1955? Looking back from 2010 . " Nobody Is Mad With Nobody " [ GOOGLE search article ]

[The middle of the 1950s was the apex of the era in which Life -- the weekly Life -- was a mainstay in American homes. Arriving like clockwork in mailboxes in big cities and tiny towns, Life, with its 20-cent cover price and its red-and-white rectangular logo, represented America talking to itself. It didn't just mirror the national conversation; it was, in large measure, the national conversation. Fat and prosperous, seemingly as tall as the Empire State Building when compared to today's magazines, Life in the summer of '55 offered on its numerous advertising pages remedies for the sweltering days and nights the nation was going through: four separate display ads for different brands of lemonade, ads for window-mounted air conditioners and fans, colorful full-page ads for fancy ice cream (Lady Borden Plantation Peach, Meadow Gold Hawaiian Sherbet). But that was not the fascinating thing about this particular issue. That is not what, in this rancorous summer of 2010, has the power, over all the years, to make you stop and reflect. Near the front of the magazine, the lead story summed up the mood of the United States in the week that had just ended. The headline was: "Nobody Is Mad With Nobody." The magazine reported: "Summer, announced by graduation and the Fourth of July, rolled over a nation up to its ears in domestic tranquility." And: "Embroiled in no war, impeded by no major strikes, blessed by almost full employment, the U.S. was delighted with itself and almost nobody was mad with nobody." And: "This week millions of Americans were purring with contentment -- when they were not roaring with exuberance." And: "The satisfaction showed in the grinning faces of Vermonters, hearing an easygoing speech by the President of the U.S. It was evident in the triumph of a Coloradoan standing amid chest-deep wheat where there had been only dust weeks before. The great nation, made possible by the bold planning of the Founding Fathers, had reached a peak the planners could scarcely have imagined." How much of this may have been an illusion? What portion of Life's snapshot of the United States in that summer 55 years ago may have been a willful fantasy, a purposely comforting dream? Certainly a case can be made that, even in placid times, the cloudless rendering of unfettered happiness that Life was selling was in part a carefully marketed image of the country. ]