1950s America

The Decade of the Boom.

Cost of Living

1950

Median Income (National Average): $3,319

Median Income (White Families): $3,445

Median Income (Black Families): $1869

Average Cost of New Home: $8,450

Average Gross Rent (In Illinois): $47

Average Cost of a New Car: $1,510

Cost of US Stamp: $0.03

Cost of a gallon of milk: $0.82

Cost of a gallon of gas: $0.18

Unemployment Rate*: 5.3%

Buying Power of $1.00 USD (in 2017): $10.50

1959

Median Income (National Average): $5,620

Median Income (White Families): $5,835

Median Income (Black Families): $3,230

Average Cost of a New Home: $12,400

Average Cost of a New Car: $2,200

Cost of US Stamp: $0.04

Cost of a gallon of milk: $1.01

Cost of a gallon of gas: $0.25

Unemployment Rate*: 5.5%

Buying Power of $1.00 USD (in 2017): $8.51

*Note about Unemployment Rate - Numbers here depict National average. According to PEW research studies, the unemployment rate for African Americans is consistently twice as high as those for Whites. For example, in 1954 the unemployment rate for Whites was 5% and for Blacks was 9.9%

Federal Government

1950

President: Harry S. Truman

Vice President: Alben W. Barkley

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: Fred M. Vinson

Speaker of the House: Sam Rayburn

Senate Majority Leader: Scott W. Lucas

1959

President: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Vice President: Richard Nixon

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: Earl Warren

Speaker of the House: Sam Rayburn

Senate Majority Leader: Lyndon B. Johnson

Notable Events

1950

-Ralph Bunch wins Nobel Peace Prize

-Gwendolyn Brooks becomes first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize

-Chuck Cooper and Nathaniel Clifton join the NBA, becoming the leagues first African American players

-Juanita Hall becomes the first African American awarded a Tony, for her performance as Bloody Mary in South Pacific

-Secretary of State Dean Acheson delivers "Perimeter Speech"

-Truman orders the development of the hydrogen bomb

-Disney releases Cinderella (Feb. 15)

-North Korea crosses the 38th Parallel and Truman orders U.S. Troops to aid South Korea.

-Jack Kerouac's On The Road is Published

1951

-United Nations offices open in New York

-Nuclear testing begins in Nevada

-A mob of between 3,500 and 4,000 White people try to keep a Black family from moving into an apartment building in Cicero, IL.

-The King and I opens on Broadway (March 29)

-Jet Magazine prints its first issue

-J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye is published

-I Love Lucy premieres

-George Washington Carver recieves the U.S. first National Monument to honor an African American in Joplin, MI.

-The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, limiting the president to two terms.

1952

-The Today Show premieres

-The University of Tennessee admits its first black student.

-Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man published

-Truman announces he will not seek reelection

-Puerto Rico becomes a commonwealth of the United States

-1952 becomes the first year in history that there are no reported lynchings

-Dwight D. Eisenhower elected president, defeating Adlai Stevenson.

-NSA Founded

-Operation Ivy, the detonation of the first H-Bomb completed

-U.S. Special Forces established

1953

-James Baldwin's Go Tell it on the Mountain, the writer's first novel, is published

-Georgia approves the first literature censorship board in the United States.

-Willie Thrower becomes the first Black Quarterback in the NFL

-The Korean War ends: the United States, the People's Republic of China, North Korea, and South Korea sign an armistice agreement.

-The Crucible opens on Broadway (Jan. 22)

-NSC 162/2 approved by the president, stating that the U.S. nuclear weapon arsenal will be maintained and expanded under communist threat

-First issue of Playboy magazine printed

1954

-Marilyn Monroe marries Joe DiMaggio

-First mass vaccination against polio begins

-The Supreme Court hears Brown vs. Board of Education

-Malcolm X is ordained a Nation of Islam minister

-Elvis releases first single "That's All Right"

-Senator McCarthy condemned by the Senate for "conduct that tends to bring the senate into dishonor and disrepute" for his Communist witch hunts.

-Frankie Muse Freeman leads the legal team for the successful Davis et al vs. the St. Louis Housing Authority in the Supreme Court

1955

-Claudette Colvin refuses to give up her seat on a Montogomery bus, sowing the seeds for the boycott and becoming a part of the Gayle vs. Browder Supreme Court case.

-Charlie Parker, 34, dies in NY.

-First McDonald's restaurant opens

-Geneva Summit begins

-Emmett Till murdered

-James Dean, 24, killed in a car crash

-AFL-CIO labor organization formed.

-Albert Einstein dies.

-Rosa Parks arrested in Montgomery, Alabama officially beginning the Montgomery Bus Boycotts

-Chuck Berry releases "Maybellene"

-Marian Anderson performs with the Metropolitan Opera

1956

-Nat King Cole becomes first African American to host his own primetime television show

-Harry Belafonte's "Calypso" becomes the first record to sell more than a million copies

-Elvis performs "Hound Dog" on the Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the nation

-96 Congressmen sign the "Southern Manifesto" protesting Brown vs. Board of Education decision

-Marilyn Monroe marries Arthur Miller

-Gayle vs. Browder Supreme Court decision rules segregation on interstate travel unconstitutional, ending the Montgomery Bus Boycotts

1957

-KKK members force truck driver Willie Edwards off a bridge into the Alabama River.

-Dorothy Irene Height elected president of the National Council of Negro Women

-Little Rock Nine integrate an Arkansas high school escorted by the National Guard

-Strom Thurmond filibusters for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which once ratified established the Federal Civil Rights Commission and established the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department, and empowered federal officials to prosecute individuals that conspired to deny or abridge another citizen's right to vote. Moreover, it also created a six-member U.S. Civil Rights Commission charged with investigating allegations of voter infringement. But, perhaps most importantly, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 signaled a growing federal commitment to the cause of civil rights.

-West Side Story opens on Broadway (Sept. 26)

1958

-Ruth Carol Taylor becomes the first African American woman hired as a flight attendant by Mohawk Airlines

-Elvis joins the U.S. Army

-SCLC established in Atlanta, Georgia

-The Alvin Ailey Dance Company is formed

-Louis E. Lomax is hired by WNTA-TV, becomes the first African American newscaster for a major television network

-Althea Gibson becomes the first African American to win the U.S. Open

-Paul Robeson, having had his passport reinstated, appears in two sold out performances at Carnegie Hall. This becomes his last public U.S. performance.

-NASA is created

1959

-Motown Records created by Berry Gordy

-U.S. recognizes Fidel Castro's Cuban government

-A Raisin in the Sun opens on Broadway (March 11)

-Miles Davis' seminal record Kind of Blue is released

-Alaska and Hawaii become the 49th and 50th states admitted into the Union.

-Twilight Zone premieres

-The Guggenheim Museum opens

-Dale R. Buis and Chester M. Ovnand become first U.S. troops killed in action in Vietnam

-Billie Holiday dies

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