The Square Root of Wonderful (Historical Context)

Historical Context

During the 1950s, America experienced unprecedented economic growth. Increased government spending on defense projects, home loans, and social programs, as well as rocketing demands for consumer goods, fueled this boom. Worker productivity rose; with only 6 percent of the world's population, the United States produced 50 percent of its goods. Between 1945 and 1960, the median family income in the United States doubled. The birth rate soared, peaking in 1957, when a baby was born approximately every seven seconds. Within this context, though, certain social elements were changing.

Individualism Versus Conformity

One of the primary complaints about American society in the 1950s was that people were experiencing severe pressure to conform to conventional values. The rugged individualist was a dying breed in the United States, according to some social theorists, replaced by men and women who wanted more to fit in than to stand out.

David Reisman, a University of Chicago sociologist, and Nathan Glazier published The Lonely Crowd in 1950, a book asserting that Americans were increasingly looking to social institutions and mass media to understand how to live their lives, versus looking inward at personal convictions. People wanted to belong to a group but ultimately felt lonely and could not honestly identify with the group. William Whyte's book, The Organizational Man, made a similar point. Americans during the post-World War II years worked primarily for the betterment of the corporation, he argued, diminishing creativity and innovation and the work ethic that had made America great. In The Affluent Society, author John Kenneth Galbraith railed against an economy based on increased consumer spending. He was concerned that personal wealth could prevent improvements in schools, health care, and other social goods.

Sexual Values in the 1950s

In 1948, Alfred Kinsey, an Indiana University research scientist, published the results of his extensive survey of men and their sexual habits in an academic book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. To everyone's surprise, it became a huge bestseller. Its findings included numbers showing that premarital sex and homosexuality were much more common than previously thought. In 1953, Kinsey published Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Howls of protest sounded from many quarters, concerned that traditional sexual mores would fall away and Americans would become unhealthily preoccupied with sex.

The nation's comfort level with sexuality was, in fact, changing. Movies became more explicit; in 1956, the Motion Picture Association of American changed the code that regulated what could and could not be shown — a code that had been in effect since the 1920s. Movies were freer to address topics such as prostitution, abortion, and premarital sex. Novels also reflected this change. Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious, supposedly detailed what went on behind the closed doors of a typical American small town. Rock and roll music celebrated sexuality through both the music and its performance. Elvis Presley's infamous gyrations being the epitome of the latter.