We tend to remember the good and forget the bad. The ‘50s was also a time when nuclear war with Russia was a constant fear. If you lived in the South and were not white life was full of indignities like segregated water fountains, restaurants, and hotel rooms. Women were often denied academic or career oportunities through a kind of unspoken old boys club mentality. Polio was a threat every summer and advances like stem cell transplants, effective chemotherapy, heart bypass surgery, and joint replacement were science fiction. Overall life expectancy was far shorter particularly due to auto accidents and smoking.
What I remember about growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s was the confidence that we still had as “one nation, under God”. Whatever flaws we had we believed in a future that would be better for our children. I grew up in Chicago so I understood political corruption as an institution but I always believed that the FBI or IRS would be watching over the nation to protect us if things got really bad. I’m not so sure who the “good guys” are anymore. This is what I miss most, trust.
Indeed, life in the 1950’s had a significant downside. Gray Poupon mustard, sri racha hot sauce, kim chee and real maple syrup were unavailable in the stores, watermelons could only be had in the summer, liberals dominated the GOP, which lost seats with every election until the 1958 blow-out, and in Los Angeles, the UCLA Bruins ruled the gridiron.
In the fifties, Russia was the only country that posed a threat of nuclear war, but we had military superiority and if they had been foolish enough to attack us, they would have been crushed. Today, a number of countries pose a nuclear threat, and there is currently a very real possibility of a nuclear war with Red China.
For blacks in the South, the indignities of Jim Crow were, indeed, still present, although they were fading. However, the permanent underclass of low-income blacks generated by the welfare state and Critical Race Theory, which poisons race relations, had not yet come into existence.
Women may have had fewer career opportunities, but they were far from oppressed and women's groups like the American Association of University Women were thriving.
Polio was a threat early in the decade, but the threat rapidly receded as the Salk vaccine became widespread. Medicine may have been far less advanced, yet it was not in the thrall of hysterical cults like Faucism as it is today.
In my opinion, the good things about the fifties outweighed the bad.