I was eight when the fifties were over and, while I remember quite a lot of my life from the mid-50s, my memories have little to do with typical 50s nostalgia. I wasn't into music at that age and we didn't have television. While I enjoyed my childhood, there isn't much in it that really points to the 50s. I grew up on a farm about a mile or so from an unincorporated town of about two hundred people, most of whom I was related to. At five, I was allowed to wander around the woods by myself, so my childhood had more to do with woods, creeks, and ponds than with Elvis Presley or Howdy Doody. There was an incident with a skunk when I was four that I wouldn't remember except for the fact that someone sent it into the local newspaper, and it was published with a heading, "Bad Kitty." I surely remember being teased about it, but that's only because my parents saved the clipping. I don't actually remember being sprayed by the skunk when I was four. I do remember being sprayed by a skunk when I was ten or so, however. Anyhow, the 50s were great but I only know 50s music and 50s television from radio oldies and television reruns.
@Ken Anderson Your comments about your memory as a child, made me ask the question "Just when does our memory peak"? Turns out, it's at the age of 18! This the exact age when your brain power peaks (LINK) Brain processing power and detail memory: peaks at age 18. The ability to learn unfamiliar names: peaks at age 22. Facial recognition: peaks at age 32. Concentration: peaks at age 43. Ability to identify other people’s emotions: peaks at age 48. Basic arithmetic skills: peak at age 50. Ability to learn and understand new information: peaks at age 50. Vocabulary skills: peak at age 67.
I'm like Ken. In the Fifties I was between the ages of 4 and 13, so I was pretty clueless about what was going on at the time, except what I saw on TV. I guess I was most aware of the music of that period, because the radio was always playing at our house. And all the women wore house dresses instead of slacks.
Apropos of the season, concerning the above: Humbug, I say! These research studies that come up with these findings are laughable, when one can look back on one's life and compare the realities of the same with the broad generalizations the "experts" offer. I have continually added new skills to my knowledge base right up to the present. While I've been doing tree work for forty plus years, I didn't study and become a Certified Arborist until fifteen years ago, didn't get into technical/rope climbing of trees until I was fifty. As the former owner of rental properties, I was always learning new skills to keep my repair expenses very low, and only got into roofing two years ago, at sixty-six. I could go on, but I won't. I'm sure many of you know that while you may be getting older, you certainly are also getting better! Yeah, I know, some of you will identify with the above research findings, and agree with the same. What I know is only from my personal experiential data base, and it's greatly at odds with the findings, as above. Your results may vary........
"Although it does look like something that babies would enjoy – they are able to sit up high enough to see out the window and they even have their own little steering wheel – it definitely does not look safe whatsoever. There aren’t even any clips or straps to hold him in place"!
When my oldest son was little, we had a car seat for him that looked just about like the one in your picture. I don’t think that it had the little steering wheel, but it might have. At that time, I think that the idea of the seat was so that the little kids could see out the windows of the car just like everyone else, more than it was designed for safety. Cars didn’t have seatbelts back then, so having one in the baby seat would not have been likely either. Since he could see out when we were driving, it helped him a lot to learn and say new words. By the time he was a year old, he had a vocabulary or close to 100 words, and could identify whatever kind of train we passed going down the tracks. He recognized the symbol for Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and Spokane International, which were the trains that we had in our area of Idaho.
A few final words: "Understanding how and when cognitive change occurs over the life span is a prerequisite for understanding normal and abnormal development and aging. Most studies of cognitive change are constrained, however, in their ability to detect subtle, but theoretically informative life-span changes, as they rely on either comparing broad age groups or sparse sampling across the age range. Here, we present convergent evidence from 48,537 online participants and a comprehensive analysis of normative data from standardized IQ and memory tests. Our results reveal considerable heterogeneity in when cognitive abilities peak: Some abilities peak and begin to decline around high school graduation; some abilities plateau in early adulthood, beginning to decline in subjects’ 30s; and still others do not peak until subjects reach their 40s or later. These findings motivate a nuanced theory of maturation and age-related decline, in which multiple, dissociable factors deferentially affect different domains of cognition".
1950's Doughnuts "My friend Paige and I made these doughnuts around 1955 using the Pillsbury canned biscuits. They were delicious back then and still today they are delicious while still warm coated with confectionery sugar or regular sugar and cinnamon". Pillsbury Grands Southern style biscuits frozen dough
In the 50s, my dad had a car with rumble seats. I don't know anything about the make or model of the car but I strongly suspect that it was a Ford because that's all my dad ever bought. The rumble seats were in the back of the car, of course. They faced backward rather than forward and if there were seatbelts, we never came across them. Mom would never let us ride in the rumble seats but dad would if mom wasn't there. In the rumble seat, you had to hang on because there was nothing between you and the road. I think there was a little lip on the bottom where someone could hook their feet in for security but my feet wouldn't reach that far. I was pretty young so I'm not sure, but I think there were two seats, although it may have been a bench seat. I know that two people could easily sit there at the same time. I think the rumble seat folded in and pulled out, but I'm not sure. I don't know what year it might have been but, at the time, it was his second car, meaning that he had a newer one that he usually drove.