The Fifties

Let's Play House (1x3)

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This segment describes the personal unrest sometimes felt in the outwardly tranquil fifties, including dissatisfaction with women's roles as housewives and men's roles in the corporate rat race. Feminist Betty Friedan, Sloan Wilson, author of The man in the gray flannel suit, and Grace Metalious, whose steamy novel Petyon Place exposed small-town hypocrisy, are discussed as representative of the gap between the idealized nuclear family of the 1950s and the way things really were. 50 min.