Time Magazine circa 1951

On Monday I went to the Rec, grabbed a smoothie, hit the library, and read up on some vintage Time magazines. Narnia was totally overrun with people so Billy, Brian, two of their hooligan friends, and myself had to relocate to the corner of the basement to get our work done. Wonderful music played in the background as our minds swelled with vast knowledge and understanding of 1950's and 60's americana.

The Time magazines that I read were from January 1951 and revealed a lot about the tension and turmoil that America experienced at that time. [SPOILER ALERT] Although America had emerged from WWII victorious, it now found itself in the middle of the Cold War, and more specifically the Korean War. Time magazine, not known for being the pinnacle of escapist literature, consequently reflected this solemn mood.

Unsurprisingly, the first thing that caught my attention was the cover. If you are at all familiar with Time magazine, you know that every year they select someone as the Time Person of the Year. The "award" is given to the person "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year." I put award in quotations because as the criterion implies, it's not always a good thing; Hitler and Stalin, a two time winner, have both been selected. In 1951 the award was actually still called Time Man of the Year, because hey, it's the early fifties. No one cared about being politically correct slash not sexist then.

Times Man of the Year: the American Fighting-man

1951's Man of the Year was the American Fighting-man. The Times cover clearly evidenced just how much Americans were worried about another global conflict -- all eyes were on Korea. I believe there's an implied coming-of-age story within the cover of the magazine; countless American youths taken from their normal, domestic lives and thrust into combat and conflict. Popular war novels such as The Things They Carried convey similar stories of young American men who lose their sense of innocence as the result of war. Interestingly, this was the first time the award was given to a group of people as opposed to a single person. Since 1951 the award has been given to other abstract groups or ideas such as:

• The Hungarian freedom fighter (1956)
• American scientists (1960)
• Baby Boomers (1966)
• The Middle Americans (1969)
• American women (1975)
• The Computer (1982)
• The Endangered Earth (1988)
• The Peacemakers (1993)
• The Whistleblowers (2002)
• The American soldier (2003)
• The Good Samaritans (2005)
• You (2006)
• The Protestor (2011)

There were also some lesser articles within the magazine that I felt embodied coming-of-age themes as well. "Death in the Ring" was about a boxer named Al West, age 21, who died in the ring from brain injuries. It was really horrible to read about an athlete taken in the prime of his life. The sport of boxing wasn't as safe or well regulated back then as it is now. Another story talked about a then-recent study about the correlation between popularity and perceived beauty as well as unpopularity and perceived ugliness in schoolchildren. The study reminded me a lot about bullying in the public school system. Another article discussed the growing concern for schoolchildren in foreign countries being taught by Marxist regimes.

Once again I had a surprising amount of culture shock when reading the outdated magazine. It was interesting to see public figures like Juan Peron being discussed in a contemporary context. I laughed at the idea that his wife would eventually become the subject matter for a Broadway play. There were also a couple of stories about the emerging dangers of DDT and radioactivity. Television was another popular subject. The notion of broadcasting in color TV was deemed highly important as were the prevalence of anti-communist loyalty checks at stations like CBS and NBC. The last thing that made me chuckle was a reader's poll. When asked which contemporary American artist would be most highly regarded by the year 2000, Americans answered Frank Lloyd Wright. WHO IS THAT? Am I right? amirite?