What social effects did the Cold War and McCarthyism have on the late 40s and 50s?
I’m not sure there was as much social conformity as there was the public appearance of social conformity. The James Dean rebel types, the leather-jacketed Fonzies, the beatniks, the early growth of biker gangs, the increases in inner-city drug problems–they were all there. I tend to think of it as a time when general prosperity and rapid technological advances created such a sense of national optimism that people just didn’t focus on the social non-conformity as much. Of course, it does help when the public buys into a national obsession with a given ideology and demonizes it to the point where it’s the ultimate swear word.
