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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3405253" data-attributes="member: 4937">You could hardly pick a more contriversial decade (except perhaps the 1980's) to portray American life.  The 50's are one of those times when we as Americans don't yet agree on what was happening (although the end of the Cold War helped somewhat), and like the 60's the narrative of what was happening tends to be caught up more in the mythic narratives that arose after the period than what was actually happening on the whole.My personal feeling is that both narratives about the 1950's - 'a time of great hope' and 'a time of great fear', 'Father Knows Best' vs. 'a hollow plastic society', etc. - are true from the perspective of the narrator.  Everyone's impression probably has some element of truth to it, they just shouldn't assume that there own experience held true for everyone.This is going to be especially true of a place like LA where myths get created on a daily basis.  The main thing that was certainly true was that America was unprecedentedly wealthy in a way that no other society had ever been, and uniquely wealthy in a way that no nation had ever been before or since; at least, if you weren't a poor white or black farmer in the rural South still unrecovered from the civil war (and arguably still fighting it).  But even in the midst of oppressive racism, America's urban ethnic communities were flourishing - developing thier own educated doctors, pharmacists, teachers, lawyers, and millionaires - all of which would be crucial to the challenge that was to come.  LA early in this period would be desegrating in name if not in practice.  The 'Whites Only' signs would have just come down because of court cases (for example Mendez vs. Westminster) that would foreshadow the national battles just beginning.I guess my point - other than I like to ramble on about history, especially US history - is that I wouldn't trust literature to give you an accurate picture.  In literature, especially 'historical fiction', you generally have one person with one experience with one take trying to sell you on something.  It might be a valid experience, or it might just be spin for the sake of the story.  In my research, I've tended to rely on local libraries because period newspapers and the work of local historical societies tends to give a far more interesting snapshot of past life than even a good novelist.  You don't want your setting colored by what one person was reading at the time, what one person's father was like, what one person's politics were, and whether one person took seriously those 'duck and cover' drills or whether they thought no more about them than earthquake drills and fire drills.Unfortunately, California's not really my area of the US so I can't hop into the local public library.</blockquote>

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