American Culture in the 1950s (Twentieth Century American Culture S.)

337 Pages·2007·0.82 MB·English

by  Martin Halliwell

T W E N T I E T H - C E N T U R Y A M E R I C A N C U L T U R E T W E N T I E T H - C E N T U R Y A M E R I C A N C U L T U R E
A
Series Editor: Martin Halliwell American Culture
m
This series provides accessible but challenging studies of American culture in the twentieth century.
Each title covers a specific decade and offers a clear overview of its dominant cultural forms and e
influential texts, discussing their historical impact and cultural legacy. Collectively the series ir in the 1950s
reframes the notion of ‘decade studies’ through the prism of cultural production and rethinks the c
ways in which decades are usually periodised. Broad contextual approaches to the particular a
decade are combined with textual case studies, focusing on themes of modernity, commerce, n
freedom, power, resistance, community, race, class, gender, sexuality, internationalism, war,
C
technology and popular culture.
u
l
t
American Culture in the 1950s u
r
Martin Halliwell e

i
‘The 1950s has been transformed in scholarly literature from a “tranquillized” decade to n
an almost “tumultuous” one, and therefore is badly in need of a restorative balance. This is
t
the achievement of Martin Halliwell’s superb account of a postwar period that, for all of its h
familiarity, remains tantalizingly elusive. His book is thoughtful, expansive and engaging.’ e
Stephen J. Whitfield, Professor of American Studies, Brandeis University, Massachusetts
1
9
This book provides a stimulating account of the major cultural forms of 1950s America: fiction
5
and poetry; theatre and performance; film and television; music and radio; and the visual arts.
Through detailed commentary and focused case studies of influential texts and events – from 0
Invisible Man to West Side Story, from Disneyland to the Seattle World’s Fair, from Rear Window s
to The Americans – the book examines the way in which modernism and the cold war offer two
f rames of reference for understanding the trajectory of postwar culture. M
Key Features: a
r
• Focused case studies featuring key texts, genres, writers, artists and cultural trends t
i
• Chronology of 1950s American culture n
• Bibliographies for each chapter H
• Over 20 black-and-white illustrations
a
l
l
Martin Halliwell is Professor of American Studies at the University of Leicester. His most recent i
w
authored books include Transatlantic Modernism: Moral Dilemmas in Modernist Fiction (Edinburgh
e
University Press, 2006), The Constant Dialogue: Reinhold Niebuhr and American Intellectual Culture
l
l
(2005) and Images of Idiocy: The Idiot Figure in Modern Fiction and Film (2004).
ISBN 978 0 7486 1885 9 E
Cover image: Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller, c. 1957. d
Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research. i
n
Cover design: Cathy Sprent b
Edinburgh University Press u
22 George Square r
Edinburgh EH8 9LF g Martin Halliwell
h
www.eup.ed.ac.uk
American Culture in the 1950s
Twentieth-Century American Culture
Series editor: Martin Halliwell, University of Leicester.
This series provides accessible but challenging studies of American culture in
the twentieth century. Each title covers a specific decade and offers a clear
overview of its dominant cultural forms and influential texts, discussing their
historical impact and cultural legacy. Collectively the series reframes the
notion of ‘decade studies’ through the prism of cultural production and
rethinks the ways in which decades are usually periodized. Broad contextual
approaches to the particular decade are combined with focused case studies,
dealing with themes of modernity, commerce, freedom, power, resistance,
community, race, class, gender, sexuality, internationalism, technology, war
and popular culture.
American Culture in the 1910s
Mark Whalan
American Culture in the 1920s
Susan Currell
American Culture in the 1930s
David Eldridge
American Culture in the 1940s
Jacqueline Foertsch
American Culture in the 1950s
Martin Halliwell
American Culture in the 1960s
Sharon Monteith
American Culture in the 1970s
Will Kaufman
American Culture in the 1980s
Graham Thompson
American Culture in the 1990s
Colin Harrison
American Culture in the 1950s
Martin Halliwell
Edinburgh University Press
For Mum and Dad
© Martin Halliwell, 2007
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
Typeset in 11/13 pt Stempel Garamond by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wilts
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 1884 2 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 1885 9 (paperback)
The right of Martin Halliwell to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Published with the support of the Edinburgh University Scholarly Publishing Initiatives Fund.
Contents
List of Figures vi
List of Case Studies vii
Acknowledgements viii
Chronology of 1950s American Culture xi
Introduction: The Intellectual Context 1
1. Fiction and Poetry 51
2. Drama and Performance 85
3. Music and Radio 119
4. Film and Television 147
5. The Visual Arts beyond Modernism 189
Conclusion: Rethinking the 1950s 225
Notes 245
Bibliography 285
Index 303
Figures
I.1 Joseph McCarthy (1954) 19
I.2 Silk Stockings(1957) 30
I.3 Lever House (1952) 32
I.4 Seagram Building (1958) 33
I.5 Sleeping Beauty Castle, Disneyland (1974) 39
2.1 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof(1955) 93
2.2 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof(1958) 94
2.3 The King andI (1951) 103
2.4 West Side Story(1957) 106
2.5 The Zoo Story(1960) 109
2.6 A Raisin in the Sun(1960) 116
4.1 Twenty-One(1956) 159
4.2 The Jackie Gleason Show(1955) 160
4.3 I Love Lucy(1952) 166
4.4 Rear Window(1954) 175
4.5 The Day the Earth Stood Still(1951) 177
4.6 The Incredible Shrinking Man(1957) 178
4.7 The Blackboard Jungle(1955) 187
5.1 Jasper Johns, Flag(1954–5) 206
5.2 Robert Frank, ‘Parade – Hoboken,
New Jersey’ (1955) 213
5.3 Seattle Space Needle and Pacific Science Center 223
C.1 McDonald’s Fiftieth-Year Billboard, Seattle (2005) 230
C.2 Far From Heaven(2002) 239
C.3 Good Night, and Good Luck(2005) 240
Case Studies
Introduction
The Hidden Persuaders(1957) 16
‘Our Country and Our Culture’ (1952) 25
Disneyland 1955 36
Brown v.the Board of Education(1954) 47
1.Fiction and Poetry
The Catcher in the Rye(1951) 66
‘Howl’ (1956) 74
Invisible Man(1952) 81
2.Drama and Performance
The Crucible(1953) 97
West Side Story(1957) 104
A Raisin in the Sun(1959) 113
3.Music and Radio
Anthology of American Folk Music(1952) 130
Elvis and 1956 136
Jazz on a Summer’s Day(1960) 143
4.Film and Television
I Love Lucy 163
Rear Window(1954) 173
The Blackboard Jungle(1955) 184
5.The Visual Arts beyond Modernism
Flag(1954–5) 203
The Americans(1958) 211
Seattle World’s Fair (1962) 220
Acknowledgements
I have been very lucky that during the writing of this book the 1950s
has once again come into full view, with fifty-year commemorations
and renewed interest in the decade reenergising a period that has been
put to rest many times over. When Warren Susman explored the idea
of a ‘usable past’ in the mid-1960s, he could not have predicted the
number of occasions since then that the 1950s has been read, reread and
misread. This book is just one attempt among others to revive interest
in the cultural vitality of a decade that is often written off as anodyne
and one-dimensional.
My first debt is to the students at the University of Leicester who
have taken my final-year module Containment and Resistance in 1950s
and 1960s American Culture over the last seven years, and who have
helped me realize that when it comes to direct comparison the 1960s
does not hold all the cultural aces. I am thankful for their lively discus-
sions and for making me return with fresh eyes to aspects of the decade
I thought I knew well. Secondly, I would like to thank colleagues at
Leicester, particularly my Heads of Department Elaine Treharne and
Richard Foulkes, for supporting my research, and Guy Barefoot, Nick
Everett, Sarah Graham, George Lewis, Paul Marygold, Andy Mousley,
Mark Rawlinson and Annette Saddik for valuable comments on sec-
tions of the manuscript. Thanks also go to the members of the
Intellectual History Group at Jesus College, Cambridge; to Bridget
Bennett, James Dale, Michael Eaton, Pete Groshl, Michael Hoar, Joel
Isaac, Andrew Johnstone, Richard King, Peter Kuryla, Catherine
Morley, Sue Porter, Jon Powell, Graham Thompson, Greg Walker and
Imelda Whelehan for their interest in the project; and to Nicola Ramsey
at Edinburgh University Press for her professionalism and friendship.
My gratitude goes to the British Academy and the Department of
English at the University of Leicester for the funding and study leave
Acknowledgements ix
that enabled me to do much of my research stateside. I am very grate-
ful for the help of the librarians at the Library of Congress and
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington DC; the New York
Public Library and the Schomberg Center for Research in Black
Culture; the John M. Flaxman Library, The Art Institute of Chicago;
the Wisconsin Center for Film and Television Research, Madison,
Wisconsin; the University of Washington, Seattle; and the Biblioteca
Renzo Renzi, Bologna. Thanks are due to the Scala Archive in
Florence for the supply of digital images of Jasper Johns’s Flag and
Robert Frank’s ‘Parade’, reproduced in Chapter 5. I would also like to
thank Mary Donovan and Carl Nelson for their generous hospitality
during my visits to Capitol Hill.
I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to present
aspects of the book at the following institutions: the American Studies
Seminar Series, University of Leeds (December 2004); the Midwest
Modern Language Association Conference, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
(November 2005); the British Association of American Studies
Conference, University of Kent, Canterbury (April 2006); the
Inaugural Lecture Series, University of Leicester (May 2006); the
American Modernism: Cultural Transactions Conference, Oxford
Brookes University (September 2006); and the American Studies
Seminar Series, University of Sussex (February 2007).
My last two debts are too great to express in words: to my wife
Laraine who continues to amaze me with her energy and commitment,
and to my parents David and Jean Halliwell to whom I dedicate
thisbook.