SALK THE OUTCAST – The 1950’s witnessed a plague of polio that deformed, crippled, and killed thousands of children. In 1952 alone there were 59,000 new cases. The scientific community was spending a lot of research dollars on perfecting a treatment for the disease. A young doctor named Jonas Salk worked outside the establishment on a cure. He was a workaholic who worked seven days a week often 20-30 hours at a stretch. He was forced to go outside the usual channels to get his funding. Most of his money came from Basil O’Connor who was the president of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. He had a daughter with polio and had been friends with FDR before he contracted the disease. Other scientists resented his gravy train and criticized his nontraditional methods. Salk defied the orthodox belief that an active virus could not be checked by dead viral bodies. He didn’t care about the rules. He only cared about success and it came in 1955. Public recognition came with it, but not scientific recognition. Some of it was petty. The success of the vaccine dried up dollars for polio research. Salk was turned down for membership in the National Academy of Science. Salk created the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and spent the rest of his life trying for a cure for AIDS. Ayres pp. 94-96
SILLY PUTTY – In 1945, an engineer for General Electric was working on a process for synthesizing rubber at his lab in Connecticut. By combining boric acid and silicone oil, he created a substance that bounced and stretched. He amused his friends with it. One night at a cocktail party, a marketing man named Peter Hodgson, saw adults playing with the rubbery substance. At the time he was working on a catalog for a toy store. He added it to the catalog as “nutty putty”. It sold better than everything except crayons. Hodgson bought $147 worth of the stuff from G.E. and packaged it in little plastic eggs labeled “silly putty”. He sold 32 million in five years. Uncle p. 26
THE EDSEL – In 1957, the Ford Motor Company thought they had the solution to stagnant sales. Ford customers were not trading up to higher class Ford models when they bought their next car. Ford designers were tasked with creating a car that was distinctive from other cars. They examined cars on a busy highway and proceeded to design something distinctive. For instance, they put a vertical grille instead of a horizontal one. This became the famous “toilet seat” grille. The interior was designed to reflect luxury, but practicality was overlooked. There was a speedometer that would glow red if a preset speed was exceeded. There was a thermometer that told the temperature outside and inside. Ford convinced auto dealers to sell the new car exclusively. Sight unseen. And a dealer had to pay $100,000 for the rights to sell the car. Paying that was a big mistake. The car was a flop from day one. Part of the problem was the name. Henry Ford II insisted it be named after his father. The timing was bad because the U.S. had just entered a recession. Plus, the car was a lemon. Consumer Reports magazine tested it and found that none of the “innovations” were special and the car rode rough. In two years, the Ford Motor Company stopped making them. Uncle 1 pp. `197-199
ELVIS TRIVIA –
– Elvis liked to sit by his pool eating watermelon hearts and shooting floating lightbulbs with a .22 pistol.
– For the 4th of July, Elvis and his entourage would put on football helmets and gloves and shoot fireworks (rockets, Roman candles, etc.) at each other. They set the mansion on fire twice.
– Once when he was bored Elvis put on a football helmet and used a bulldozer to demolish a cottage on the Graceland estate. He had to yell at his father to get off the porch. During the demolishing, the cottage was set on fire for more fun.
– Elvis would rent the whole theater to watch movies. It would be him and about a hundred friends. He would have the projectionist repeat scenes that he liked.
– If Elvis did not like a TV program, he would shoot out the screen with his .22 pistol. He was once eating breakfast and Robert Goulet came on. He hated Goulet, so he reached for his pistol, shot the TV, and went back to his cereal. Uncle Lost pp. 363-364
McARTHY’S LISTS – In early 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy was facing a difficult reelection. He had accomplished nothing for the people of Wisconsin. He had sponsored no legislation and sat on no significant committees. Friends suggested he needed something to catch the public’s attention. In a speech before the Republican women’s club in honor of Lincoln’s birthday, on the spur of the moment, McCarthy said something like this: “I have here in my hand a list of 205 names made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party, who are nevertheless still working and shaping policy in the State Department.” (We don’t know exactly because there was no newspaper coverage of the speech and McCarthy did not keep a copy.) McCarthy considered it a throwaway line and was surprised when reporters began to write about the provocative claim. He got way more attention than he had expected. When asked the next day, he changed the number to 81 known Communists. Later, after he was made chairman of a subcommittee to investigate his claims, he changed the number to 116. At the end of a four month investigation, it was 121. In a speech given on June 6, he arrived at 106. Uncle Lost pp. 556-558
1950’s DEFINITIONS –
– ant – a potato with high blood pressure
– climax – an ax used by mountain climbers
– deliver – a vital part of the body
– farmer – an outstanding man in his field
– gossip – letting the chat out of the bag
– hotel – a place where you pay dollars for quarters
– information – how Air Force planes fly
– Laplander – a clumsy person in a bus
– nursery – a bawl park
– out of bounds – a tired kangaroo
– pretzel – a double-jointed doughnut
– raisin – a worried grape
– tennis racket – a bunch of holes strung together
– zebra – a pony with venetian blinds
maroon
1950’s #1 Hits
1950 – Goodnight, Irene by The Weavers
1951 – Too Young by Nat King Cole
1952 – Blue Tango by Leroy Anderson
1953 – The Song from Moulin Rouge by Percy Faith
1954 – Little Things Mean a Lot by Kitty Kallen
1955 – Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White by Perez Prado
1956 – Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis Presley
1957 – All Shook Up by Elvis Presley
1958 – Volare by Domenico Modugno
1959 – The Battle of New Orleans by Johnny Horton
Billboard
1950s #1 TV Shows
1950 – Texaco Star Theater
1951 – Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts
1952 – I Love Lucy
1953 – I Love Lucy
1954 – I Love Lucy
1955 – The $64,000 Question
1956 – I Love Lucy
1957 – Gunsmoke
1958 – Gunsmoke
1959 – Gunsmoke
1950’s (1954) PRICES
– milk = .92 / gallon
– bread = .17 / loaf
– t-bone steak = .95 / lb.
– stamp = .03
– gas = .21 / gallon
– movie = .35
– Pepsi = .25 / 6 pack
– hamburger = .10
– beer = .20 / can
– cigarettes = 1.79 / carton
– Swanson TV dinner = .75
– eggs = .55/dozen
1950’s SLANG
– ankle-biter = child
– go ape = go crazy
– bash = party
– blast = a lot of fun
– boss = really great
– you bug me = you irritate me
– burn rubber / floor it = accelerate your car
– cloud 9 = in a great mood
– cooties = like having lice on you
– cruisin’ for a bruisin’ = looking to get beat up
– dibs = claiming something
– get bent = go to Hell
– grody = gross
– heat = police
– horn = telephone receiver
– knuckle sandwich = fist
– see ya later, alligator
– party pooper / wet rag = person who is not fun
– pile up z’s = sleep
– royal shaft = treated unfairly
– split = leave
– spaz = someone who is clumsy
– submarine races = what you would tell your parents you were going watch when you wanted some privacy with your boy or girl friend
1950’s FADS
– frisbees
– hula hoops
– ant farms
– telephone booth stuffing
– 3-D movies
– coonskin caps
– panty raids (going to the female dorms on a college campus to beg them to throw some panties out their windows)
1950’s FIRSTS
– 1950 – silly putty came out / first Kraft cheese slices / Smokey the Bear / Peanuts comic strip / FBI Most Wanted List / credit card – Diner’s Club / kidney transplant / Sugar Pops
– 1951 – Topp’s baseball cards / Dennis the Menace comic / power steering (Chrysler)
– 1952 – Mr. Potato Head / area codes / Frosted Flakes / seat belts / Mad magazine / BMW
– 1953 – Playboy magazine / Scientology / TV Guide / James Bond novel / man to the top of Mt. Everest (Sir Edmund Hillary) / Sugar Smacks
– 1954 – Sports Illustrated / Play Doh / Lord of the Rings / four minute mile (Roger Bannister) / Trix / TV dinner (turkey)
– 1955 – home microwave / Kentucky Fried Chicken / Crest toothpaste / McDonalds / Davy Crockett TV program / Disneyland / woman to break the sound barrier (Jacqueline Cochran)
– 1956 – Yahtzee / Jif peanut butter / TV remote control / Burger King
– 1957 – Velcro / frisbee / frozen pizza / The Cat in the Hat / the Edsel automobile
– 1958 – Pizza Hut / hula hoop / Sweet n’ Low / Cocoa Krispies / Cocoa Puffs
– 1959 – pantyhose / Barbie
1950’s COMMENTS BY PARENTS
– Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won’t be long before $5,000 will only buy a used one.
– If cigarettes keep going up in price, I’m going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous.
– If they raise the minimum wage to $1, nobody will be able to hire outside help for the store
– When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 50 cents a gallon.
– Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail haircuts make it impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as long as girls.
– Teenage music drives me crazy. This “Rock Around the Clock” is nothing but noise.
– I’m afraid to let the kids go to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable say “damn” in “Gone With the Wind”, it seems every movie has a “damn” or “hell” in it. And it won’t be long before husbands and wives are sleeping in the same bed.
– It’s too bad times are rough these days. Before you know it wives will have to get jobs.
– Did you hear that the new church is allowing women to wear pants to services?
– Why would anyone send their daughter to college? Aren’t they going to get married? It might be different if they could become a doctor or lawyer.
– It makes no sense going on vacation. A night in a hotel costs $15.
– If some idiots want to risk their lives flying across country, they can go on. I’ll stick with the train.
– I don’t know about you, but if they raise the price of a cup of coffee to $.15, I’ll just have to only drink it at home.
– If they think I’ll pay $.50 for a haircut, forget it. I’ll have my wife cut my hair at home.
– We don’t go out much anymore. Our baby sitter raised her rates to 50 cents an hour.
jokedictionary.com
FATHER OF TELEVISION – At age 12, Philo Farnsworth fixed a generator on the family farm. At age 14, he had an electrical lab in the attic. He would wake up at 4 A.M. to read scientific journals before doing his chores. He began dreaming of transmitting moving images through the air. His big breakthrough occurred when he looked back at the furrows he had been plowing. He realized the images could be scanned line by line. This led to the invention of the cathode ray tube. He dropped out of college after one year due to finances and opened a laboratory in San Francisco. After perfecting the cathode-ray tube, he was visited by a scientist from RCA. RCA had been working on moving images for years, but had gone down a dead end. It copied Farnsworth’s invention and then sued him when he refused to sell the patent. After years in court, Philo won the case and royalties from the invention, but he never became wealthy. The only time he appeared on TV was on the program “I’ve Got a Secret”. The panelists did not guess that he was the inventor of TV. Before he died he regretted the invention since he felt it caused people to waste their time. Amazing 512-513
FIRST ANIMALS IN SPACE – On November 3, 1957, a Soviet mutt named Laika became the first animal in space when she went up in Sputnik II. The mission was to test surviving a launch and living in weightlessness. There were no plans to bring Laika back, but it gets worse. Due to damage to the capsule, the temperature reached over 100 degrees. It was an unpleasant 2,570 orbits before the capsule burned up upon reentry. The Soviets sent up more than 50 more dogs, many of whom were brought back alive. On the other hand, NASA used monkeys. The first two, Gordo and Albert II, did not survive. This fact was kept from the American public. On May 28, 1959 Able and Baker successfully completed their mission and became famous. Unfortunately, Able died four days later during an operation to remove an infected medical electrode. Baker went into retirement and lived until 1984 at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Lists 65
1950’s FADS
– panty raids – These began in 1949 at Augustana College in Illinois when some college boys invaded a girls’ dorm and took a few panties. Soon this idea caught on at colleges across the country. Mobs of boys would march to the girls’ dorm and yell for the women to throw panties out their windows. Sometimes they had phone numbers on them.
– phone booth stuffing – This fad began in South Africa when 25 people stuffed themselves into a phone booth. Challenge accepted, said American kids.
– hula hoop – The founders of Wham-O company, Richard Knerr and Arthur Melin, learned of an exercise hoop being used in Australia. 20 million were sold for $1.98 in the first four months of sales.
“HAVE YOU NO SENSE OF DECENCY?”
Going into 1954, Sen. Joseph McCarthy was at the height of his power, but his attempts to ferret out communists in the government had born little fruit. As head of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, McCarthy was able to call up numerous suspected communists to testify. Proof was seldom provided, but McCarthy’s bullying tactics damaged many careers. In the spring, he turned his attention to the Army. He focused on a top-secret Army base which he accused of harboring communists. His “big fish” was actually a minnow in the form of a dentist. The Army was not cowed. It accused McCarthy of exerting pressure for preferential treatment for one of its soldiers. David Schine had been drafted. His friend Roy Cohn happened to be McCarthy’s chief counsel and right-hand man. Cohn had contacted the Army and demanded cushy jobs for his buddy. For the face-off, the Army hired a shrewd Boston lawyer named Joseph Welch. The hearings were televised so millions of Americans watched the duel. McCarthy was not able to dent the Army’s case and Welch deflected every attack. It came to a climax on May 9, 1954. Welch demanded snarkily that Cohn provide his promised list of communists in the Army “before the sun goes down”. With the crowd clearly supporting Welch, McCarthy pulled his ace card to turn the tide. The Senator demanded to know about a young partner in Welch’s firm named Frederick Fisher. The implication was that Welch had a communist working for him. Ironically, Fisher had offered to work on the hearings with Welch, but Welch had turned him down in anticipation of McCarthy using his liberal-leanings (he was in the National Lawyers Guild) against him. McCarthy was shaken by the reckless accusation by McCarthy. The TV cameras shifted to reveal him shaking his head. He then said the words that ended McCarthy’s reign of terror. “Until this moment, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty of your recklessness…. Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency? At long last, have you no sense of decency?” This devastating counterattack, added to the previous weeks parade of McCarthy’s bullying (he was constantly calling for “point of order”). His tactics had turned most Americans against him. Within a year, he was on the decline and censured by the Senate, which had finally grown a backbone.
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/welch-mccarthy.html
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/joseph-mccarthy-meets-his-match
ALTHEA GIBSON
Althea Gibson was born to sharecroppers in South Carolina in 1927. Her parents moved to Harlem in the Great Migration in 1930. She dropped out of school at age 13. She spent some of her time street-fighting (her father had taught her boxing). That same year she started playing tennis even though she did not like it at first and wanted to beat up the person who beat her. But she was a born tennis player and soon was dominating. At age 23, she became the first African-American to play in the U.S. Nationals (today the U.S. Open) after a campaign to allow her in. She became the first African-American to win a Grand Slam title (the French Open). In 1957, she won Wimbledon and became its first nonwhite champion. She was the first winner to receive the trophy from Queen Elizabeth II. She also won the U.S. Nationals and repeated the double win in 1958. Another African-American woman would not win the U.S. Open for another 43 years (Serena Williams). She was chosen Associated Press’ Female Athlete of the Year for both years. She won a total of 11 Grand Slam titles in her career. After retiring from tennis, she took up golf and was on the Ladies Professional Golf Tour, becoming its first African-American player. She had to battle racism as many hotels did not allow her to stay and some country clubs refused to allow her to compete. Sometimes she had to dress in her car because she could not go in the clubhouse. She was elected to the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. She was one of the first inductees (with Wilma Rudolph, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Patty Berg, Gertrude Ederle, and Amelia Earhart(!)). In 1959, she played a slave in the John Wayne movie “The Horse Soldiers”. She refused to use a slave dialect. She has been mentioned with Wilma Rudolph as one of the most important black women when it came to breaking the color barrier.