Mintz!!!! He was my history professor in 1997 at the University of Houston. He had a certain way of speaking. A lot of pauses while he spoke. It wasn't bad or distracting, just noticeable. And, yes, everyone thought he looked like Abraham Lincoln.

After going through the Great Depression, World War II, and a post-war revitalization, the 1950s and early to mid-60s were a well-deserved break from what had been a long generation of despair, chaos, and disappointment for millions of Americans. In a way, it could be compared to recuperation from a collective nervous breakdown by promoting a feeling of stability. Though many problems remained, this time period also gave birth to unprecedented industrial and technological advances like space exploration and the nuclear age. It was also a significant time for popular culture with the introduction of rock 'n roll, television, widescreen stereophonic movies, and the proliferation of the American automobile industry. The 1950s also set the foundation for the civil rights movement. Change is never easy, but in retrospect, 1950s USA makes perfect sense and deserves a huge nod of respect.

This guy hits all the notes... his explanation of the postwar inter-generational gap is maybe the best I've ever heard. It's still very accurate today, and it also describes how Millennials and Gen Z struggle with the expectations put upon them by our society.

This is very well researched and thoughtful. But I am still trying to figure out if this guy has a beard or not.

I am still trying to figure out how we ended up in the bizzare world we exist in now. Born in 53. At times, I wonder what planet I am on

I love the facial expressions this guy makes. You can see the gears turning and the words and ideas forming in his brain. Very cool!

Your interviews are so historically significant. I re-learn things i might have forgotten, and learn for the first time...all sorts of things! Thanks DH!

This is one of the best analyses of the 1950s I've listened to. His point about the media's idealization of the time period is especially poignant. Thank you for posting this.

Spot on. Really I don't even think of the 70s with the great nostalgia I have for the 50s and 60s. There really is no other time like it. We lived in the suburbs and it was daddy's greatest pleasure to take us kids for a hot chocolate and a cookie. Dad had grown up in a slum. Mom complained we were getting fat but that just made daddy smile. The two of them didn't have the pleasurable experience of walking with a parent for a treat such as chocolate or coffee and a cookie Every Day! I still marvel that daddy's pleasure of giving the treat was, by far, greater than our receiving it.

4:30 this was told to me by my grandparents and old uncles too. They said, when they grew up they didn't have this idea of 'Teenagers'. That wasn't a thing, a category and certainly not some sort of classification or 'lifestyle'. When we asked 'well what happened then' they just seemed to say you were a child but expected to (eventually) become and adult. So that was that. You were just becoming an adult but there wasn't this idea of 'The Teenagers' and how that was to be a kind of lifestyle and personality of its own. by the way, they seemed to talk like inventing 'teenagers' wasn't really a great idea or helpful.

His name is Steven Mintz and he's still alive was born in 53' if any of y'all wanna look him up 👍🏼 He doesn't have the beard anymore tho 😭 Was hopin to see an older Abey

Happiness is relative of course. Why wouldn't you feel happy after surviving the 1918 Flu Pandemic, starving during the great depression and then being in combat for 6 years during ww2. The 1950s happiness was "not" an illusion it was "real". It was a collective sigh of relief that they actually made it through 3 decades of pure hell.

The term "teenager" first appeared in the 1920s, when Madison Ave. advertising firms got the idea of creating an entirely new marketing demographic. My mother remembrered it. She was a "flapper" in her day...

Thank you Mr Hoffman and the commentators. When in the middle he spoke of alienation of the youth, thought isn't that a problem of youth today. People don't change, only the accessories around them.

I used to watch this guy give U of H history lectures on TV at about 2 in the morning on Houston TV back in the eighties or nineties. He was really young, unique and kind of weird but his lectures always drew me in. He really knows American history and is engaging.

In the 1940s city teenagers also had popular language. I can't think of examples at the moment, but they did have their own lingo. i think "swell" was one word they used when 1960s teen said, "mint", "cool", "groovy" etc.

Mr Hoffman your content really dissolves delusions about the times gone. Its incredible how well spoken and how much sense all these commentators make. Your channel has greatly improved my understanding of the current times as well. Thank you. I think I will buy one of your t-shirts.

My mother and father were fleeing communism and tyranny in the 50's and 60's from Cuba. Hence my values and upbringing in the USA was much different. I value our freedoms and government. I am a US soldier and proud of it. Hoah!

Wow! I remember watching Prof. Mintz’s lectures on Houston Public Access for “fun” when I was a teenager in the ‘90s. I never knew his name or would’ve expected to ever come across him again. The overstructuring of childhood is a plague for kids today too. I have to gripe at mine to go outside, go ride your bikes, get into some trouble (not too much). Sadly, there are never any kids outside for them to play with.

This is one interview that makes me appreciate this channel tremendously. I could only imagine what was lost in the fire...

By the 1960s, being "cool" meant you got high, or was ok with people who got high. "Is he cool?" " Yeah, he's cool"

I was born in 1953. Grew up in very safe and wholesome neighborhoods. Most people got their first black and white TV in the 50's but there were not that many programs. At that time the Christian church was more influencial than telivision just because it wasn't watched that much but by the 60's there were more shows. And people were beginning to get colored television in the 60's. A TV salesman lived next door to us in the 60's and he had the first colored TV on our street. We did not go to very many movies. It was a special treat. The media did not influence opinions as it does today because it was a minor player. The parent teacher organizations helped support the school. Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and little league baseball and swimming occupied our time And bikes, skateboards and playing on playgrounds All pretty wonderful!

I was born in the mid-50's. It was a time of great expansion in the middle class. I think what I miss most is the civility; of people being polite and considerate. But, I don't miss the descrimination that was a big part of that era. Reality is, life was great if you were living in a happy, stable home (especially if you were white) with enough money to have some "extras". It was not so great if you were poor and/or lived in a highly dysfunctional home. There weren't the interventions in schools like there are today, to help a kid who had a bad home life. In fact, that was no one's business; things were "swept under the carpet" or "kept in the closet". I often wonder how my life would have gone if there were interventions in place to help kids like me.

Mr Hoffman; I think your right sir. The professor does identify the attitudes of the day. I myself was born on 1951. The expectations were I too had a unlimited future. The sky was the limit all I had to was reach for it. Well yes and no the only person to tell me the truth was my dad. He to was fill was a fault scents of good guys wears white hats and well everyone doesn't. Conformity was the life to aspired to. With few exceptions pretty much every one I knew and their parents believe in that. The change came when my dad got a job in a metal work shop. Making bullets and the like. Vietnam was first spoken and told me not to worry it will over soon. I was all 15...then the world went to hell. Civil unrest, political Assassination liberating moments. Black right, women right, gay rights grey panthers rights. All was possible by 1970. It made me what I am today."CAUTIOUS" I do wonder now that it's almost been 50 years ago since 1970. Even then I wonder what was it for some one in 1920. There were people in there 70's as I am now almost. What did they think of us then? I wonder what people are to think in the future.?

These interviews are outstanding. I can't get enough. Thank you!

I hope you will be posting more clips of this man. Thanks. And it seems the 50s were more tumultuous than the perception lets on.

your videos are so interesting... this was one of the best. really impacted my sense of the world my parents and their peers grew up in, and how much (but differently than I'd thought before) it still influences our culture. Thanks David!

Youth culture? In my graduate seminar on Asian-American literature, I wrote about John Okada's novel "No-no Boy". I made the point that the Japanese-American youth of the Postwar entirely broke away from their isolated, repressed parents and embraced all of the elements of Postwar youth culture, including the car culture and the aimless violence of the youth and young adultes of the era. I also said that the break between the non-Americanized older generation often born in Japan and the youth was not due to the internment. I was not popular for my view. The last time talked to the instructor, who is a formerly Muslim woman of South Asian descent, she explained to me why she had been nice and not given me a C in the course. Nice, my heinie. She knew I would have appealed and she would have been cleaned out. In my presentation, I also explained why there were two Koreas today in the context of the Soviet entry into the war in the Pacific. That made me even less popular. Not because it was not interesting and accurate background. Because it started to clue in a bunch of contemporary graduate lit students about how to think about history.

Are the odd audio skips in the video, or is my aux cord going bad?

David Hoffman - I didn't know that you posted such excellent, truly insightful videos as well as your vintage pictures. You are AMAZINGLY talented. Keep on doing what you do best. I show your work to my 18 year old (I married later in life), who's just going off to college in a month. It gives him an idea of what my young life was like in the sixties and serves as a cautionary tale, preparing him for what he can expect in his coming life. He, too, is becoming a fast fan of you and your work as well. Thanks much!

It's almost now 1:10 am and tomorrow I got to get up early. It supposed to be a sleep now but Mr. Hoffman's channel keeps me awake. And I have to be wide awake, I ought to. Ask me why? Because it worth watching over and over and over and over. Thanks Mr. Hoffman for sharing.

Professor Mintz should do a video about today's teens. I would like to get his opinion on school violence and the 'drug epidemic'. I guess he is still alive 29 years later.

It would be interesting to hear this guy summarize every decade up to the present in the same way.

Finally someone telling the truth about the mythical 50s housewife! Growing up nearly every woman I knew who was married with a family in the 50s and 60s also worked a full time job. Half of those had at least some college or a certification from a skilled trade college. That heels and pearls jazz was for entertaining company, going out and Sundays.

When you say that the teenagers of the 1950s were rebelling through the clothes they wore, you are omitting to say that the teenagers were not the designers of those clothes. this means that there were adults planning clothing designs for the teenagers, so adults of a type different from their parents were in control of fashion at that time.

David, these videos are incredible. Thank you for posting.

People are interesting and as a collective even more so. The more I watch your interviews the more I realize people are the same in every generation with all the same issues, problems, dreams, concerns, etc. The years may change but we're pretty much the same.

3:27 lmfao those ideals of self-fulfillment in 2019 are optimistic. We've come full circle.

Another great interview Mr. Hoffman. I think I have heard of Dr. Mintz before but never read his books.

Super instructive, this will help me for my dissertation, thx David, thx Steven

I have rarely seen a person and thought "they belong in another time." His thoughtfulness, erudition and articulation..and the look in his eyes, seem to come from someone in the 1800's. Fascinating!

Thank you for all your films!

I like these interviews. The person just talks and puts it out there and the interviewer just shuts up and let’s it happen. Nice work sir!

Excellent discussion on understanding the why’s of the time which is important if your going to judge a single generation. Every generation has why’s that are significant to the time good or bad.

He's still alive, David. Ever consider a follow up? The new century is officially 20 now and I would love to hear his thoughts on American society today.

TV changed everything.

This man seems extraordinarily genuine and insightful for his time. I can't help but think that his account of the '50s would have been perfectly placed in the newspapers of the time. While I don't know if that may have been reasonable to expect, something tells me that it didn't. But I would welcome information to the contrary!

David Hoffman, I was wondering if you happen to have the link to the full video??

incredibly relevant today! my own family has a very rigid structure for my daughter who goes to gym 3x a week, we tutor her 4x a week, she also does additional sports during the same week. GenXer here. now we have YEET, OOF, and more lol . I love this!

These videos are super important. Thank you, David.

Great channel. Very good insight to American life before my time.

It was a good time to be a kid for the most part. Not perfect by any stretch, but lots of good things happening in the 50's. Dad worked, Mom stayed home. One car. Friday night was go to the local pizza and Italian restaurant. Neighbors told your mom and dad if you screwed up. people talked to each other.

That's particularly interesting what he said about Divorce coming on in the 50's. I honestly thought that was something of a deal in the 70's. I thought it was an "O.K. you restless 60's Boomer's, now that you've married and have kids, Are you going to practice what you Preached and maybe had solutions for?" What have been the result's since?

This dude was amazing. Again reminds me of waking life. Funny how things change but stay the same

Interesting to think about the role of Television on shaping culture across the US spectrum. Television at a time when people had the option, or at least some people, to move to the suburbs, leaving the bustle of the city, and spend time with family around the television to keep them updated on the bustle of the country.

Excellent and informative. Thank you.

And now it is a titanic struggle to fulfill these goals.

Income inequality and job instability has pretty much wiped out all those gains thanks to the upper class in this country's greed.

Your channel is a key to my life

Is there an extended version of this interview?

Thank you so very much for the unique insight you give us into family life in the 1950's. I was born in 1955, so I would tell you that my childhood really was in the 50's until after the assassination of President Kennedy. I also had very young parents...my mother had me when she was 18 and my father was 21...but you would never know this to look at them. I think that for quite a few American's, conformity was outwardly very, very comfortable...

Amazing, I appreciate you greatly for these films, tv is dead, so these not being lost to the ether is a gift.

Interesting perspectives and insights.

While the video was uploaded a couple years ago, when was it recorded? Do I gotta finish it to find out in credits/end scroll?

Well spoken and incredibly well versed in 50’s culture and lifestyle. I’m sure he’s just as informed about other decades as well. Probably a sociology major.

I was born in 1950 and what I most remember is the threat of Nuclear war and the polio epidemics. It was a scary time

GREAT VIDEO!! Thanks Dave!

Fascinating, even more so after having just rewatched Mad Men. It reminds me of Betty and how she longed to live a more unconventional life but gets stuck in the “ideal” family of the 50s

A thoughtful look at the changing values and cultural practices and their growth through the 1950s. The always interesting stories of "cause and effect". I'm disappointed this interview was apparently made in 1990.

I kept waiting for some questions about Moby Dick which never came. Excellent interview nonetheless!

interesting beard

Thanks for these clips

Very well researched and informative. Gives new perspective on the 50s

I grew up in this era in a lower middle class family. As far as i remember there wasn't all of the rebellion he speaks of. Just a family adjusting to all of the new technology and freedom it gave to be closer as a family.

Can't afford to join , instead I'll listen to your show!!! Best one, Love you!!!

I don’t really agree with some of his reviews regarding the youth but it’s interesting to listen to him talk! As a culture we send too much time in the review of yesteryears as my mom says! Just live in the moment & do your best!

He's a former prof. Of mine! Great lecturer

I was born in '61, I was the youngest of four boys, my eldest brother was born in '51. I grew up in suburbia as the outer world we viewed shifted from Black and white to color. The message of what we consider a good society and our rolls within it has changed dramatically. Growing up through the 60's was really growing up in the tail end of the 50's as we think of them, just as the 60's culture really didn't come in to most of the country until the late 60's. Between 1946-present the message about how we were supposed to live changed. The biggest message was from the feminists. The message from the Woman's Movement changed a lot, as I remember it, at first it was they wanted women to have "a choice" between staying home as a housewife and working outside the home, I'm not sure what they meant by that. I came from a family that throughout the 50's had been working itself up from poor to the lower middle class, neither of my parents had finished high school due to circumstances beyond their control, my dad started his career operating "an idiot stick" (his vernacular), a stick with an idiot on one side and a shovel-head on the other, for the cemetery department. After a year of digging burial graves he got a "raise" to walking behind a garbage truck. When the driver got the truck stuck on an icey hill road a year later, and my dad unstuck it, he got promoted to driver, that led to his being raised a couple years later to the driver for the street repair department. A couple years of hard work later when one of his co-workers got sick, dad's supervisor decided to teach my dad how to run heavy equipment for the town; bulldozers, backhoes,and graters. By the time I had come around he had a job that was almost exactly the national average income wage. We had made it out of poverty to lower-middle class into the middle-middle class. We had a pretty good house, a good used car for Mom, and a used pick-up truck for Dad, and we rarely had to add an extra cup of water into the soup anymore. My mother had gone to work for a hospital when they had gotten married working as a practical nurse. For those not in the medical field a practical nurse has the least in-school training, the hospitals would train their own PNs in procedures and in patient care. She started as a straight up bedpan emptier, take the temp, dispense meds, give a rub down, remake the bed if needed, or assist the RNs in more demanding tasks. Just about the time I was born my mother was selected for special training to work in the nursery caring for the newborns; it was considered a major step up for them as well as fifteen dollars more per week. Mom did not consider it particularly liberating to be out working while she had 4 sons at home. She wasn't working for the joy of working or for a cause beyond food, shelter, clothes, and a few of the niceties that make the difference between life's drudgery and a bit of security, she was working to maintain the home and hearth. My mother wasn't alone, all of the "house-wives" in our middle-middle income world worked, most worked part time, not because they couldn't get full time work but because they only wanted part-time work because they were only trying to make a bit more to bring together where the Dad's income ended and the monthly expenditures continued, and a few enjoyed the break in routine. She had started her little ceramic business at exactly the right time, as the ceramic hobby era was just coming in, and it lasted just long enough for her to spoil her newborn grandchildren. We'd have about a hundred students per week come to the house for classes, almost all middle class housewives. I spent almost ten years listening to groups of middle class housewives gabbing amongst themselves. I don't think I ever heard one say they wanted to be able to go out into the world to work harder than they already did. They all bitched about their husbands and their kids but that's what women do when they get together.The difference between men and women, I suppose, because a group of guys would never get together and bitch about their wives and the stupid things our kids do~ Am I right fellas? So, my mother had always worked, starting when her mother died when she was 13. She started a home business in the ealry 70s, but as soon as they could afford it, just about the time I got out of school (I am the youngest) she quit working when my dad got his next big promotion operating the huge diesel engines that pumped the town's water supply; in twenty years together he had gone from a grave digger to road work to heavy equipment operator to stationary engineer. She had gone from bed pan emptying to specialist nurse to entrepreneur to early retirement~ for her, dad worked almost 20 years more. I don't understand how my mother staying home when she could afford to enslaved her. It seems to me, my dad always worked hard, had really hard, physically demanding jobs to perform. Mom worked hard too, but always part-time. Mom controlled the purse-strings for the household, for her business and Dad's. Dad also ran a small lawn maintenance business on the side, so he wound up working about 60 hours per week then came home and did another 10-15 hours of whatever my mom wanted him to do around the house for most of 40 years. Mom worked 20 hours per week outside the home. When she opened her ceramic studio, she stopped working outside the home entirely putting in about 25- 30 hours per week from home. My dad had to pour many of the molds for her, some weighed up to a hundred pounds, as well as making bases for lamps out of wood and electrifying lamps and clocks and such. So when she started her business she was putting in 25-30 hours per week, dad was doing his job, doing his part time business, coming home and putting in 10 hours per week for mom plus doing the standard dad work around the house. Yes, it may have been "liberating" for them for her to work, and concede that mom worked hard-ish, but I remember my dad being the one ALWAYS working~ until Mom finally let him retire. By the end of the 70's there had been a sea change in the feminist message. Instead of the message being, "we want our sisters to have a choice to work or stay home," to a woman had to choose to work outside the home or they were second class citizens, looked down upon, the very term "House Wife," has almost come to mean "House Slave" to the feminists. How many young mothers today would rather be home with their babies? or if given an actual choice, if they do work full time, how many would rather work half that and stay home the other half? Of course, because so many women work now the wages have dropped as there is no scarcity of warm bodies to do work, the price of housing has climbed from 1/4 of a Dad's monthly income to cover the mortgage and insurance (yes, that's how banks traditionally used to figure our how much house you could afford, 1/4 of one person's take home pay should cover your house payment). But when we had 2 full time incomes to draw from... over about a 7 year period, it went from 1/4 of one full time job when my oldest brother bought his first house to ALL of my brother's take home pay, leaving them to live off of her income only when they bought their second. Gee, could there have been some other economic reasons for wanting women in the workforce? We've doubled the percentage of people to stick into the workplace, told them them are not real people unless they do, the increase does not include population rise nor immigration, and we wonder why we have an employment problem in this country.

i was born in 1988 and grew up in the 1900s. for me this video shows a two very similar situations between the 50s and 90s and the following 60s and 2000s with the introduction of a more expansive communicative technology(TV. and The Internet). , the subsequent economic boom, the power to purchase exclusivity increases(1950s from the citys to the suburbs,1990s from the suburbs to the gated community's) , disconnect with the youth from the prevailing adult norms to ideology's that reinforce their perceptions, a reckoning, Society Stabilizes or social collapse. we got society stabilizes in the 80s i believe due to external pressures from the soviet union and success generated from overcoming those pressures resulted in a course correcting of the youths and young adults radical ideology to ones more stable but somewhat hollowed out ideology keeping with that of their parents

I'd love to know his thoughts as to why exactly the family structure of minorities changed. He's probably written a book about it. I'd also love to see an interview of the interviewer himself, and his thoughts about all those he interviewed in aggregate, as well as what stood out.

In my country there is expression that humble living is good for childrens .

I think the 50's an 60's were happier because people could find jobs easily and get work and look forward to a raise and could afford to pay for their rent and their car. and companies didnt fire people for no reason and your companies didnt take 110% or your energy so you had nothing left to give to your family. The fact that they didnt have the fear of being laid off looming over them added to the quality of their lives. he mentions that black families were stable - and that is the same reason- black families had work and could pay their rent and feed their families.

thank you for uploading. i love david hoffman!!

C Everett Koop called and he wants his beard back.

David you should update all your videoes with your patreon link in the description.

As Uranus goes, so goes the world! Uranus was in Cancer for most of the 1950s. Hence the focus on families, marriage motherhood and fertility. There was a tremendous baby boom for women of all ages-- from teens to 50s. What a great time for building ideals of families and marriage that pe0ple can continue to strive for! Men should always be providers and mothers should always be nurturing and steadfast. What a great time for kids as well--playing outside and having fun- so unlike the kids of today with all of their mental problems.

This is the only man I’ve seen the chinstrap beard on a man, not to be confused with the Abraham Lincoln

This explains so much about American society after the 1950s. Glad I came across this video

amazing content

Such a great speaker honest Abe

8:45 I see his point, but young people do need structure and discipline. I remember not long ago, we spoke with a very highly skilled and accomplished piano player regarding my daughter’s tendency, like many kids, to not want to practice. He said, I credit my success to my mother. I didn’t always want to practice the piano but she made me do it everyday regardless and I’m glad she did. We don’t want ti stifle creativity and expression; however, many times in order to creatively express ourselves it requires skills that take discipline to develop.

I can imagine Abe Lincoln lecturing on KZfaq about the social impacts of the 1950s.

Fascinating!

Abraham Lincoln son

Me, a Detroiter: Man, this guy sounds like he's from SE Michigan. I look it up and it turns out he's from Detroit too lol

didn't even notice dude had a beard til 8 minutes in

11/22/63 everything changed...Americans now felt vulnerable in all aspects of their lives.

He talks about the upheaval of the 30s and 40s and the affect they had on the 50s. I wonder how today's relative upheaval of social norms and interaction will affect this decade or the next? We've already seen a shift to working from home and skyrocketing depression and isolation, and that's just in the last year. Maybe the next decade will also have low expectations, as many events and lives have had to be changed to fit with the coronavirus. Personally I tend to accept things when they happen (school closing down indefinitely for one) and that may be an increasing trend. Thoughts?

Interesting. Thank you.

"sense that...without new energy, our culture was doomed to decline" and decline it did.