What would you do if you had to live in 1950s America?

[Civ001]

You receive a knock at your door. Opening up, a man in a very out of fashion suit and hairstyle walks in and introduces himself as "Rob", insisting you write it in all capital letters and tells you have important news. Taking a seat, he informs you that in one week you will be forced through a time vortex to live in a standard suburban American town circa 1952. Your life will continue there from that point, and you can never return (although if you live long enough you might see the present day as an old man/woman)

As you reel from the shock, he informs you of further rules.

You will receive a fully paid off and furnished suburban house to live in, large enough to start a family but small enough that it wouldn't be unusual if you didn't.
You will be given a job that is the closest approximation possible of your current one. For example, a person in IT now will be given a job working on the very basic computers of the time.
You get one small suitcase to pack anything you want, technology can be brought but electronic items cannot have a total modern price value over 300 USD.
If you are economically dependent on someone else, they will come as well but will be mind wiped into thinking they always lived in that era.
If you are not American, you are given an excuse of having recently immigrated.

What can you do to adapt to your new life? Do you face any special challenges from 50s culture and/or technology?

 

[gay_Aleks]

...don't sing the International in a crowded area filled with Americans?

 

[Plotinus]

I'd do what Gary Sparrow did, but more professionally: pretend I'd written all the Beatles' songs and become a massively successful songwriter. Then I'd get started on a series of children's books about a boy wizard. If all that failed I'd make massive bets on the outcomes of any elections or other events whose results I could remember.

More seriously, one of the reasons I would hesitate to live in the US even today is the right-wing political culture. The thought of living in 1950s America, from that point of view, would be wholly unbearable. I suppose I would want to go to as many concerts by people like Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters as I could, but for a white person to do that at that time would be fraught with problems (perhaps fewer for a foreigner, but still). I'd also find Blind Willie McTell and arrange a proper recording session for him, and pay him properly for it too.

I think the 1950s would be an exciting time to live through in some ways: you could witness the birth of rock and roll and a new age of optimism after the post-war austerity. But it's very easy to overlook the massive disadvantages compared to today, and I mean just the social differences, never mind the technological and economic ones. This would be the time not only of McCarthyism but before the civil rights movement, when abortion, racially mixed marriages, and homosexuality would all have been illegal in much or all of the US. It was a time of much greater social pressure to conform, when those who didn't fit in suffered far more isolation and social pressure, if not legal pressure, than they do today. It would be hard for most of us to fit in.

 

[Domen]

Taking a seat, he informs you that in one week you will be forced through a time vortex to live in a standard suburban American town circa 1952.

If I landed in the South, for a brief moment I would probably think that I live in a standard suburban near-Baltic Sea town circa 1410:

 

[Serutan]

Advatanges to the 50s:

1. The Left isn't trying to repeal free speech.

2. The Right isn't trying to repeal separation of church and state.

3. The two parties, while exchanging partisan sniping, actually place the welfare
of the country above said sniping.

4. However greedy corporate America looks to 50s people, they are the Sisters of Charity
comparted to the modern version.

5. Much stronger, better balance economy.

6. Newscasts actualy had news.

7. A lot of entertainment is DIY

8. No cell phones, no texters!!!

Disadvantages to the 50s:

1. The Tyranny of Conformity, of which McCarthy was a symptom. If you didn't conform you
fall under 2) even if a WASP male. This one would be the killer for me - the rest I think I could
deal with. NOTE : There are some Twilight Zone episodes which
illustrate this very well.

2. Kinda sucky for women and those not of European descent.

3. Variety in food not easy to find, and ethnic/spicy very difficult in most places.

4. This is when the Big Brewing started crowding out the locals, and the overall quality of
American beer took a beeline to the toilet where it would stay until the 80s.

5. No internet or PCs.

6. In a bad marriage? Too f***ing bad - you're stuck with it.

7. A lot of entertainment is DIY (Individual view of this will vary, hence on both lists).

8. International travel is expensive and mostly impractical for a while.

.

 

[Cutlass]

More seriously, invest in electronics as the companies become available. But up all the beachfront property as I could as an investment. Anticipate business trends and beat them to it.

 

[Traitorfish]

First thing I'd do is sell everything I own and move somewhere that wasn't a 1950s suburban town. How boring that would be? The '50s is already short on stuff I like, and there's really no point in rubbing it in.

2. Kinda sucky for women and those not of European descent.

3. Variety in food not easy to find, and ethnic/spicy very difficult in most places.

Yeah, those seem about equal to me.

 

[Tahuti]

Marry the woman of my dreams.

Buy a nice house with a mortgage in the suburbs.

Kill myself.

 

[Glassfan]

Bring a copy of Grays Sports Almanac, turn my town into a chaotic dystopia, and force Marty's mother, Lorraine, to marry me.

 

[Joecoolyo]

First, I would freak out, having no idea what to do in a world without internet and computers.

Then, I would realize how much I can do now that computer's aren't sucking up all my time.

 

[schlaufuchs]

I'd offer my services to baseball teams as an advanced statistics analyst :3

 

[Phrossack]

Marry the woman of my dreams.

Buy a nice house with a mortgage in the suburbs.

Kill myself.

So John Cleese if he hadn't joined Monty Python?

Me, I'd try to become a park ranger at Yosemite, Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain National Park, or some other nice semi-wild or wild place, preferably as a mounted ranger. Which is still a very good plan. I'd also try to help the environmentalist movement any way I could.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Marry the woman of my dreams.

Buy a nice house with a mortgage in the suburbs.

Kill myself.

You forgot joining a country club.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I'd offer my services to baseball teams as an advanced statistics analyst :3

Yeah, if we're bringing skills that are in demand back, I'm sure I could make some money on this new "Karate" trend that's building steam.

 

[Tahuti]

So John Cleese if he hadn't joined Monty Python?

Good thing you got the reference!

In all seriousness, I probably would either become a filmmaker or a mathematician-and-proto-computer-scientist, or both.

 

[Leifmk]

It was a time of much greater social pressure to conform, when those who didn't fit in suffered far more isolation and social pressure, if not legal pressure, than they do today. It would be hard for most of us to fit in.

Yeah. Even though on paper I would have a pretty easy time of it -- being a white heterosexual guy from northern Europe, already well-fluent in English -- the social pressure would be like nails on a chalkboard.

 

[MilesGregarius]

I'd be making a b-line for Mexico and parts south.

 

[kojimanard]

With the advantage of a hindsight, a person in the 1950s should buy as much IBM stock as possible, The other tech companies at the time, Sperry Rand, RCA, GE-Honeywell, all collapsed.

 

[Core Imposter]

I did live in 50s America.

It was great. I would love to go back. Do you have ROB's phone number?

 

[mech654]

The 1950s would completely suck for me, since I'm gay.

So yeahh.