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Middle-Class America and Its Discontents
Contributing teacher:
Elizabeth Meola Aaron
Time period: 1950s
Overview
After students examine the 1950s, they know that for every image of the United States as a white, suburban, middle-class nation of happy and well-adjusted nuclear families, there are photographs, documents, and other examples of dissent and criticism that reveal another, less contented, and less comfortable America. Indeed, many historians argue that the seeds of the counterculture of the 1960s were planted firmly within the politics, economy, and society of the 1950s.
The Assignment
This simulation asks students to place themselves in a Greenwich Village coffeehouse in 1959 and to assume the identity of someone living in that decade. Their assignment is to introduce themselves to the other people at their table, to discuss a variety of issues and topics, and to decide just what the state of America is in 1959. The evaluative writing assignment at the end of the simulation asks students to summarize their coffeehouse experience, as well as to relay what they have learned about America in the 1950s and what diverging lifestyles, views, and opinions they have discovered. They should attempt to make a "prediction" about what might happen in American society over the following decade. (Students usually have a general idea already of the tumult of the 1960s; this activity helps them understand what some of its root causes were.)
Prior to the simulation, students should be familiar with the general idea that movements in culture and criticism have often flowered from settings similar to that of a coffeehouse or salon or other gathering place for cultural and political discussion—give them a quick overview of the Enlightenment salon, Vienna coffeehouses, the Beat poets in San Francisco, and the like, to help set the mood for this simulation.
Guidelines
Based on your students' strengths and interests, assign them roles to play. It is probably best to have two students share a role; this way they can work together on research and not leave a gap in the simulation if one is absent from school.
You may wish to simply list topics for discussion on a handout and give students directions to begin the simulation by saying, "You have twenty minutes to discuss three issues with three different people, and to take brief notes on what the major opinions and criticisms of American society are." Or you may choose to write the discussion topics on slips of paper, then circulate around the room asking each student to choose one. With these in hand, students could mingle with one another for several minutes, switching papers, and rotating through the crowd conducting several conversations from several points of view. Or you could have one or two students "emcee" an open-microphone night at the coffeehouse, where they ask two people at a time to come up and talk for several minutes about their views on a given topic that you or another patron calls out.
Remind and encourage students to have an open mind when speaking with other coffeehouse patrons. You might wish to give points for students who find people they agree with, people they disagree with, people whose ideas have changed their minds, people whose ideas they know they will not be able to come to an agreement with, and so on.
You can design a checklist like this to help keep students on task:
- Spoke with:
- Topic discussed
- They think. . .
- I agree/disagree because. . .
- Notes
Students should take notes as they complete the simulation, then use their notes to complete an in-class or homework writing assignment.
It is suggested that you mix real historical figures, such as the African American writer James Baldwin (1924–87) or an editor from Fortune magazine (for ideas, see the document-based question "Homogenized Society and Comformity", with the more generic cultural characters suggested below. It would be fun and challenging for students to have, say, President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) and W.E.B. DuBois (1868–1963) drop by for conversation about the politics of the decade. Students should read the documents in the DBQ and in Professor Alan Brinkley's e-seminar The Stable Fifities that relate to their own character's perspective; students should be given class or homework time to develop the issues they want to discuss in the coffeehouse. Teachers should be assured before the simulation that each student is researching the topics most relevant to their chosen character, and that a good mix of characters will be represented. If students are asked to develop ten index cards with comments on as many topics, they may be collected prior to the exercise so that students who are struggling with their preparation can receive assistance. Encourage students to find quotations from their character (where appropriate), but to be prepared to interpret such material in their own words.
Historical Characters (12)
1. A Wall Street banker.
2. A mother from Levittown, N.Y., who is visiting New York City with a friend.
3. An African American student from Columbia University.
4. An advertising executive who creates commercials for television.
5. A Republican speechwriter from the White House.
6. A GI who served on the ground in the Korean War and then went to dental school on the GI Bill of Rights.
7. The owner of a Howard Johnson motel visiting New York from Illinois.
8. A budding rock-and-roll musician.
9. A Columbia University professor who has protested the university's cooperation with federal officials from the House Un-American Activities Committee who have requested student records.
10. A Princeton University scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project.
11. A New Jersey woman who worked in a wartime plant and now works on the assembly line at Ford.
12. A member of Congress who represents the New York neighborhood of Harlem.
Discussion Questions
These questions could be posed to students to help them do research on their character's point of view. They might use their answers as cue cards during the simulation so that they immediately have things to say when asked questions by other characters. You should present them to students on a handout so that they can refer to them as they conduct their research.
1. Select three or four topics about which your character is most likely to have a strong opinion. What exactly are your opinions on these topics, and what personal and historical experiences have you had that led you to those opinions?
2. Which two or three characters in the coffeehouse are you most likely to agree with on certain issues, which are you most likely to disagree with, and why? (Students may make incorrect assumptions here, but it is important for them to try to evaluate what the ideas of others may be.)
3. In what ways and why do you think America is on the right path (culturally, politically, economically, intellectually) in 1959? In what areas do you think the nation is not on the right path? Explain your position.
4. Is democracy alive and well, or is democracy endangered, in America in 1959? Explain your position.
5. What type of candidates would you like to see run for the presidency in 1960? Analyze what you think the nation needs from its next president.
Issues to Raise
1. The advantages and disadvantages of the post–World War II economic boom.
2. The role of TV in American life.
3. The increase in consumer consumption.
4. The growth of the advertising industry.
5. The growth of the suburbs.
6. The economic problems and development issues in urban areas.
7. Brown v. Board of Education.
8. The policies of the Eisenhower administration.
9. The Interstate Highway Act.
10. The civil-rights crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas.
11. American foreign policy in the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia.
12. Legislation supporting more spending on math and sciences in the secondary schools.
13. The Korean War.
14. The space race.
15. The American family.
16. American literature and culture: the Beat poets, movies of the 1950s.
17. Rock-and-roll music.
18. The atomic age and developments in science in the 1950s.
19. McCarthyism and the Red Scare.
20. The introduction of Advanced Placement courses in high schools.
You could ask students to answer the above questions in character twice—once in order to start the simulation, and again after they have talked with many of the other characters in the room. They could do so in numbered questions or essay format.
Alternatively, students might be asked to leave their character behind and to assume the role of a magazine reporter assigned to cover the beat of downtown New York City in 1959. They should title their article "A Night in Greenwich Village" and detail what people and ideas are making the scene.
Students could also write a diary entry about their night out: Whom did they meet, what did they talk about, and what do they think about what they saw and heard?
Ask your students to write a paragraph predicting what issues and opinions they discovered in this simulation that they think (or know) might have an impact on America in the 1960s. This exercise brings the simulation to a close, but it can also be used to introduce their study of the 1960s.
Concluding Remarks
At the end of the simulation, your students will understand how the origins of the counterculture of the 1960s emerged from the so-called complacent decade of the 1950s.
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