicon, nylon, and polyester, along with newfangled technologies like microwaving, freeze drying, stainless steel, and of course, nuclear power.

All of this stuff was seen as very miraculous and after the war, much of it was repurposed for civilian use. A ton of revolutionary new consumer goods were made like an oven as big as a shoe box and clothes that didn't wrinkle, and Americans were able to buy them up in large quantities. People were richer than ever, either because they'd got some well-paying job in a new industry that had been created during the war, or because they had lived frugally during the war and saved up a ton of money to spend later, or simply because they were returning veterans from the war who were given all sorts of financial assistance from the government to help them readjust to civilian life.

Another important piece of this story that often goes overlooked is that the era of peace and tranquility that greeted the end of the war also granted many Americans the social permission to pursue fun and creative jobs that might have been seen as decadent or wasteful during the war or the Great Depression before it. So, things like making designer furniture or stylish beachwear [music] or opening a Polynesian-themed cocktail bar, this sort of thing became understood as an expression of the post-war freedom to do what you liked and help other Americans live happy, beautiful lives in this shiny new era of comfort and prosperity.

They're a symbol of the benefit this [music] exciting age of progress is bringing to men and women in every corner of our great land. [music] Now, there were of course many ways in which the confidence and joy of the mid-century Americans was naive and even delusional. The geopolitical stability that had followed the end of the Second World War quickly transitioned into a new Cold War between Russia and the United States, which was a terrifying and stressful time for many because it implied that another world war could break out at any moment, and this time with nuclear weapons.

Despite having just finished fighting a global war for freedom, unapologetic anti-black racism was still a fact of life in much of mid-century America, particularly in the South where a draconian 19th century system of racial segregation was still being upheld in spite of enormous black opposition. The '50s and '60s are also generally remembered as a deeply sexist time in which men were straining to keep women in subordinate passive roles even as a rapidly expanding economy and education system was producing more and more working women who were clearly just as smart and capable as men.

I feel like these days it's generally understood that the good vibes of the mid-century era contained too many contradictions to be sustainable with the naivete of the time ultimately causing its own collapse. By the mid-1960s, American culture was becoming defined by growing social unrest and even violence emerging from vicious debates over race, gender, and Cold War politics. The mid-century would come to be remembered as the calm before this particular storm, a time of peace and order before everyone started asking too many questions.

Conservatives would hold it up as an example of an era where life was simpler and everyone knew their place while members of the gigantic baby boom generation who had been born into the mid-century associated the era with their happy youth. Here is how Richard Horn puts it in his great book 50s style then and now. We miss the fabulous '50s and forget the Cold War tensions, H-bomb anxieties, stifling conformism, red baiting, and blatant racism of that decade.

When we think of the 1950s, we think not of these drearier facets, but of a more positive one, the economic prosperity of those years which saw the blossoming of a full-blown consumer culture in the United States, this heady, nearly 10-year-long shopping spree, this unabashedly hedonistic orgy of acquiring, this we look back on with tolerance and affection. And it is this consumerism, this frank acknowledgement of robust appetites, that made '50s-style design possible.

Let us now talk about that '50s-style design, because it was really like nothing else that had ever come before, and is truly the heart and soul of modern-day mid-century nostalgia. American aesthetics had been trending towards modernism in the first few decades of the 20th century, but it wasn't until the mid-century that modernism really took off as like the defining American look. The big slogan of modernism is that form follows function, which is to say, the look of objects should be primarily determined by what they exist to do, which ran against the previous Victorian sensibility, >> [music] >> which was that everything should be very fancy and ornate for its own sake.

Modernism was seen as a very fresh and freeing sensibility, and something that made everything feel very hip and futuristic. Modernist designs could be shocking, and certainly a lot of what became known as modern art was very controversial, but overall it was a very popular aesthetic in the mid-century, just because it was something new and creative, and this was an era where people had a lot of interest in stuff that emphasized this idea of entering a new age.

Detroit likes to take credit for being the cradle of mid-century modernism, because it is home to the Cranbrook Academy of Art, >> [music] >> which is where a lot of the men and women who would emerge as some of the top mid-century artists, architects, furniture makers, and textile designers studied. Cranbrook was founded in 1932 by an architect from Finland named Eliel Saarinen. He brought over a bunch of other people from Scandinavia to serve as teachers, and this wound up popularizing the so-called Scandinavian modernist style among the many prolific product designers that the school produced.

It was an elegant aesthetic that emphasized things like simple shapes, [music] solid colors, and minimal detail. The Cranbrook alumni were notable for their huge influence on mid-century furniture in particular and included big names like Charles and Ray Eames, Hans and Florence Knoll, and Eliel Saarinen's son, Eero Saarinen. Mid-century American architecture, meanwhile, was much more of a homegrown tradition. Good old Palm Springs is usually considered the cradle of this, and the locals remain proud that their city contains so many perfectly preserved mid-century buildings.

In keeping with [music] modernist sensibilities, mid-century houses tended to be quite sleek and minimalistic and had [music] fewer walls and larger windows than had been previously common, leading to the creation of indoor spaces that felt more open, bright, and airy. [music] The Californian architect William Krisel is often considered the most influential figure in this scene, known for his flat-roofed [music] single-floor houses with big driveways and garages, and these very distinctive outdoor walls made of things known as breeze blocks.

What is interesting is that a lot of the big-shot mid-century architects were also furniture designers and vice versa, meaning that for the truly ambitious homeowner, it was possible to buy chairs and tables and things that were explicitly designed to match your house. And since modernism was the prevailing design sensibility of all sorts of other [music] household objects as well, this could make for a high degree of visual harmony in mid-century homes.

Here is how Dominic Bradbury describes it in his Atlas of Mid-Century Houses. It is so rare to fix on a time when architectural ingenuity and engaging aesthetics combine so completely and expressively. Factor in the richness of the era's textiles, its glassware [music] and ceramics, as well as the revolutionary quality of mid-century industrial and product design, and one has a synergy that is unique in the history of design.

This was truly a golden age. That said, a lot of mid-century homes were also a fair bit more frumpy. Post-war economic boom notwithstanding, a lot of middle-class Americans couldn't afford to live in designer homes made by the country's top architects. Instead, they lived in much less glamorous prefabricated or tract houses that were made from mass-produced walls in factories then assembled in identical rows to create a brand new suburban neighborhoods in the previously vacant [music] countryside.

These sorts of homes were a fair bit more pre-modern in style with pointed roofs and small boxy rooms. But, they would still almost certainly be filled up with at least some classy modernist furniture just the same and surely a bunch of sleek and efficient modernist appliances like a beautiful chrome toaster or a lovely powdered steel [music] fridge. Mid-century cars, meanwhile, were sort of an exception to the modernist trend.

Car ownership was still a relatively new and exciting thing for middle-class families and this resulted in car designs that tended to be very big and showy. [music] I was watching the movie American Graffiti the other day, which is basically all about [music] mid-century teenagers and their cars. It was really striking just how gigantic and ostentatious these things were. Americans wanted cars that looked like boats or spaceships and by god, that's what the American car companies gave them.

American cars, of course, also came from Detroit, which is another reason why that city considers itself [music] responsible for so much mid-century culture. Fashion in the mid-century era tended to be quite conservative and modest and >> [music] >> very gender-normative. It was the last era where women were always expected to wear long dresses and men wore ties and jackets and hats even [music] in what we would now consider pretty informal contexts like going to a restaurant or the movies.

[music] Another thing that struck me when I watched American Graffiti was how rare it was for anyone to [music] have facial hair. This was a time when being extremely clean-cut and well-groomed was very highly valued, although that did start to decline a bit as the '60s went on. People often like to compare how the Beatles looked in 1964 [music] versus 1969 as evidence of the end of mid-century aesthetics. In an award-winning video I made a while ago about the 1890s, I talked about how some locations are very associated with that era and I think we can identify a lot of places as being very mid-century coded in a similar way.

Fast-food restaurants, especially drive-ins serving burgers and fries and milkshakes, first started to become a big thing in the mid-century era and they became a popular symbol of post-war convenience and disposable income. I'm sure that your city has at least one perfectly preserved mid-century burger restaurant, what we would now often call a '50s diner complete with vinyl seats, chessboard flooring, and [music] that most thrilling form of 1950s entertainment, a jukebox.

I feel like backyard swimming pools tend to be very mid-century coded, too. These were real status symbol for post-war homeowners precisely because they were so clearly non-essential. Designer bathing suits and barcaloungers and other such poolside accoutrements similarly flexed just how much money you had to spend on pure leisure. The idea of a classy bar in scary mid-century, as well. In previous eras, American bars tended to be more in the style of British pubs, dark and cavernous, with a decidedly working-class vibe.

As Americans became richer, however, there was a rise of classy bars offering more expensive and elaborate cocktails in a more elegant setting. Tiki bars in particular were briefly quite trendy, which was part of a larger short-lived mid-century fascination with all things Polynesian, including wooden idols and Hawaiian [music] shirts. This is usually something that is said to have emerged from a love of that part of the world that many American men had gained from serving in the Pacific theater during World War II, which saw them liberate many Polynesian countries from the Japanese.

Perhaps one of the most iconically mid-century e things of all, however, was the advertising. The consumerism boom, coupled with a big growth in magazines and TV watching, saw Americans exposed to more ads than ever, and with it the idea that advertising could be a sophisticated American art form. There is a popular TV show about mid-century advertising [music] executives that you might have heard of. Mid-century ads are pretty diverse, but I feel like they fall into a couple of broad categories.

When it comes to print, advertisements often featured these very highly idealized depictions of beautiful white families [music] living their best middle-class life, housewives frolicking in kitchens, dads barbecuing, kids being [music] precocious, this sort of thing. But other ads were more overtly modernist, with like very abstract [music] and stylized illustrations demonstrating more of the sensibilities that you would see in the fashionable high art of the time.

On television, meanwhile, mid-century ads tended to be a lot more boring and often very direct in a way that reminds me a fair bit of like YouTube sponsorships. Now, happily there are no blacks to get in the way of the full pleasure of Chesterfield. Great tobaccos make it a wonderful smoke. Try them, they satisfy. Ads geared towards children, by contrast, often used these very distinct-looking mid-century modernist cartoon characters drawn in this very unique flat style that hasn't really been seen much since.

Good morning, McCullen [music] way. CORN FLAKES. NOW, I WOULD say that nostalgia for the mid-century era began basically the moment it ended. Certainly as the late 1960s got more culturally chaotic, social conservatives began to hold up the early 1950s as their calibration point of the way things should be and what should be returned to. I mean, you could argue that the 1968 election of Richard Nixon, who had been a very iconic mid-century politician, was motivated in part by a desire to impose a 1950s-coded father figure over an increasingly unruly country.

Two of the most iconic pieces of nostalgic mid-century entertainment, the movie Grease and the sitcom [music] Happy Days, were both made in the '70s along with good old American Graffiti. But in a more comprehensive sense, it is the 1980s that is usually held up as the first [music] true era of mid-century nostalgia. The '80s were quite similar to the '50s and early '60s in a lot of ways. It was a time of steady economic growth, abundant consumerism, and conservative social values.

But it was also a time when the baby boomers were starting to reach middle age and therefore getting more sentimental about all the things that had defined their childhood and teenage years. After the grim experience of the 1970s, which is often held up as one of America's bleakest decades with Vietnam and Watergate and stagflation and the oil crisis and so on, the mid-century earned even greater affection as the last good era, just as the 1890s had to a previous generation.

A lot of '80s era advertising and graphic design, accordingly, embraced stylized mid-century tropes, particularly things like diner imagery and jukeboxes and the big [music] goofy cars. Mid-century aesthetics had a bit of a revival in the realm of product design as well, with sleek [music] form-follows-function objects becoming trendy again, along with a lot of the soft pastel colors that were now very 1950s coded. Patterns and typography that defined much of mid-century graphic design got a similar second life in '80s era branding as a way of evoking some of that mid-century spirit of joy and whimsy.

In modern entertainment, I feel like the mid-century is now most often employed as a symbol for social commentary about the smothering nature of neurotic social conservatism, as in movies like Pleasantville or >> [music] >> Far from Heaven. Mad Men was, of course, a huge phenomenon for its powerful storytelling that contrasted the great outward beauty of the era with the ugly inner lives of the characters. But, on the other hand, much like what happened with the 1890s, as actual first-hand memories of the mid-century era continue to fade among the public, you're starting to see a growing tendency to just treat the mid-century as a cool aesthetic on its own terms, capable of being appreciated outside of its socio-political context.

As minimalism comes back into fashion, I think there's a lot of respect [music] for the elegance of stuff like mid-century furniture and interior design, [music] which many art historians now recognize as a legitimate high point of [music] American culture. And that was what made visiting Palm Springs a lot of fun. Even though the people that live there are super into keeping the spirit of the '50s and '60s alive, it [music] didn't feel like a kitchy theme park as much as a place defined by a sincere appreciation for the positive cultural contributions of an era that still has the capacity to impress.

We are not fascinated by the mid-century because it is weird and old, but because a lot of what has come out of it has proven to be surprisingly timeless. But, I am curious what you guys think. What is your favorite mid-century coded thing? Is there an important mid-century coded thing that you think I missed? And what era of American cultural life would you like to see me analyze next? Let me know in the comments and I will see you next week. >> [music] >> Hey. >> [music]