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Question: I want to find out about how people lived in the 40's -50's !.!.IM SO INTERESTED [READ UNDER]!?
I mean, Im so interested in it, I watch movies, read books!.!.!.But I guess I just cant get enough information!.
I just wish I could live those days, look in at people who were living those days, ANYTHING, I feel like I dont know enough!.!.!.As far as I know, I've watched everything I could about knowing about that time!.!.!.
Not about the war or anythinng else but you know, the regular people, like us! I just want to know!. Any help!?Www@QuestionHome@Com


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
There are a few books I can recommend if you haven't read them yet: "The Forties House" by Juliet Gardiner which has some very graphic pictures of the inside of our houses then plus pictures of the Anderson shelters which we dug into the gardens!.
"From Rationing to Rock" by Stuart Hylton
"The Victory Cookbook - nostalgic food and facts from 1940-54" by Marguerite Patten in association with the Imperial War Museum
"Britain at War" photographs by The Daily Mail
I guess we were fairly "regular people" - my husband was living in the East End of London and was evacuated at the age of 6 together with his little sister who was 4, labelled and with their gas masks to a village near Ascot, and to stay with a couple they had never met, without their mother who tried to visit most weekends by train!. I don't think they saw their father till they returned to London six and a half years later!.
I lived in Bristol throughout the bombing raids there, hiding under the stairs because when you saw blitzed houses, the staircases were the one thing left standing!.
It's impossible to tell you just what it was like because you need to experience a situation and there isn't room here to describe many events of our lives!.
Just a reminder, although the War ended officially in 1945, rationing continued for many years after as did the after effects!.
Maybe a letter to the Readers' Letters Column of your local newspaper asking if you could talk to someone locally or contact your local Age Concern and ask if there is anyone in Sheltered Housing or a Luncheon Club who would like to talk to you about what life was like for us!.
A thought - if you find someone, and I'm sure you will, why not take a recording machine to record their experiences in your Town!. You may even find a local Publisher who would turn it into a book!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

If I were you I would look to taking a course in Social History, this would give you a basis in to how people lived, and why they lived the way they did!. contact your local collage or see if you have a local history group!.


Good look and good huntingWww@QuestionHome@Com

U!. S!. answer!. Unless you lived in New York, you didn't have television in the 40s!. People gathered around their radio in the evening and listened to Gang Busters, MiltonBerle Show, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Burns & Allen, Life with Luigi etc!.

Life with Luigi was particularly funny!. It was this Italian immigrant writing home to his mother!. What he was most concerned about was that his landlord, Pasquale, was always trying to marry him off to his daughter, Rosa!. The way he described Rosa she was more than just a little plump!.


We didn't have air conditioning and where I live that is very important today!. People sit on their front porch in the evening and saw what was going on up and down the street!. They saw what kids were up to and didn't mind to correct someone else's if they were doing something wrong!. Our windows were opened in summer time and people were not as enclosed inside of their homes as they are today!.

World War II was between 1941-1945!. Many things were rationed, gasoline and food items!.
New car production came to a stop during the war as all production was put into the war effort!.
Singers of pop music could really sing!. They didn't have to dress like clowns and wiggle all over the stage and scream!. There was a program called the "Hit Parade," where the top 10 hits of the week were sung!. We had a Victory Garden in our backyard!. My daddy just loved to dig in the dirt!. We fussed so much about not having a back yarrd so after the War he got rid of the garden and had the entire property lined with flower beds, roses, gladiolas, day lillies, amarylis, irises that looked like orchids, hydrangea!. So he still was able to dig in the dirt!.
He still put mustard greens in among his rose bushes!.

Arlene Francis had a program called "Blind Date"
where girls on the phone would interview 3 servicemen and pick the one they wanted a date with!. Southern boys really had a big tijme!. One guy from Georgia was on her show and acted like a funny actor named Hollowell who always did an exagerated southern act in movies!. She took it seriously and laughed and carried on with him!. She didn't know that that particular serviceman had a teaching fellowship at Oxford!.

This encouraged other Service Men from the South to do the same!. They practiced before they went on her show!. When you didn't have television little things like that on the radio were funny!. Arlene didn't know that it was all in fun!.
On "What's My Line" Bennet Cerf told her in the mid 50s that she had been egging it all alone!. She didn't appreciate that but later she learned to laugh about it!.

Old salty Harry became president in 1946 and he upset Tom Dewey in 1948!. He followed the debonair Roosevelt!. His was a big change in style!. People didn't like him at the time but now he is considered one of our best presidents!. He had a way of using "language!."
Margaret Truman said someone asked her mother why they couldn't get Harry to say fertilizer rather than manure!. She said, Mrs!. Truman said," it took us 20 years to get him to say manure!." The working press loved him because he always gave them a good story!.
They got improntu press conferences from him when he took his morning stroll when he was down at Palm Beach!. He called Drew Pearson a name that implied when he got home he should hope his mother didn't come out from around his house and bite him!.

People were expecting another depression when the war and wartime production ended and so many men came home to get their jobs back!. It didn't happen!. We were too busy retooling Europe and it kept American industry going!.

Now, some people aren't going to like it, but my personal opinion that in the mid 50s, pop music went downhill with Elvis and rock music!. Sorry about that folks!Www@QuestionHome@Com

good question!.really needs a book to answer!.to begin,there were no supermarkets shopping was by way of the corner shop,certainly no trolley loads of non necessary waste!.the average wage for a working man was around 12 pounds a week!.did we feel hard done by,no!.the values we lived by taught us reserve,courtesy,manners,and respect!.christmas presents consisted of perhaps an annual,small tin toy,and fruit!.but we were so appreciative!.regimes set by father were are your shoes clean for school,is your satchel ready with your schoolwork,and in bed by 9pm!.walk to school 2 miles each way whatever the weather!.mum was always at home to serve a light tea when you returned home!.we were so secure!.no mobile phones,computers,sound systems,our interests was books,museums,walks,coin collections,stamp collections,etc!.this is not nostalgia it is an indictment on our greedy,superficial way of life now!.as a grandparent now i loathe the waste and unnecessary junk that is thrust-ed on our young it is obscene!.you are thinking along the right lines to want to have lived then!.it was a hugely formative,solid,grounded period to have witnessed!.i could go on and on,but just look around any awful shopping precinct view the behavior of young teenagers that seem wild beyond belief,the rubbish thrown just anywhere and reflect by way of the many answers i am sure you will recieve!.wish i could go back in time!. john!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

I am very nostalgic about the past, too, always watching those old black and white movies from the 30's, 40's and 50's!. Movies from the 60's and 70's got 'off track' in my opinion---too caught up in being 'hip' for that time!.
I bugged my grandparents and mom and dad to get all kinds of info about how they grew up, the time period, the way they lived personally---the cars they drove, the music they loved, the chores they had to do, the jobs they worked and found a wealth of information doing that!!

That's my best suggestion---ask your elders!. Maybe they've saved some old magazines from that era (which absolutely blows my mind to read) I've got one from Life all about the assassination of JFK from 1963!. I love old tv commercials, magazine ads, jewelry, antiques, the music (ELVISSS!!!), the cars---you name it!.
Another suggestion--go to antique stores---the bigger the better!. I would love a kitchen full of that red and white cabinetry so popular in the fifties, myself!.
Today, we have to much at our leisure, I think!. Actually, I'm sooooo nostalgic, I think I would have been just fine in the OLD WEST, ha ha!!
Yeah, me and Clint Eastwood!.!.!.!.!.(well, when he was Rowdy Yates on 'Rawhide' in the fifties!. Nah,-- the Good, The Bad and The Ugly!. He was primetime then!)Www@QuestionHome@Com

First of all, I was born in 1952, so you'll have to rely on people like Shirley T!. for first-hand inforation for life in the USA about the 1940s, but from what my parents have told me, its sounds accurate!. Except on the calendar, not much divided the late 1940s from the 1950s!.

This was a time when mothers, for the most part, stayed at home with their children, although as single women and young wives they had probably worked during the 1940s, while daddys in intact families went off to work!. According to my parents, my first sentence was "Daddy works"--a sentence that rather aptly sums up the decade!. Women wore dresses, skirts, and blouses, and almost never ever wore slacks, school regulations only allowing girls to wear them underneath their dresses or skirts if it snowed!. Mother-Daughter dresses were very popular as well!. Indeed, activities for men and women were somewhat separated: Women kept busy attending PTA meetings, garden club meetings, and perhaps sponsoring a Brownie or Cub Scout troop as well as making time for their standing weekly beauty parlor appointment!. Families ate at home most of the time, so going out for dinner was a rare treat!. Few chain restaurants existed!. Accordingly, wives and mothers had dinner on the table when their husband came home around 6 p!.m!. Civic Organizations like Lions and Rotary Clubs were strictly reserved for businessmen, who unless they were blue collar wore a business suit with coat, white shirt, and tie to work!.

I can also remember getting central air conditioning at home about the time I started first grade, and in Texas, at least, this was a major improvement in life style!. The public schools, however, weren't air-conditioned (or integrated completely) until about 1970!. Teachers reprimanded students for chewing gum and leaning back in their chairs!.

It was also a simplier time--without television until very late in the decade for people outside of metropolitan areas!. For example, a tornado struck my hometown of Waco, Texas, in 1953!. My dad, an attorney, was working downtown, so he was able to come home with tales of the carnage!. However, since Waco didn't have any television stations, we truly didn't know the extent of the damage until relatives in Dallas (100 miles away) called, having seen the destroyed downtown on TV!.

Popular shows included "I Love Lucy", "The Donna Reed Show", and "Father Knows Best"-- all of the above celebrated the nuclear family (one mom, one dad, and their children)!. "The Micky Mouse Club" in its original black and white version showcased the singing and dancing talents of a lot of clean-cut kids like Annette Funicello!. "Roy Rogers", "Davy Crockett", and "The Lone Ranger" helped form our ideas of exactly how to be a hero!. Then Elvis on "The Ed Sullivan Show" towards the end of the decade literally and figuratively shook up things!.Www@QuestionHome@Com