'Memba, 'Memba

1. 85

   gmwilliamsposted 2 years ago

   
   What are YOUR memories of America in the olden days?  Do you wish that America was the same it was in those days?  Or do you strongly contend that America is so much better than in those days?   Were the olden days GOLDEN or DARK for you?

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   1. 81

      Credence2posted 2 years agoin reply to this

      The "golden days" is an illusion. The "good old days" depended upon which side of the ledger you were on.
      
      Looking at the image, 1930-1950 or so, it is just a glossy on a magazine cover, the reality was always much darker.

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      1. 85

         gmwilliamsposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you for your response.   The golden olden days were for those who were in the designed ingroup so to speak.  Those who were outside the parameters of the ingroups didn't have so-called golden days.  Their days ranged from mildly purgatorial to outright hellish: think of Red Summer 1919, Tulsa Riots(1920s), deportation of Mexicans in the 1930s, imprisonments of Japanese Americans in World War II, etc.

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      2. 94

         MizBejabbersposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         I agree, Credence. I grew up in the 1950s, and I look back on them as an age of hypocrites. During WWII women took over the jobs and careers dominated by men and proved that they could do the work just as well. When the men came home, the women were sent home "where they belonged." Remember Rosie the Riveter? There were several "Rosies" in my family.
         Look at instructions that were given to married women on how to treat their husbands to "keep them happy." While you are googling that, see how many instructions you can find to men on how to keep your wives happy during that era."
         People remember discrimination against African Americans and Asians during the days of WWII and the '50s, but they don't want to admit there was discrimination in general against women. There is more to discrimination than not being served or admitted because of race. For example: My maternal grandmother died in 1939 with cancer in her mid-40s. Her Arkansas Death Certificate doesn't even list her name. It lists her as "Mrs. Husband's Name." On the copy of the one in my possession, my aunt hand wrote her given name on it. FYI, my grandfather remarried, his second wife preceded him in death, also with cancer, and that made two death certificates in the name of "Mrs. Husband's Name," who died of cancer, in the state vital statistics files for that little town. I wonder how many other wives's deaths do not list them by name in the statistics nationwide.
         
         My parents grew up during the Great Depression, and both they and my grandparents could tell many negative stories of the desirability of those "good ole days."
         
         During the years preceding the 20th Century, it was said that "women were put on a pedestal." Yeah, if they followed the rules, if not they were considered disreputable and sometimes shunned or not considered marriage material. And all women had to be married, or else society thought there was something wrong with them.
         I could go on and on, but there isn't enough space, and I don't have enough time.
         
         I'm not saying that the good old days were all bad, just not what they were cracked up to be.

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         1. 81

            Credence2posted 2 years agoin reply to this

            Hello, Ms. B, don't get me started on this. I sympathize and agree with your points wholeheartedly. Women were put on a pedestal, which was just a prison in the sky.
            
            A film with Kate Winslet and DeCaprio brought this home in a way I did not really appreciate, Revolutionary Road, a compelling and unhappy film about the typical mid 1950s housewife, her every aspiration and ambition thwarted by a "system" designed to do that. I highly recommend the film as an example.  American women were the victims of the men in the "Grey Flannel Suit". The diversion of a woman's potential and energies toward the insignificant is featured in Freidan's "Feminine Mystique", a must for the women's studies courses at the University that were made part of the sociology curriculum back in my hey day of the early and mid 1970s.
            
            When I was a kid, and the sitcom "Bewitched" debuted in 1964-65, I was too young to appreciated the implications. But, later, I asked, this Samantha with powers that more than rival that of Superman, was told by Darwin Stevens, "no witchcraft"!  So, here she was washing dishes and vacuuming carpets instead of exploring the universe which was well within her power. How would anyone with that much power want to associate with a dork like Darren Stevens? How could you allow the "system" to subordinate you of such great power to nonexistence? I can see Endora, (Samantha's mom) telling her daughter to "F*** Darwood, we are going to Paris". But, they could not say that on Tv back in those days.
            
            The oppression of women while different than that of racial minorities, was no less sinister.

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2. 80

   Stephen Tomkinsonposted 2 years ago

   We have the same idea of a "Golden Age" in Britain but nobody seems to know exactly when it was. We have our own history of discrimination against women, minorities, and non-heterosexuals.
   There was no golden age anywhere.

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