H.B. Barnum, a 14 year old saxophone player who later became a music producer was one of the many teenagers in the 1950s drawn to the new style of music that featured hard-driving African American rhythm and blues. Barnum described the first time he saw the rhythm and blues performer Richard Wayne Penniman, better know as Little Richard. Born poor, Little Richard wore flashy clothes on sate, curled his hair, and shouted the lyrics to his songs. As one writer observed, “In two minutes Little Richard used as much energy as an all night party.” The music he and others performed became a prominent part of the American culture in the 1950s, a time when both mainstream America and those outside of it embraced new and innovative forms of entertainment.
New Era of Mass Media
Compared with other mass media – means the communication that reach large audiences- television developed with lightning speed. First widely available in 1948, television had reached 9 percent of American homes by 1950 and 55 percent of homes by 1954. In 1960 almost 90 percent – 45 million – of American homes had television sets. Clearly, TV was the entertainment and information marvel for the postwar years.
Eary television sets were small boxes with round screens. Programming was meager and broadcasts were in black and white. The first regular broadcast, beginning in 1949 reached only a small part of the East Coast and offered only two hours of programs per week. Post World War II innovations such as microwave distances, sent the television industry soaring. By 1956 the Federal Communications Commission – the government agency that regulates and licenses television, telephone, telegraph, radio, and other communications industries – had allowed 500 new stations to broadcast.
This period of rapid expansion was the “golden age” of television entertainment – and entertainment in the 1950s often meant comedy. Milton Berle attracted huge audiences with The Texaco Sat Theater, and Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s early situation comedy, I Love Lucy, began its enormously popular run in 1951.
At the same time, veteran radio broadcaster Edward R. Murro introduced two innovations: on the scene news reporting with his program, See it Now, and interviewing with Person to Person. Westerns, sports events, and original dramas shown on Playhouse 90 and Studio One offered entertainment variety. Children’s programs, such as The Mickey Mouse Club and The Howdy Doody Show attracted loyal young fans.
American businesses took advantage of the opportunities offered by the new television industry. Advertising expenditures on TV, which were $170 million in 1950, reached nearly $2 billion in 1960.
Sales of TV Guide, introduced in 1953 quickly out paced sales of other magazines. In 1954, the food industry introduced a new convenience item, the frozen TV dinner. Complete, ready to heat individual meals on disposable aluminum trays, TV dinners made it easy for people to eat without missing their favorite shows.
Stereotypes and Gunslingers
Not everyone was thrilled with television, though. Critics objected to its effects on children and its stereotypical portrayal of women and minorities. Women did, in fact appear in stereotypical roles such as the ideal mothers of Father Knows Best and The Adventures of Ozzies and Harried. Male characters outnumbered women charters three to one. Latinos and blacks rarely appeared in television programs at all.
Television in the 1950s portrayed an idealized white America. For the most part, it omitted references to poverty, diversity, and contemporary conflicts, such as the struggle of the civil rights movement against racial discrimination. Instead, it glorified the historical conflicts of the Western frontier in hit shows such as Gunsmoke and Have Gun Will Travel. The level of violence in these popular shows led to ongoing concerns about the effect of television on children. In 1961, Federal Communications Commission chair man Newton Minow voiced this concern to the leaders of television industry.
However as television began to become a big part of every day life, newer items in the future such as the internet will eventually become the bigger part of every day life.
