Buying into The Dream

 

 

1950's cocktail menu, front cover from Lanai Room, La Playa Hotel - Carmel, CA

 

Buying into the Dream

The mad scramble survival of the melting pot, industrial revolution, women’s suffrage, and desegregation gave way to the possibility of an American Dream. Automobile ownership, home ownership, and even business ownership were at the fingertips of all who dared the new opportunities that awaited them.  Gone were the days of life being limited to a few miles in any direction or being only able to go to the next town by passage of train. Street cars and autos made venturing out accessible to all.

One could see how other people lived, and how green their grass was. The Hollywood golden age had projected onto the movie screens a glamorous life, especially in California. The cultures of the Automobile and of California as a Dream are intertwined, yet remain separate entities. Even Walt Disney himself who had a dream, included an “Autopia” in his Disneyland when the park opened in 1955.

 

The automobile gave the opportunity for life outside of the dirty city. It gave the ability to have a home with a yard to play in. It gave women the opportunity to get out of their homes and do marketing and shopping. It gave teenagers freedom away from home, and fun. Hot Rod racing became a favorite pastime. “Hot rodding took off after World War II…the phenomenon, while focused in Southern California and dry lakes racing, was really nationwide in scope. By 1948…the Midwest (at Columbus, Indian and Dayton featured designs similar to Southern California cars.”¹ The sport of Hot Rodding intertwined the Auto dream as well as the Californian one.

The move to California had been an ongoing ideal of opportunity throughout the American History. Following World War II the weather and glamour of California would be even more appealing.  The bombing of Pearl Harbor coupled with Television, showed many American people places, that, unless they were in the military, would have never known existed.  The new trend in nightlife became the “Tiki” lounge. Tropical themed restaurants popped up all over, especially in California. It was a land of Paradise.

 

These tropical beach paradises, with the wind and warmth of the sun, would be a beacon to any City dweller after a harsh, gray, dreary, bitter cold winter.  Driving in the snow was no picnic either. Just like the freedom of the beach, the freedom of the automobile was curtailed because of inclimate weather.  The automobile required nice weather for what it represented. In the 1950’s people couldn’t imagine a time before the automobile. Thoughts held true in California, “Before Malibu, there was nothing”. ²Just like the auto, “I saw healthy, painfully sexy beautiful girls, handsome athletic men, sun sand and surf. I inhaled the sweet smell of suntan oil mixed with sea mist…and it all spoke to me and whispered “Freedom”³.  Like the automobile before it California held its own symbol of virility, success and new hobbies. (p. 135 Auto).

 

Instead of running off in a car to escape your parents fighting or life in the boring suburbs, in California you also could run off and ride a wave. Before the beach boys became famous with the release of their first song, their image was captured by a Life magazine photographer in a 7 page article. “The Mad Happy Surfer…”⁴. The image of life in California was along lines of that of the automobile.

 

The automobile, ironically would force some to go to California. In the mid-1950’s after many people in New York City headed to the suburbs, there was a problem. The Dodger and Giants baseball teams were not happy with the diminishing crowds in the stands. “People have moved out of the city…You used to be able...to go out and get a crowd from within walking distance of the park and fill the stands. Nowadays people have to drive in from the suberbs”⁵ The problem was that there was no parking for those people. Old run down stadiums, lack of parking and congested traffic caused the Dodgers to move to L.A. and the Giants to move to San Francisco in 1957. They would have new Stadiums, a new audience, and sunshine.

“Dreams usually come to us unbidden and are not typically practical or easy.”⁶ When the auto was first invented, no one could foresee the future influence on the Culture of America. In the beginning, to see it as a hobby, or with a lightly clad woman sprawled across its hood, was no more in the creators thoughts, than those who joined the '49 gold rush to California could envision people standing up, riding boards in the ocean, and lightly clad woman sprawled out on beach blankets across the sand.

1)     Heitmann, John, The Automobile and American Life ( North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2009), 138

2)      Vaughan, Ed Before Malibu there was Nothing, Surfwriter, a persona history of Surfings Goldent Years, 2007 accessed October 9, 2012 http://www.Surfwriter.net/before_malibu.htm

 

3)      Vaughan, Ed Before Malibu there was Nothing, Surfwriter, a persona history of Surfing’s Golden Years, 2007 accessed October 9, 2012 http://www.Surfwriter.net/before_malibu.htm

4)      Vanity Fair Magazine http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/features/2006/08/malibu-surf-scene-200608.print

 

5)      Creamer, Robert  Alas, Poor Giants!  Sports Illustrated, May 20, 1957, accessed October 7, 2012 http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1132253/index.htm

 

6)     Cullen, Jim, American Dream, The (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 182

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bourgeoisie or Nouve riche?

I would say that at no time was American culture ‘driven by government’. In fact the opposite was true. American culture drove the government to make changes that would benefit the citizens. Some people interpret the word opportunistic as being offered an opportunity. My understanding is that there is an opportunity, but it is at the detriment of someone or something else. It has a negative connotation to it. Opportunism and materialism seem to go somewhat hand in hand, but I would say the driving force behind opportunism is materialism. From 1900-1950, American culture definitely became more materialistic.

Materialism, (economic) is really just having and wanting more than one needs. Of course what one needs is defined differently by different people. Obviously when cars were first invented, most people didn’t need them. In fact many were against them. Then there came the idea of affordability. Who could afford them? Well, the upper class could. 

Even the word “automobile” came with a class distinction: “the key to its adoption in America was its acceptance by New York City’s high society^”1. As the industrial age allowed large quantities of items to be massed produced at affordable prices, this made the lifestyle of “high society” affordable. Classes of nobility and aristocracy would no longer be what defined social status. The new emergences of the rising middle class and their consumerism would let their materialistic economics give them a sense of high society as well.

Materialism is apparent in the 1920’s not only with those that purchased automobiles, but with those who stole them. “It is estimated that 1/10 of cars that were manufactured annually were…stolen.” ² The puritan concept of coming to America for some gain had turned into ‘as much as I can get”. As mentioned by the sociologist David Riesman, looking back before the 1950’s he had seen a “historic shift from the goal-oriented, work-minded, “inner-directed” individual to a more self-conscious, consumer-minded,”outer-directed”one.”³

The time from 1929-the early 1930’s would cause a hiccup in the individualistic consumer approach, with the Great Depression. Then the government would step in with its “New Deal” and pave the way for more of an equal playing field for those that did not have Capital. The first Art museums were patronized in the 1930’s; of course the Rockefellers were the philanthropists to aid in bringing this about. Art is pleasing to the eye, but the need to own expensive works of art is a materialistic want, not a need. The same would be said for the indulgences of the Golden Era of Hollywood and Aviation during that time as well. The ownership of airplanes for people like Howard Hughes and Amelia Earhart would take social status to a different level than before.

The early 1940’s gave way to WWII, the end of the war caused a boom in house building again and explosion of suburbia, these new homes built in the 1940’s would need the new TV’s that were invented, and the updated kitchen appliances that were the thing to have in every home. Advertising would continue to not only sell the automobiles that started this consumerist trend, but homes, televisions, aerosol hairspray and toys and records; All the materialistic consumer products that money could buy.

 

 

1. Cullen, Jim, American Dream, The (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 10

2. Heitmann, John, The Automobile and American Life ( North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2009), 48

 

3. Cullen, Jim, American Dream, The (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 152

 

http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/3/releases/MOMA_1929-31_0003_1929-09-06.pdf?2010