1950s

Scope|Overview Sources|Personalities and Events|Notable Fiction|Videos|Periodicals, Journals, & Trade Publications|Web Sites

Scope: The decade of the 1950s produced many changes. Population increased, the nation was thrust into the Cold War, which proved to increase international diplomacy, and many cultural influences were introduced. Rockn roll was introduced in the music scene, commercial jet transport began, and television was broadcast nationally.

OVERVIEW SOURCES

REF E169.12.Y69 2004 The 1950s

REF E 169.1.B664 1990 American Chronicle

REF E 169.12.A419 American Decades 1950-1959

REF E 169.K139 2000 Daily Life in the United States 1940-1959

REF D 842.5.M47 1979 Day by Day, the Fifties

REF E 743.5.K57 1996 Encyclopedia of the McCarthy Era

REF E 161.T55 This Fabulous Century 1950-1960

REF PN 1993.5.U65 B7 1990 The Films of the Fifties: Sunset Boulevard to On the Beach

REF E 174.5.W46 1991 The U.S.A: A Chronicle in Pictures

Representative Books from the Circulating Collection

PERSONALITIES AND EVENTS

Barson, Michael. Red Scared! The Commie Menace in Propaganda and Popular Culture. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001.

Belfrage, Cedric. The American Inquisition, 1945-1960: A Profile of the McCarthy Era. New York: Thunders Mouth Press, 1989.

Carter, Paul Allen. Another Part of the Fifties. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

Davis, Michael D. Thurgood Marshall: Warrior at the Bar, Rebel on the Beach. Secaucus, N.J: Carol Publishing Group, 1992.

Dreishpoon, Douglas. The Tumultuous Fifties: A View from the New York Times Photo Archives. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.

The Fifties. Geneva, New York: Hobart & William Smith College Press, 1982.

Halberstam, David. The Fifties. New York: Villard Books, 1993.

Johns, Michael. Moment of Grace: The American City in the 1950s. Berkeley, Calif:
University of California Press, 2003.

McEnaney, Laura. Civil Defense Begins at Home: Militarization Meets Everyday Life in the Fifties. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Rowan, Carl Thomas. Dream Makers, Dream Breakers: The World of Justice Thurgood Marshall. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993.

Walker, Martin. The Cold War: A History. New York: H.Holt, 1995.

NOTABLE FICTION

Bellow, Saul. Seize the Day, with Three Short Stories and a One-Act Play. New York: Viking Press, 1956.

Cheever, John. The Wapshot Chronicle. New York: Harper & Row, 1957.

Du Maurier, Daphne. My Cousin Rachel. Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1952.

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Modern Library, 1952.

Faulkner, William. Novels, 1957-1962. New York: Library of America, 1999.

Ferber, Edna. Giant. New York: Perennial Classics, 2000.

Golding, William. William Golding's Lord of the Flies: Text, Notes & Criticism. New York: Perigee Books, 1983.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1952.

Hilton, James. Time and Time Again. Boston: Little, Brown, 1953.

Jones, James. From Here to Eternity. New York: Scribner, 1951.

Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York: New American Library, 1957.

Lawrence, D.H. Lady Chatterley's Lover. New York: New American Library, 1959.

Malamud, Bernard. The Magic Barrel. New York: Farrar, Straus& Cudahy, 1958.

Metalious, Grace. Peyton Place. New York: Dell, 1956.

Michener, James. Hawaii. New York: Random House, 1959.

Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. New York: Berkley, 1966.

OConnor, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find, and Other Stories. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955.

Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago. New York: Pantheon, 1958.

Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Signet, 1996.

Salinger, J.D. The Catcher in the Rye. Boston: Little, Brown, 1951.

Steinbeck, John. East of Eden. New York: Penguin Books, 2002.

Traver, Robert. Anatomy of a Murder. New York: St. Martins Press, 1958.

Wilson, Ian. Exodus: The True Story Behind the Biblical Account. San Francisco:  Harper & Row, 1985.

Wright, Richard. The Outsider. New York: HarperPerennial, 1993.

VIDEOS

E 17.B56 2000 A Biography of America

D842.5 .U54 1996 The Unforgettable Fifties: The Newsreels

PERIODICALS, JOURNALS, & TRADE PUBLICATIONS

Click the link for a list of full text journals available through our databases in:

• United States History-General

Open Access Journals in History

WEB SITES

Literature and Culture of the American 1950s
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/home.html

Updated 08/22/2007