Embarking on motherhood was a very different affair in the 1950s to what it is today. From how to dress baby (matinee coats and bonnets) to how to administer feeds (strictly four-hourly if following the Truby King method), the childrearing methods of the 1950s are a fascinating insight into the lives of women in that decade. In A 1950s Mother, author, mother and grandmother Sheila Hardy collects heart-warming, personal anecdotes from those women who became mothers during this fascinating post-war period. From the benefits of 'crying it out' and being put out in the garden to gripe water and Listen with Mother, the wisdom of mothers from the 1950s reverberates down the decades to young mothers of any generation and is a hilarious and, at times, poignant trip down memory lane for any mother or child of the 1950s.

Introducing: America in the 1950s for KidsThe English Reading Tree Book 54 This book is aimed at children aged eight and over and is part of the English Reading Tree Series (number 54). It is a perfect tool to get young learners into the habit of reading. This nostalgic look at America in the 1950s will take children on a journey through key events, trivia, and culture. From the War in Korea to Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, this is a must read for young and curious minds. America in the 1950s for Kids has been written to entertain and educate. It is packed with information and trivia and has images that bring the topic alive. There is a quiz at the beginning and end to test how much has been learned. What people are saying about the English Reading TreeGoodreads Excellent books that not only improve reading ability but educate. Post Online Very well presented and I particularly enjoyed the quiz at the end. Island EBooks Simple, easy to read and full of interesting facts. What more can a parent ask? Online Review With less emphasis on pictures and more emphasis on reading and developing initial reading vocabulary, this series will capture most kid's imagination and encourage them to read more. The large print makes the reading more inviting. Parental assistance will be needed to help with new words or the meaning.

This vivid New York Times bestseller about 1950s America from a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist is “an engrossing sail across a pivotal decade” (Time). Joe McCarthy. Marilyn Monroe. The H-bomb. Ozzie and Harriet. Elvis. Civil rights. It’s undeniable: The fifties were a defining decade for America, complete with sweeping cultural change and political upheaval. This decade is also the focus of David Halberstam’s triumphant The Fifties, which stands as an enduring classic and was an instant New York Times bestseller upon its publication. More than a survey of the decade, it is a masterfully woven examination of far-reaching change, from the unexpected popularity of Holiday Inn to the marketing savvy behind McDonald’s expansion. A meditation on the staggering influence of image and rhetoric, The Fifties is vintage Halberstam, who was hailed by the Denver Post as “a lively, graceful writer who makes you . . . understand how much of our time was born in those years.” This ebook features an extended biography of David Halberstam.

Both conservative and liberal Baby Boomers have romanticized the 1950s as an age of innocence--of pickup ball games and Howdy Doody, when mom stayed home and the economy boomed. These nostalgic narratives obscure many other histories of postwar childhood, one of which has more in common with the war years and the sixties, when children were mobilized and politicized by the U.S. government, private corporations, and individual adults to fight the Cold War both at home and abroad. Children battled communism in its various guises on television, the movies, and comic books; they practiced safety drills, joined civil preparedness groups, and helped to build and stock bomb shelters in the backyard. Children collected coins for UNICEF, exchanged art with other children around the world, prepared for nuclear war through the Boy and Girl Scouts, raised funds for Radio Free Europe, sent clothing to refugee children, and donated books to restock the diminished library shelves of war-torn Europe. Rather than rationing and saving, American children were encouraged to spend and consume in order to maintain the engine of American prosperity. In these capacities, American children functioned as ambassadors, cultural diplomats, and representatives of the United States. Victoria M. Grieve examines this politicized childhood at the peak of the Cold War, and the many ways children and ideas about childhood were pressed into political service. Little Cold Warriors combines approaches from childhood studies and diplomatic history to understand the cultural Cold War through the activities and experiences of young Americans.

From one of the world's most beloved writers and New York Times bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body, a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the 1950s. Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century—1951—in the middle of the United States—Des Moines, Iowa—in the middle of the largest generation in American history—the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, he is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around his house and neighborhood with an old football jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel about his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing awful evildoers (and morons)—in his head—as "The Thunderbolt Kid." Using this persona as a springboard, Bill Bryson re-creates the life of his family and his native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality—a life at once completely familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy. It was, he reminds us, a happy time, when automobiles and televisions and appliances (not to mention nuclear weapons) grew larger and more numerous with each passing year, and DDT, cigarettes, and the fallout from atmospheric testing were considered harmless or even good for you. He brings us into the life of his loving but eccentric family, including affectionate portraits of his father, a gifted sportswriter for the local paper and dedicated practitioner of isometric exercises, and of his mother, whose job as the home furnishing editor for the same paper left her little time for practicing the domestic arts at home. The many readers of Bill Bryson’s earlier classic, A Walk in the Woods, will greet the reappearance in these pages of the immortal Stephen Katz, seen hijacking literally boxcar loads of beer. He is joined in the Bryson gallery of immortal characters by the demonically clever Willoughby brothers, who apply their scientific skills and can-do attitude to gleefully destructive ends. Warm and laugh-out-loud funny, and full of his inimitable, pitch-perfect observations, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is as wondrous a book as Bill Bryson has ever written. It will enchant anyone who has ever been young.

Full of the warmth and excitement of growing up in the 1950s, awakening nostalgia for times that seemed cosy and carefree with families at last enjoying peacetime, this book is packed with the experience of school days, playtime, holidays, toys, games, clubs and hobbies conjuring up the genuine atmosphere of a bygone era. As the decade progressed, rationing ended and children’s pocket money was spent on goodies like Chocstix, Spangles, Wagon Wheels and Fry’s Five Boys. Television brought Bill and Ben, The Adventures of Robin Hood and, for teenagers, The Six-Five Special, along with coffee bars and rock ‘n’ roll.This book opens a window on an exciting period of optimism, when anything seemed possible, described by the children and teenagers who experienced it. Liverpool’s traditional sense of community, strengthened by the war years, provided a secure background from which children and teenagers could welcome a second Elizabethan era.

Martin H. Levinson lived in Brooklyn from his birth in 1946 to 1962, the height of the baby boom following World War II. He grew up two blocks from Ebbets Field, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and attended Erasmus Hall High School, which boasts alums such as Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand, and chess-wiz Bobby Fischer. The author's personal recollections of his middle-class childhood in Brooklyn during the 1950s alternate with chapters detailing seminal cultural events of that era including the advent of television, fast-food restaurants, big cars with fins; desegregation and the white flight to the suburbs; rock and roll, beatniks, hula hoops, The Kinsey Reports, the Cold War, McCarthyism, Playboy, and much more. Part memoir, part social history, Brooklyn Boomer offers a captivating portrait of Brooklyn and America in the mid-twentieth Century.