The Booming Fifties

The Booming Fifties By: Sumentha D’Souza And Sara Wimalendran

Baby Boom • It was the post war period, and Canadians felt confident about their economic future. • Many Canadian veterans came home from fighting the war over seas, and rejoined with their families. • The government encouraged immigration from Britain and Europe, and most of the immigrants were in the process of having families. • This lead to a significant rise in the the birth rate. • This period is known as the Baby Boom. • The children born during this period have become socially influential and are called Baby Boomers.

TV in Toronto • Hockey Night in Canada grew from radio to television and is still popular today. • Most baby boomers grew up glued to a television set exposed to commercial message every ten minutes. • TV proved to be a powerful cultural force, driving the rapid transition to a consumer society. • Television appeared in the early fifties. • Canadians living in Toronto and Southern parts of Canada received American television programming. • Shows like I Love Lucy, The Ed Sullivan Show, and Roy Rogers were popular. • In 1952, television stations were open in Toronto and Montreal, and local service started in Ottawa and Vancouver. • The first program to air in Canada was Uncle Chichimus, a puppet show for children.

Coffee Houses • The first instance of coffee drinking is thought to have taken place as early as the ninth century. • During World War II coffee was rationed severely throughout Canada. • “Instant Coffee” became hugely popular in the 1950s, when there was an emphasis on the development of convenience foods. • The popularity of Coffee Houses, where youth gathered to socialize and listen to music and poetry, increased in the 1960s. • “Beatniks” were a non-traditional group with a preference for black clothing, dark sunglasses, long hair, beards for males, progressive poetry, music and art. They were likely to frequently dark coffee houses where folk music and jazz where played.

Suburbia • With millions of new cars on the road, traffic jams and air pollution became commonplace in the fifties. • The first subway was in Canada was built in 1954. • Planned communities such as Bedford Basin (Halifax), Don Mills (Toronto), Fraserview (Vancouver), and Wildwood (Winnipeg). • By 1954 a quarter of a million Canadian families had moved to suburban communities. • Most enjoyed the new suburban lifestyle, preferring to live in green, open, quit areas outside congested city centers. • The Trend continues today, shopping malls like the Golden Mile in Toronto, were built to provide one-stop shopping convenience for people living in the suburban areas. • With local conveniences, suburbanites can avoid driving down-town for shopping and other services.

Rock’n’Roll • The Crew Cuts were four graduates from A choir school in Toronto and recorded the first Rock’n’Roll song to sell a million copies. • Paul Anka from Ottawa and Bobby Curtola became internationally known and successful. • Toronto had recording studios, television studios, record company offices, and the radio station CHUM 1050 • In the fifties a new fast paced music got the attention of many teenagers in Canada. • Most of the songs of the Early Fifties were referred to as "feel-good" tunes, which reflected the mood of post World War II America. Artists like Pat Boone, Rosemary Clooney and Perry Como dominated pop charts. • This music was influenced by rhythm and blues and rockabilly and had a pulsating beat, fast guitar, piano, and a lively performance. • It was first called Rock’n’Roll by DJ Alan Freed.

Teenagers • Teenagers (ages 14-18) had leisure time, money and saw themselves as distinct group • Teenagers felt they were living in a conformist adult society and began to rebel against it • They developed a culture with its own language fashion and music • The differences between adults and teenagers began the generation gap between parents and children that is widening today

Bibliography • The book • http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~umfrie45/research.htm • http://www.urban.org/aging/abb/agingbaby.html

The Booming Fifties