1950s Online Resources
The following links are resources for Exploring America in the 1950s: Beneath the Formica.
Lesson 1
“Atom and Evil” by Golden Gate Quartet
“Old Man Atom” by The Sons of the Pioneers
“Great Atomic Power” by The Louvin Brothers
“If I Forget Thee, O Earth” by Arthur C. Clarke
“Duck and Cover: Bert the Turtle Civil Defense Film”
“When They Drop the Atomic Bomb” by Jackie Doll and His Pickled Peppers
Lesson 2
“Nobody Here But . . .” by Isaac Asimov
The art of Arthur Radebaugh
Disneyland’s “House of the Future”
Lesson 3
Joseph McCarthy’s 1950 speech from Wheeling, WV
“Ballad of Noble Intentions” by Edwin Rolfe
“Political Prisoner 123456789” by Edwin Rolfe
“Little Ballad for Americans” by Edwin Rolfe
“Wasn’t That a Time” by Pete Seeger
“Get That Communist, Joe” by The Kavaliers
Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Dartmouth College commencement address
Lesson 4
Levittown: Documents of an Ideal American Suburb by Peter Bacon Hales
“I Can Dream, Can’t I” by The Andrews Sisters
“Goodnight Irene” by The Weavers
“Come On-a My House” by Rosemary Clooney
“Wheel of Fortune” by Kay Starr
“Because of You” by Tony Bennett
Excerpts from The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson
Lesson 5
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
History of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Backgrounds on W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, and A. Philip Randolph
“Harlem” by Langston Hughes
“We Are Americans Too” by Nat King Cole
Excerpts from Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Lesson 6
“Every Day I Have the Blues” by B. B. King
“Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats
“How Many More Years” by Howlin’ Wolf
“Boogie in the Park” by Joe Hill Louis
“Drivin’ Slow” by Johnny London
“Bear Cat” by Rufus Thomas
“Just Walking in the Rain” by The Prisonaires
Top 10 African American musicians of the 1950s
“That’s All Right” by Elvis Presley
“Blue Moon of Kentucky” by Elvis Presley
“I’ll Never Let You Go” by Elvis Presley
“Shake, Rattle, and Roll” by Bill Haley and His Comets
“Maybellene” by Chuck Berry
“Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard
Lesson 7
Jack Kerouac reads from On the Road
“America” by Allen Ginsberg
“Howl” by Allen Ginsberg
“This Is the Beat Generation” by John Clellon Holmes
Lesson 8
Excavation by Willem de Kooning
Gotham News by Willem de Kooning
Cardinal by Franz Kline
Black Reflections by Franz Kline
Eve by Barnett Newman
Adam by Barnett Newman
At Five in the Afternoon by Robert Motherwell
Mural Fragment by Robert Motherwell
Blue Poles by Jackson Pollock
Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) by Jackson Pollock
“What Abstract Art Means to Me”
Lesson 9
“Peggy Sue” by Buddy Holly
“Come On, Let’s Go” by Ritchie Valens
“Chantilly Lace” by The Big Bopper
“American Pie” by Don McLean