Table of Contents
1 Postwar Prelude: 1945-1949 1
2 America Becomes the World's Policeman: 1950 45
3 The Cold War Settles In: 1951 91
4 "I Like Ike": 1952 129
5 New Leadership in Washington and Moscow: 1953 174
6 Separate Is Not Equal: 1954 206
7 Disneyland and Cold War Angst: 1955 242
8 Ike and Elvis, Budapest and Suez: 1956 277
9 Sputnik and Little Rock: 1957 312
10 America Enters Outer Space: 1958 348
11 America Expands into the Pacific: 1959 382
Epilogue: Final Thoughts on the Decade 414

In treating the complexities of an often stereotyped era that encompassed both American optimism and the Cold War's birth, writers affiliated with Lynchburg College, VA, survey postwar trends that influenced later decades: e.g., consumerism, family togetherness values, the emerging civil rights movement, and abstract expressionism.

Written for high school level, but has useful information.

Well organized and easy to navigate. Individual chapters on World Events, Arts, Business and the Economy, Education, Fashion, Government and Politics, Law, Lifestyles and Social Trends, Media, Medicine and Health, Religion, Science and Technology, and Sports.

From the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the Montgomery bus boycott, and the inventions of color TV and the birth control pill, the 1940s and 1950s were a time of tumultuous change in the United States. Kaledin, a scholar of American studies (affiliation not cited), presents a collection of connected essays about the details of people's lives during two very different decades. Includes 25 pages of photos. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Arranged chronologically. Addresses significant people, events and trends for each year of the decade. Highly pictorial.

Use the index and table of contents to find sections on music.

Presents the vast, sweeping story of African-American entertainers--the artists and the musicians, the singers and the dancers, the obscure and the illustrious... -- Da Capo Press, Excerpted from publisher description.

Look up "Chicago" in the index for references to Chicago blues.

"In this series of profiles, Joe Goldberg examines the lives and the music, the crucial events and dominant forces of a decade of great music and conflicting esthetics: Miles Davis's recording of Kind of Blue; Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet; Cecil Taylor's percussive keyboard experiments; John Coltrane's and Sonny Rollins's marathon saxophone solos; MJQ's blending of classical structure and jazz improvisation; Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz. From Mingus to Monk to Blakey, it was an age of giants." Publisher

Overview of "art" music and composers during the last half of the twentieth century.

Use this if you need to look up a specific composer or type of music.

See chapters 12 and 13.

This book is intended for american studies, American history postwar social and cultural history, political history, Black history, Race and Ethnic studies and Cultural studies together with the general trade music.

Use the index and table of contents to find sections on art.

See the section on 1940-1960.

Use to get an overview of African American artists.

See chapters:
"America Takes Command: 1950-1960"
"Redefining the American Dream: 1950-1960"

... gives a conspectus of African-American art from the late eighteenth century to the present. It examines the lives and careers of more than fifty signal African-American artists, and the relation of their work to prevailing artistic, social, and political trends both in America and throughout the world.

Use to get an overview of African American artists.

See chapters 6 and 7 on Abstract Expressionism and Neo-Dada.

Exhibition catalog of show at the Art Institute of Chicago on art related to migration to Chicago.

In the first half of the 20th century, thousands of newcomers—Eastern European émigrés, Mexican immigrants, and Southerners both black and white—flocked to Chicago. These new residents included artists who made significant contributions to the vibrant cultural life of the city. They Seek a City highlights approximately seventy-five paintings, works on paper, photographs, and sculptures by such artists as Eldzier Cortor, Archibald Motley, and Morris Topchevsky that reflect the diverse urban social landscape. - Publisher description.

Use the index and table of contents to find sections on religion.

See chapters 3 and 4: "In God We Trust" and "Religion and the New Frontier."
Also look up events of the 1950's in the chronology on p.130.

Use the index and table of contents to find sections on literature.

See chapter 5 - Negotiating the American Century : American Literature since 1945.

Encyclopedia format. Alphabetical listing of entries. Also use index to find names and titles.

See any of the chapters on the 1950's.

This the first narrative history of the neglected but essential period of African American literature between the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights era. The years between these two indispensable epochs saw the communal rise of Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ralph Ellison, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and many other influential black writers. While these individuals have been duly celebrated, little attention has been paid to the political and artistic milieu in which they produced their greatest works. With this study, the author recalls the lost history of a crucial era. Looking at the tumultuous decades surrounding World War II, Jackson restores the "indignant" quality to a generation of African American writers shaped by Jim Crow segregation, the Great Depression, the growth of American communism, and an international wave of decolonization. He also reveals how artistic collectives in New York, Chicago, and Washington fostered a sense of destiny and belonging among diverse and disenchanted peoples. As he shows, through contemporary documents, the years that brought us Their Eyes Were Watching God, Native Son, and Invisible Man also saw the rise of African American literary criticism by both black and white critics. Fully exploring the cadre of key African American writers who triumphed in spite of segregation, this work paints a portrait of American intellectual and artistic life in the mid-twentieth century.

SEE ALSO: ELECTRONIC BOOK VERSION

"This book provides a stimulating account of the dominant cultural forms of 1950s America: fiction and poetry; theatre and performance; film and television; music and radio; and the visual arts. ...the book examines the way in which modernism and the cold war offer two frames of reference for understanding the trajectory of postwar culture."
From Amazon description.

1950's back-issues available through Google Books. Excellent source for current events and cultural reporting. Great picture source.

Another publication from black-owned Johnson Publishing Co. Bigger format than Jet and more along the model of Life Magazine. Google Books only has it back to 1959, but still may be useful for late 1950s transition into early 1960's culture. Note, the May 1960 issue features Claudia McNeil on the cover for her role as Lena Younger (Mama).

1950's back-issues available through Google Books. Jet is a perfect resource for a national overview of popular culture, arts and politics from the perspective of a 100% black owned publication (Johnson Publishing Co.). It is also published in Chicago and includes Chicago news and commentary.

Also available in print through the library catalog

Marling captures a visual culture reflecting and reflected in the new medium of television in the 1950s. She looks at instances in which the principles of design dominated the public arena, such as Mamie Eisenhower's new look, Disneyland, America's love affair with the car, Betty Crocker's cook book, and Nixon in Moscow. Includes b&w photos. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

See chapter 2, The Negro Renaissance, Harlem and Chicago Flowerings.
Also available as an ebook

Beginning in the 1930s, Black Chicago experienced a cultural renaissance that lasted into the 1950s and rivaled the cultural outpouring in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. The contributors to this volume analyze this prolific period of African American creativity in music, performance art, social science scholarship, and visual and literary artistic expression.

See chapter titled: African American Music in Chicago During the Chicago Renaissance.

The volume covers a vast collection of subjects, including many important writers such as Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Lorraine Hansberry as well as cultural products such as black newspapers, music, and theater. The book includes individual entries by experts on each subject; a discography and filmography that highlight important writers, musicians, films, and cultural presentations; and an introduction that relates the Harlem Renaissance, the white Chicago Renaissance, the black Chicago Renaissance, and the Black Arts Movement.

SEE ALSO: ELECTRONIC BOOK VERSION

The first comprehensive critical study of the creative awakening that occurred on Chicago's South Side from the early 1930s to the cold war. Coming of age during the hard Depression years and in the wake of the Great Migration, this generation of Black creative artists produced works of literature, music, and visual art fully comparable in distinction and scope to the achievements of the Harlem Renaissance. (From publisher description.)

Oxford Music Online includes the following titles:
--The Oxford Dictionary of Music
--Grove Music Online
--The Oxford Companion to Music

Use this if you need to look up a specific composer or type of music.

Search on an artist's name to see examples of their work.
--Click on Display Options at the top to find "Display Large Thumbnails" option
--Under the large thumbnail, click on the "Full Record Display" button to get more information about the piece.
--To enlarge the image, double click on it.

Use this to find short, concise biographical descriptions of artists.

Oxford Art Online includes the following titles:
-- Grove Art Online
-- The Oxford Companion to Western Art
-- Encyclopedia of Aesthetics
-- The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms

Also available as an ebook

See chapter 2, The Negro Renaissance, Harlem and Chicago Flowerings.

Beginning in the 1930s, Black Chicago experienced a cultural renaissance that lasted into the 1950s and rivaled the cultural outpouring in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. The contributors to this volume analyze this prolific period of African American creativity in music, performance art, social science scholarship, and visual and literary artistic expression.

SEE ALSO: ELECTRONIC BOOK VERSION

The first comprehensive critical study of the creative awakening that occurred on Chicago's South Side from the early 1930s to the cold war.

SEE ALSO: ELECTRONIC BOOK VERSION

See Chapter 3:
-American culture post World War II
-Abstract Expressionism and African-American Art.

See chapters 1-3.
1. Anxious Victory: 1945-1952
2. Religion and Materialism: 1950-1970
3. Religion, Respect, and Social Change: 1955-1968

Innovative and lavishly illustrated, Painting the Gospel offers an indispensable contribution to conversations about African American art, theology, politics, and identity in Chicago. Kymberly N. Pinder escorts readers on an eye-opening odyssey to the murals, stained glass, and sculptures dotting the city's African American churches and neighborhoods. Moving from Chicago's oldest black Christ figure to contemporary religious street art,

The Great Migration was the most significant event in black life since emancipation and Reconstruction. Passionately Human, No Less Divine analyzes the various ways black southerners transformed African American religion in Chicago during their Great Migration northward. A work of religious, urban, and social history, it is the first book-length analysis of the new religious practices and traditions in Chicago that were stimulated by migration and urbanization. The book illustrates how the migration launched a new sacred order among blacks in the city that reflected aspects of both Southern black religion and modern city life.

Also available as an ebook

See chapter 2, The Negro Renaissance, Harlem and Chicago Flowerings.

Beginning in the 1930s, Black Chicago experienced a cultural renaissance that lasted into the 1950s and rivaled the cultural outpouring in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. The contributors to this volume analyze this prolific period of African American creativity in music, performance art, social science scholarship, and visual and literary artistic expression.

See chapter 18: Negro Arts and Literature which mentions Lorraine Hansberry among others.

The volume covers a vast collection of subjects, including many important writers such as Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Lorraine Hansberry as well as cultural products such as black newspapers, music, and theater. The book includes individual entries by experts on each subject; a discography and filmography that highlight important writers, musicians, films, and cultural presentations; and an introduction that relates the Harlem Renaissance, the white Chicago Renaissance, the black Chicago Renaissance, and the Black Arts Movement.

SEE ALSO: ELECTRONIC BOOK VERSION

The first comprehensive critical study of the creative awakening that occurred on Chicago's South Side from the early 1930s to the cold war. Coming of age during the hard Depression years and in the wake of the Great Migration, this generation of Black creative artists produced works of literature, music, and visual art fully comparable in distinction and scope to the achievements of the Harlem Renaissance. (From publisher description.)

Examines the flowering of African American creativity, activism, and scholarship in the South Side Chicago district known as Bronzeville during the period between the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s.

Mary Helen Washington recovers the vital role of 1950s leftist politics in the works and lives of modern African American writers and artists. While most histories of McCarthyism focus on the devastation of the blacklist and the intersection of leftist politics and American culture, few include the activities of radical writers and artists from the Black Popular Front. Washington's work incorporates these black intellectuals back into our understanding of mid-twentieth-century African American literature and art and expands our understanding of the creative ferment energizing all of America during this period. Mary Helen Washington reads four representative writers—Lloyd Brown, Frank London Brown, Alice Childress, and Gwendolyn Brooks—and surveys the work of the visual artist Charles White. She traces resonances of leftist ideas and activism in their artistic achievements and follows their balanced critique of the mainstream liberal and conservative political and literary spheres. From publisher description.

Complete contents available through Google Books. Lots of 1950's ads and photos.

Only has last two issues of 1959, but early 1960's can be useful.

Complete contents available through Google Books. Lots of 1950's ads and photos.

Jet is was a 100% African American owned publication based on Chicago. Excellent African American fashion resource.