The Fifties

by David Halberstam

says he loves his country,” he said in one memorable speech, “he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, or the wide, rising plains, the mountains or the seas. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw

blew their horns at 11:30. Dewey Phillips had, in his friend Sam Phillips’s words, “a platinum ear” and was connected to young listeners like no other adult. Therefore, he was the first person Sam Phillips thought of when he had Elvis’s

Soviets intended to put a man in space soon. It was another psychological triumph. But the worst was still to come. Jim Hagerty, Ike’s press secretary, had announced right after Sputnik that the Navy team planned to put a satellite in orbit very soon. Hagerty’s announcement stunned the Navy. But the Navy team speeded up its schedule.

more than anything else, it appealed to the viewers’ sense of greed. Five weeks after its premiere, The $64,000 Question was the top-rated show on television. Studies showed that approximately 47.5 million people were watching. The sales of Revlon (“the greatest name in cosmetics”) skyrocketed.