The Tumultuous Fifties


Book Description

A collection of two hundred duotone photographs from the "New York Times" which capture the spirit of the United States in the 1950s.




Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties


Book Description

A fascinating look at Hollywood’s most turbulent decade and the demise of the studio system—set against the boom of the post–World War II years, the Cold War, and the atomic age—and the movies that reflected the seismic shifts Hollywood in the 1950s was a period when the film industry both set conventions and broke norms and traditions—from Cinerama, CinemaScope, and VistaVision to the epic film and lavish musical. It was a decade that saw the rise of the anti-hero; the smoldering, the hidden, and the unspoken; teenagers gone wild in the streets; the sacred and the profane; the revolution of the Method; the socially conscious; the implosion of the studios; the end of the production code; and the invasion of the ultimate body snatcher: the “small screen” television. Here is Eisenhower’s America—seemingly complacent, conformity-ridden revealed in Vincente Minnelli’s Father of the Bride, Walt Disney’s Cinderella, and Brigadoon, among others. And here is its darkening, resonant landscape, beset by conflict, discontent, and anxiety (The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Asphalt Jungle, A Place in the Sun, Touch of Evil, It Came From Outer Space) . . . an America on the verge of cultural, political and sexual revolt, busting up and breaking out (East of Eden, From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, Sweet Smell of Success, The Wild One, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Jailhouse Rock). An important, riveting look at our nation at its peak as a world power and at the political, cultural, sexual upheavals it endured, reflected and explored in the quintessential American art form.




The 1950s


Book Description

Have the 1950s been overly romanticized? Beneath the calm, conformist exterior, new ideas and attitudes were percolating. This was the decade of McCarthyism, Levittowns, and men in gray flannel suits, but the 1950s also saw bold architectural styles, the rise of paperback novels and the Beat writers, Cinema Scope and film noir, television variety shows, the Golden Age of the automobile, subliminal advertising, fast food, Frisbees, and silly putty. Meanwhile, teens attained a more prominent role in American culture with hot rods, rock 'n' roll, preppies and greasers, and—gasp—juvenile delinquency. At the same time, a new technological threat, the atom bomb, lurked beneath the surface of the postwar decade. This volume presents a nuanced look at a surprisingly complex time in American popular culture.




American Culture in the 1950s


Book Description

This book provides a stimulating account of the dominant cultural forms of 1950s America: fiction and poetry; theatre and performance; film and television; music and radio; and the visual arts. Through detailed commentary and focused case studies of influential texts and events - from Invisible Man to West Side Story, from Disneyland to the Seattle World's Fair, from Rear Window to The Americans - the book examines the way in which modernism and the cold war offer two frames of reference for understanding the trajectory of postwar culture. The two core aims of this volume are to chart the changing complexion of American culture in the years following World War II and to provide readers with a critical investigation of 'the 1950s'. The book provides an intellectual context for approaching 1950s American culture and considers the historical impact of the decade on recent social and cultural developments.




Transforming the Screen, 1950-1959


Book Description

Covering a tumultuous period of the 1950s, this work explores the divorce of movie studios from their theater chains, the panic of the blacklist era, the explosive emergence of science fiction as the dominant genre, and the rise of television and Hollywood's response with widescreen spectacles.




The Tumultuous Fifties


Book Description




Outreach Services in Academic and Special Libraries


Book Description

Outreach Services in Academic and Special Libraries examines the creation and delivery of outreach programs designed to promote awareness of the library by meeting the information needs of underserved or uninformed patrons. This book contains the experiences of academic and special librarians who describe a wide array of successful outreach programs that are in place throughout the country. This valuable tool introduces professional librarians and library science students and faculty to current and highly innovative models of outreach services implemented in a variety of academic and special library settings.




Outreach Services in Academic and Special Libraries


Book Description

Discover innovative outreach services you can implement for your library! Outreach Services in Academic and Special Libraries examines the creation and delivery of outreach programs designed to promote awareness of the library by meeting the information needs of underserved or uninformed patrons. This book contains the experiences of academic and special librarians who describe a wide array of successful outreach programs that are in place throughout the country. This valuable tool introduces professional librarians and library science students and faculty to current and highly innovative models of outreach services implemented in a variety of academic and special library settings. This extensive resource shows how to use outreach programs to market new information resources and services to library constituents. Outreach Services in Academic and Special Libraries contains charts, graphs, and pictorials to help walk you through the process of creating an outreach program at your library. This book also presents bibliographies, suggestions on how to improve on existing designs, and the librarians’ “wish lists” of ideas they’d like to try in the future. Outreach Services in Academic and Special Libraries presents case studies covering many topics related to outreach services, including: outreach to special groups of remote users multicultural outreach collaborative outreach partnerships with university and college departments and community organizations outreach Web sites targeting special groups marketing library services and resources information literacy as a form of outreach multi-media kiosks and exhibits book talks outreach to new faculty and transfer students and more! Librarians will benefit from the wide range of creative ideas and successful case studies implemented by library colleagues representing institutions from around the country. Outreach Services in Academic and Special Libraries serves as a catalyst for librarians to implement similar outreach programs at their own academic or special library.




Photographic Memories


Book Description

The role of photographs in the formation of public memories.




Revel with a Cause


Book Description

We live in a time much like the postwar era. A time of arch political conservatism and vast social conformity. A time in which our nation’s leaders question and challenge the patriotism of those who oppose their policies. But before there was Jon Stewart, Al Franken, or Bill Maher, there were Mort Sahl, Stan Freberg, and Lenny Bruce—liberal satirists who, through their wry and scabrous comedic routines, waged war against the political ironies, contradictions, and hypocrisies of their times. Revel with a Cause is their story. Stephen Kercher here provides the first comprehensive look at the satiric humor that flourished in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. Focusing on an impressive range of comedy—not just standup comedians of the day but also satirical publications like MAD magazine, improvisational theater groups such asSecond City, the motion picture Dr. Strangelove, and TV shows like That Was the Week That Was—Kercher reminds us that the postwar era saw varieties of comic expression that were more challenging and nonconformist than we commonly remember. His history of these comedic luminaries shows that for a sizeable audience of educated, middle-class Americans who shared such liberal views, the period’s satire was a crucial mode of cultural dissent. For such individuals, satire was a vehicle through which concerns over the suppression of civil liberties, Cold War foreign policies, blind social conformity, and our heated racial crisis could be productively addressed. A vibrant and probing look at some of the most influential comedy of mid-twentieth-century America, Revel with a Cause belongs on the short list of essential books for anyone interested in the relationship between American politics and popular culture.