The 1950s were a period of contradiction as a yearning for an idealised pre-war era clashed with a push for futuristic development.

As men returned from war, women went back to more domestic roles. The population surged into the suburbs, with home-centred living against a backdrop of tremendous technological, societal and economic change. But what was a typical American 1950s home like?

Click or scroll to take a tour of perhaps the most aesthetically iconic decade of the last century...

The end of the Second World War sparked a financial boom in the United States. Factories' industrial powers had been turbocharged to facilitate the war effort deftly pivoted, applying their immense production capacity towards more domestic goods.

Machines that had been designed to churn out bomber jets and tanks began producing TVs and home appliances instead, which Americans were more than happy to buy…

Some economists had pessimistically predicted an economic crisis, with millions of servicemen and women returning home to seek employment in a country whose sole industry had come to revolve around military production. But their fears were never realised.

Most veterans were able to find jobs. On the home front, those who had been saving throughout the war (at the advice of the government’s Office of Price Administration) were keen to spend the money in anticipation of a brighter future in peacetime.

Having saved on average 21% of their disposal income (as compared to an average of 3% in the 1920s) according to A Consumer’s Republic:The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, on top of stringent rationing, Americans were more than ready to splash out on the luxury goods and appliances they had been denied during the war.

And thanks to the GI Bill and government-backed loans, homeownership became accessible to middle-class families across the country. It spurred a wave of construction and the establishment of new suburban communities.

These purpose-built suburbs were designed to provide affordable housing in cleaner, safer neighbourhoods, drawing the cultural focus back to families and domestic life.

New factory-made building materials such as steel and aluminium meant these homes could be built more efficiently and affordably than ever before. 

The most popular style for these mass-produced homes was the mid-century modern ranch, epitomised by low-slung roofs, open floorplans and large picture windows. Most homes featured garage ports, as by the end of the decade some 75% of Americans owned a car.

Like other consumer goods of the era, many of these homes were being mass-produced. The nation’s immense production power was repurposed to meet new domestic needs, including the homes themselves. This advertisement is classic for the times.

On a grander scale, communities like Levittown, a development of more than 17,000 detached houses which began in 1947 as America’s 'prototypical postwar planned community,' sprang up across the nation as reported by British newspaper The Guardian.

Inside, these homes were characterised by dramatically stylistically divergent interiors. The mid-century modern styles which had begun to emerge in the late 1940s took root.

Homes became more functional and less formal, with an emphasis on the new materials being mass-produced in factories such as chrome, metal, glass and fibreglass. As the cover of this homeowner’s magazine from 1956 shows, homes were designed to be, above all, practical.

Though less public facing than other parts of the house, bedrooms were no less a showplace for mid-century modern design. The chic modern bedroom depicted here features many of the decade’s most popular trends, including a mustard yellow colour palette, geometric-patterned rug, angular, streamlined furnishings and elegant Oriental artwork.

This particular room also boasts another popular element in 1950s architectural design: sliding doors. They provided seamless transitions between indoor and outdoor living.

Twin beds had been the norm in marital bedrooms throughout much of the previous century, supposedly for health reasons. In fact, Victorian doctors had warned that 'sharing a bed would allow the weaker sleeper to drain the vitality of the stronger', as reported by British newspaper The Guardian.

But by the 1950s they came to be seen as an indicator of a distant or failing marriage. Happy or unhappy, couples switched back to double beds in the 50s, further underlining the societal importance of returning to family-centric values.

Bathrooms were colourful places during the decade, with fittings in playful shades of pink, blue, yellow and green, and floors and counters tiled in complementary colours.

Modern bathrooms, like the one depicted in this Kohler Plumbing advertisement from 1950, relied on some of the new, factory-produced materials of the post-war industrial boom, such as chrome for fixtures and enamel for finishes.

This snap from 1955 clearly demonstrates that bathrooms were family spaces, with father shaving, mother brushing her teeth and their little girl taking a bath all at once.

The floorplan for new suburban builds often included only one full bathroom, albeit a modern, newly fitted one, which meant that families like this one would have had to share when getting ready on busy mornings. 

Kitchens, too, became colourful, chrome-fitted spaces in the 1950s, in similarly festive pastel shades of teal, pink and yellow. Checkerboard tiled floors were popular, as were cherry red, diner-style banquets or breakfast nooks, while new materials like linoleum and fibreglass made spaces easier to clean. 

Another popular feature of most mid-century kitchens was the Smeg refrigerator, which, with its distinctively curved silhouettes and polished silver handles, has remained an iconic hallmark of the decade to this day.

This dramatic shift in appearance was illustrative not only in changing fashions but in the new social function kitchens took on in the 1950s as well.

Whereas previous decades had seen kitchens as purely functional spaces to be hidden from public view, and therefore in no need of stylish fittings, the 50s saw them transition into far more social spaces where families and friends gathered to help with meal prep. The result was a more cohesive, stylized space, with more room for traffic flow.

In accordance with the trends of the decade, kitchens were also engineered for minimalism and efficiency, and a range of new appliances sprung up to facilitate both aims.

In addition to European companies which made refrigerators and other domestic gadgets, American manufacturers such as General Electric, Frigidaire and Westinghouse dominated the kitchen appliance market with new devices like food processors, electric whisks and the Electrolux ‘Assistant,’ designed for processing dough.

For the average American, dining rooms also became substantially less formal spaces during the decade. Gone were the days of lengthy dark wooden dining tables and austere drapes, replaced by cheerful geometric patterns and light colours.

Teak supplanted mahogany as the wood of choice. Dining rooms in newly built homes were either part of an open floor plan, or positioned close to the kitchen to facilitate family-style meals, like the one pictured here.

Living rooms remained the family gathering spot during the 1950s and made the perfect showplace for some of the decade’s more distinctive design elements, such as clean lines, accent colours and statement furniture.

Solid colours replaced the patterns that had dominated these softer spaces in previous decades. Smooth, plain surfaces were favoured over more ornate detailing.

Another significant change to living spaces in the 1950s was the rise of the television, which became the centrepiece of most sitting rooms by the end of the decade.

The accessibility of television sets skyrocketed during the 50s, with the result that while only roughly 8,000 US households had one in 1946, approximately 45.7 million had them by 1960 according to data from Elon University.

TVs quickly replaced both fireplaces and radios as the fixture around which the family would gather, with furniture placed so the screen was the room’s focal point.

The new ‘opiate of the masses,’ television quickly became central to American domestic culture. Families would schedule meals and other activities around the nightly CBS news broadcast, effectively mandatory viewing for the nation, and other preferred programmes.

With a strictly limited number of channels and no way to record, families gathered in front of the television in an almost ritualistic practice.

The effect of what became known as the 'Golden Age of Television' on American culture was profound. With the advent of commercials interlaced with popular programmes, retail companies could promote home goods to a wider audience than ever before, influencing décor choices and appliance upgrades.

Sitcoms like I Love Lucy and westerns such as Gunsmoke (which was so popular it ran for 20 years) attracted millions of weekly viewers. Programmes like The Donna Reed Show and Leave it to Beaver helped cultivate the image of what the ‘perfect’ American family should look like.

Televisions were not the only forms of technology invading domestic spaces. Convection ovens, which were technically invented in 1914, were commercially launched in 1945 with the advent of the Maxson Whirlwind Oven.

By 1950, most kitchens featured a convection oven, which was considered a landmark advancement in cooking technology and a precursor to the modern-day air fryer.

Capable of defrosting a dinner in half the time of a normal oven thanks to the fan at the back which boosted air circulation, these ovens were also particularly handy for defrosting frozen meals…

Frozen dinners, or ‘TV dinners’ as they became be known, were introduced to the American market in 1954. They were an immediate success thanks to their low-effort preparation and the fact that, as the name suggests, their packaging made them easy to enjoy while sat in front of the TV.

While frozen dinners may have been a nice companion to the increasingly popular national pastime of TV viewing, they conflicted with the contemporary emphasis on traditional family values, reducing women’s domestic roles and enabling them to continue to enter the workforce.

Many men wrote to the Swanson company, the primary purveyor of frozen dinners, complaining about the lack of home-cooked meals.

Another key development in decreasing women’s domestic workload was the vacuum cleaner. While already a staple in nearly all American middle-class homes, the 50s saw the introduction of several new features which increased convenience and efficiency.

This included disposable vacuum cleaner bags, longer cords and a new range of attachments for upholstery and tricky corners.

In the late 1940s and early 50s, a large number of US manufacturers, including General Electric and The Hoover Company, introduced a range of competing automatic washing machines. They made it faster and easier to wash large volumes of clothes.

The popularity of electric washing machines boomed across the 50s. The healthy economy and keen consumer culture meant most households owned one by the end of the decade.

The 50s also saw a national obsession with futuristic technology. As the Space Race began in earnest and Americans turned their gaze skyward, the bounds on technological innovation seemed limitless. Artists and engineers alike began to fantasise about what futuristic domestic technology might look like.

For example, this 1959 prototype for a 'Forecast Music Sphere' was designed as a theoretical stereophonic high-fidelity system of the future. The device was created by Lester Beall for The Aluminum Company's America's collection of 'Designs of Tomorrow' but never advanced beyond the prototype stage.

The 'Atoms for Living' kitchen by Kelvinator was a bold vision of the future, designed to introduce groundbreaking features 10 to 15 years ahead.

Planned innovations included a storage unit that kept food fresh using atomic energy, a mirrored electronic stove and an ultrasonic dishwasher that could double as a kitchen island at the push of a button.

However, like the 'Forecast Music Sphere,' the 'Atoms for Living' kitchen was never brought to life.

In spite of all these advancements, there was still a tremendous socio-cultural push for women to return to the domestic sphere once.

When American men went off to war in 1941, women had entered the workforce in droves to take up the slack. They both aided the war effort and supported more every day, traditionally masculine professions such as ship-builders, truck drivers and riveters.

When the war ended, there was focus placed on the responsibilities of wife and mother and becoming the ‘perfect housewife.’

While in the years immediately after the war, many women did return to domestic roles, by the early 1950s, they were venturing back into the workplace. They even began getting involved in state and local politics, a societal shift which caused concern.

And so was born the commercially manufactured image of the ‘happy housewife,’ the woman who kept her home clean, her family well fed, her chequebook balanced and did it all while looking effortless and beautiful.

And this image was hard to ignore...

The concept of female-driven domestic bliss was promoted to women from almost everywhere. TV commercials and print ads targeted female consumers, suggesting they could buy their way to perfection by acquiring certain products.

The government, eager to stabilise the economy and get veterans employment, coaxed women out of the workforce with the propagation of the ‘perfect housewife’ in pamphlets and political campaigns.

Even popular TV shows like Father Knows Best and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet centred around the idea of women as ‘domestic goddesses,’ with the result that life came to imitate art.

While the end of WWII was a relief, it was only to be a short-lived reprieve from international conflict.

1947 marked the beginning of the Cold War, a geopolitical conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Though it never boiled over into outright war, it overshadowed much of the 1950s with the constant threat of nuclear attack.

Ads like this one, depicting blast-resistant 'houses for the Atomic Age' suggest just how prevalent this worry was in 1950s society.

While few Americans actually invested in concrete, blast-proof homes, many were at least prepared to move into newly built nuclear fallout shelters. Pictured here, a Long Island family sits huddled in a ‘Kidde Kokoon' underground bomb shelter built beside their home in 1955.

In an effort to quell fears nuclear attack fear, the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) handed out half a billion booklets depicting the idealised American family living comfortably in their fallout shelter.

It broadcasted the government-sanctioned message that underpinned the decade: the unified, organised, all-American family would be just fine, even in nuclear fallout.

Another defining event of the 1950s was the Baby Boom, the period between 1946 and 1964, during which 76 million babies were born according to the Population Reference Bureau. This new generation of ‘boomers’ constituted 40% of the population.

Some historians have argued the Baby Boom was born of a desire for a return to normalcy after years of depression and war, while others have claimed it was driven by a Cold War campaign to boost the population and outnumber the communists.

Whatever the cause, family life became the dominant lifestyle for the decade.

The Baby Boom went hand-in-hand with the mass migration to the suburbs, as young families wanted more space to spread out and raise their children.

With many households in similar circumstances, neighbourhoods quickly became close-knit communities, where children could ride bikes along neatly bordered streets and parents could gather for more adult social gatherings.

It was the age of potlucks, picnics, cookouts and cocktail parties, further enforcing the societal ideals of what a perfect household should look like.

As it evolved over the course of the decade, this new suburban social culture continued to shape the appearance of homes. ‘Curb appeal’ became a status symbol and a point of pride, inspiring Americans to dedicate more time and money towards the upkeep of their home's exteriors.

Inside, domestic spaces continued to evolve to fit their new, gendered roles. Kitchens were larger, emphasising the importance of the homemaker and her responsibilities as hostess, while garages and basements became ‘dad’s domain,’ the place he could retreat, to tinker on projects and get out of his wife’s way.

Of course, this propagated image of the perfect family was extremely heteronormative, extremely white and extremely flawed. Fiscally speaking, it presented the idea that all families were upper-middle class, but the reality was that the decade’s economic prosperity brought with it an increased wealth inequality.

While it accurately portrayed these new suburban utopias as almost exclusively white, it failed to acknowledge that the reason for this was either legally or socially enforced segregation.

While segregation is typically associated with the South, the reality was that segregation was far more widespread. Southern states had Jim Crow laws, legislation introduced in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jim Crow was a term used for an African American.

The last of these laws were overturned in 1965 but while in action they made it dangerous for Black Americans to stray beyond their neighbourhoods, enter white-owned businesses, or use basic amenities such as public transportation, 

Even in parts of the country where it was not legally enforceable, racist regulations, prohibitive pricing and social stigmas kept Black Americans out of white neighbourhoods, frequently relegating them to under-funded and under-serviced parts of town.

As the Cold War intensified throughout the decade, the push towards ‘all Americanism’ took on a threatening undertone. Widespread fear of Soviet influence and espionage led to the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy. He led a campaign against left-wing individuals whom he suspected of communist activity.

The result was an increased pressure to appear patriotic, which could be done by adhering to the social norms of the middle-class nuclear family. Though, as seen here, many Americans decorated their homes with American flags for good measure!

While the 1950s may have seen the dawn of substantial economic, cultural and social change that would shape the way domestic life looked and functioned for the second half of the century, it really only served to set the stage for more dramatic domestic upheavals in the coming decades.

Gender politics, Rock n’ Roll and Civil Rights simmered just below the surface, ready to launch a cultural revolution as America prepared to enter the ‘Swinging 60s.’

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