Cultural and Historical Awareness Program
Current Project Resources

Web Resources for the 1950s

PC Library Collection Resources for 1950s

Located in 1950s Special Collection, reference, nonfiction, and Valley Writers sections of the library see book catalog for locations and other titles. For media resources ask at check-out counter. Download the PDF version.

1950s, Popular Culture

  • The American Dream: The 50s by the editors of Time-Life Books (R 973.91 AME)
  • The 1950s: American Popular Culture through History by W. H. Young with N. K Young (R 973.921 YOU)
  • The Fifties/Day by Day by Jeffrey D. Merritt (R 909.8250202 MER)
  • Atlas of the Baby Boom Generation by Neil Hamilton (R 306.09 HAM)
  • Historic Decade: 1950  1960 (R 909.820202 Y)
  • Rock & Roll Generation: Teen Life in the 50s by the editors of Time-Life Books (306.0973 ROC)
  • Fifties Source Book:A Visual Guide to the Style of a Decade by Christopher Pearce (R 709.045 PEA)
  •  50s &  60s Style by Polly Powell and Lucy Peel (745.4442 POW)
  • The 1950 s: America s  Placid Decade (973.9 SAT)
  • The 1950s/America s Decades (R 973.92 THE)
    1950s: Decades of the 20th Century by Nick Yapp (973.921 YAP)
  • American Decades: 1950  1959 edited by Richard Layman (R 973.92)
  • St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture [5 volumes] (R 973.9 STJ)
  • Chronicle of the 20th Century: The Ultimate Record of our Times (R 909.92 CHR)
  • The Dark Ages: Life in the United States 1945  1960 by Marty Jezer (973.918 JEZ)
  • 1950 s (973.92 THE)
  • The Fifties by David Halberstam (973.92 HAL)

Cold War/Nuclear Age/ Red Scare/McCarthyism/Korean War

  • Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age by M. Brazezinski (629.4 BRZ)
  • Sputnik: The Shock of the Century by Paul Dickson (629.46 DIC)
  • A Ball, A Dog, and a Monkey:1957  The Space Race Begins by Michael D Antonio (629.43 DAN)
  • The Cold War: An International History by David S. Painter (eBook)
  • Cold War and After by Charles Lerche, Jr. (327.73 LER)
  • Cold War: An International History, 1947-1991 by S.J. Ball (327.73047 BAL)
  • Cold War and its Origins by D.F. Fleming (900 FLE)
  • The Cold War by Katherine A. Sibley (909.82 SIB)
  • The Cold War: 1945  1991 [3 volumes] (R 909.82 COL)
  • The Cold War Encyclopedia: The Complete Guide to the Most Important Conflict of our Time (R 909.92 PAR)
  • Encyclopedia of the Cold War by Thomas S. Arms (R 909.82 ARM)
  • The Cold War Comes to Main Street: America in 1950 by Lisle Abbott Rose (973.918 ROS)
  • The Cold War [and] Europe and the Third World [Videorecording] (AV 909 WES)
  • Cold War Chronology: Soviet-American Relations, 1945-199 by Kenneth Hill (R 327.73047 HIL)
  • Implosion Conspiracy by Louis Nizer (345.73 NIZ)
  • The Rosenberg File by Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton (345.73 RAD)
  • Blundering into Disaster: Surviving the First Century of the Nuclear Age by Robert S. McNamara (355 MAC)
  • The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (623.4 RHO)
  • Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, 1945-1950 by Gregg Herken (327 HER)
  • Radio Bikini/The American Experience [Videorecording] (AV 355.129 RAD)
  • The Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1956-1961 by Donald Zagoria (947.084 ZAG)
  • The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950-1953 by Clay Blair (951.904 BLA)
  • The Korean War by Max Hastings (951.904 HAS)
  • Drawing the Line: The Korean War 1950-1953 by Richard Whelan (951.9042 WHE)
  • Korea: The First War We Lost by Bevin Alexander (951.9042 ALI)
  • Korea: The Forgotten War [DVD]
  • Suez Crisis, 1956 by Gerald Kurland (962.1 KUR)
  • Suez Story: Key to the Middle East by William F. Longgood (962.15 LON)
  • McCarthyism: The Great American Red Scare by Albert Fried (973.9 FRI)
  • McCarthy: Death of a Witch Hunter [Video recording] (973.918 MCC)
  • The Meaning of McCarthyism edited by Earl Latham (322.4 MEA)
  • Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America by Ellen Schrecker (973.9 SCH)
  • Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective by Richard M. Fried (973.921 FRI)
  • The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (365.45 SOL)
  • The Gulag Archipelago, 1918  1956 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (365.45 SOL)

Social Issues, Environment, Civil Rights, School Desegregation

  • Polio (eBook)
  • Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement (eBook)
  • Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream by Edward Humes (362.86 HUM)
  • Awakenings: 1954-56/Eyes on the Prize: America s Civil Rights Years [Videorecording] (AV 323.4 AWA)
  • Fighting Back: 1957-62/Eyes on the Prize: America s Civil Rights Years [Videorecording] (AV 323.4 FIG)
  • When Dreams Came True: The GI Bill and the Making of Modern America by M. J. Bennett (306.0973 BEN)
  • I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr. (323.1 KIN)
  • Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the Civil Rights Struggle of the 1950s and 1960s:
    Brief History with Documents by David Howard Pitney (323.1 HOW)
  • Warriors Don t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock s Central High (970.19 BEA)
  • Rosa Parks: My Story by Rosa Parks with Jim Haskins (976.1 PAR)
  • Rosa Parks: A Life by Douglas Brinkley (323.092 BRI)
  • Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case by Chris Crowe (364.15 CRO)
  • Mississippi Trial, 1955: Based on the True Story of a Tragic Murder that Helped Spark the
    Civil Rights Movement by Chris Crowe (F CRO)
  • Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime that Changed America
    by Mamie Till-Mobley (mother of Emmett Till and Christopher Benson) (364.1 TIL)
  • School Desegregation and the Story of the Little Rock Nine by Mara Miller (379.2 MIL)
  • The Power of One: Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine by J. B. Fradin and D. B. Fradin (323.092 FRA)
  • Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents by Waldo E Martin Jr. (344.73 MAR)
  • Little Rock, U.S.A. edited by Wilson Record (371.9 LIT)
  • Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (632.9 CAR)
  • Before Silent Spring: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America by James Whorton (632.95 WHO)
  • Since Silent Spring by Frank Graham, Jr. (632.95 GR)
  • DDT, Silent Spring, and the Rise of Environmentalism: Classic Texts (363.17 DDT)
  • Sister Kenny: The Woman Who Challenged the Doctor by Victor Cohn (920 KEN)

Music, Rock n Roll, Sports, Movies, Television

  • Baseball in the  50s: A Decade of Transition by Donald Honig (796.357 HON)
  • The Bob Mathias Story by Bob Mathias with Robert Mendes (Valley Writers Collection 920 MAT)
  • The Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working-Class Music (731.7 PEN)
  • Mouse Tales: A Behind-the-Ears Look at Disneyland by David Koenig (791.068 KOE)
  • Glued to the Set: The 60 Television Shows and Events that Made Us Who We Are Today (791.45 STA)
  • As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s by Karal Ann Marling (973.92 MAR)
  • Same Time, Same Station: Creating American Television, 1948  1961 by James L. Baughman (384.55 BAU)
  • The Columbia History of American Television by Gary R. Edgerton (791.45 EDG)
  • A Really Big Show: A Visual History of The Ed Sullivan Show (792.4572 LEO)
  • La Bomba [DVD]
  • The Blob [DVD]
  • Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed by Michelle Morgan (791.402 MOR)
  • My Story by Marilyn Monroe with Ben Hecht (791.402 MON)
  • Bogart by A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax (791.43 SPE)
  • The Stars: The Personalities Who Made the Movies by Richard Schickel (791.43 SCH)
  • An American in Paris [Videorecording] (AV F AME)
  • The African Queen [Videorecording] (AV F AFR)
  • East of Eden [Videorecording] (AV F EAS)
  • High Noon [Videorecording] (AV F HIG)
  • Singin' in the Rain [Videorecording] (AV F SIN)
  • Show Boat [Videorecording]
  • Broadway's Greatest Musicals by Abe Laufe (782.8 LAU)
  • The World of Count Basie by Stanley Dance (781.65 DAN)
  • The Chronicle of Jazz by Mervyn Cooke (R 781.65 COO)
  • Jazz: A History of America's Music by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns (R 781.65 WAR)
  • Jazz by John Fordham (R 781.65 FOR)
  • Rockin' in Time: A Social History of Rock and Roll by David P. Szatmary (784.54 SZA)
  • Rock & Roll: An Unruly History by Robert Palmer (781.66 PAL)
  • The Rock n Roll Year: The Chronicle of the Lives and Times of the Rock n Roll Generation& (R 781.66 ROC)
  • Ritchie Valens: The First Latino Rocker by Beverly Mendheim (781.66 MEN)
  • Shake, Rattle & Roll: The Golden Age of American Rock  n Roll by Lee Cotton (781.660 COT)
  • The Golden Age of Rock by David McCarthy (781.66 MCC)
  • Chuck Berry: The Autobiography by Chuck Berry (920 BER)
  • Elvis by Albert Goldman (920 PRE)
  • Elvis:30 #1 Hits [CD]
  • The Boy Who Would Be King: An Intimate Portrait of Elvis Presley by Earl Greenwood (920 PRE)
  • Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick (920 PRE)
  • Death of Elvis: What Really Happened? by Charles Thompson (920 PRE)
  • Million Seller Hits of the 50 s [CD]
  • Million Sellers of the 1950s [CD]

Arts, Architecture, Fashion, Literature

  • Modern Dreams: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Pop (700.9045 MOD)
  • Mid-Century Architecture in America (724.9 VON)
  • Ansel Adams: Images 1923  1974 (R 779.36 ADA)
  • Fashions of a Decade: The 1950s by Patricia Baker (391.009 BAK)
  • Everyday Fashions of the Fifties: As Pictured in Sears Catalogs (R 391.097 EVE)
  • Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
  • Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg (811 GIN)
  • American Scream: Allen Ginsberg s Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation by J. Raskin (811.54 RAS)
  • The Beats: From Kerouac to Kesey, an Illustrated Journey through the Beat Generation by Mike Evans (810.8 EVA)
  • The Portable Beat Reader (810.8 POR)
  • Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America by Dennis McNally (813.54 MCN)
  • Road Novels: 1957  1960 by Jack Kerouac (810.8 KER)
  • On the Road by Jack Kerouac (F KER)
  • Jack s Book: An Oral Biography of Jack Kerouac by Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee (920 KER)
  • The Birth of the Beat Generation: Visionaries, Rebels, and Hipsters, 1944  1960 (810.9 WAT)
  • Collected Poems: 1947  1997 by Allen Ginsberg (811.GIN)
  • The Guggenheims: An American Epic by John Davis (338.092 DAV)

American Politics/World Issues & Concerns

  • Making of the President, 1960 by Theodore White (329.023 WHI)
  • John F. Kennedy and a New Generation by David Burner (920 KEN)
  • A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy by Thomas Reeves (920 KEN)
  • Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy (920.8 KEN)
  • John F. Kennedy: A Political Profile by James MacGregor Burns (920 KEN)
  • Mandate for Change: The White House Years 1953-1956 [Eisenhower Administration] (973.92 EIS)
  • Ike: An American Hero by Michael Korda (973.92 KOR)
  • Harry S. Truman by Margaret Truman (973.918 TR)
  • Martin Luther King, Jr.: Civil Rights Leader (920 KIN)
  • Promise and Performance: the Leadership of John F. Kennedy by Lewis Paper (973.922 KEN)
  • Seeds of Repression: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of McCarthyism by (973.918 TH)
  • Senator Joe McCarthy by Richard Rovere (920 MCC)
  • Tumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1949-1953 by Robert Donovan (973.918 DO)
  • Fidel Castro: Communist Dictator of Cuba by Gerald Kurland (920 CAS)
  • Fidel Castro: Rebel, Liberator or Dictator? By Jules DuBois (920 DUB)
  • With Fidel: A Portrait of Castro and Cuba by Frank Mankiewicz (972.91 MAN)
  • Fidel: A Critical Portrait by Tad Szulc (920 CAS)
  • Fidel Castro Handbook by George Galloway (920 CAS)
  • Stalin by Edvard Radzinsky (947.084 RAD)

Transportation, Economy, Food

  • Dream Cars of the Fifties: The Chrome, The Culture, The Charisma by Mike Key (629.2222 KEY)
  • The Roads that Built America by Dan McNichol (917.307 MCN)
  • McDonald s Behind the Arches by John F. Love (338.7 LOV)

More Resources:

If you need more material for your 1950s topic, please ask your librarians for help finding database articles (online magazines and journals) at www.portervillecollege.edu/Library/, online books in NetLibrary at www.Netlibrary.com, and other sources of print and media information.