Create A Short Video Emphasizing Social Class In A Particula ✓ Solved

Create a short video emphasizing social class in a particula

Create a short video emphasizing social class in a particular time period in American history. Apply ideas from the film to the history of American popular culture from the textbook. Choose a historical time and illustrate the popular culture of that period. Address the meaning of class: social or economic position, income, education, prestige, power and control, culture, taste and lifestyle, race, religion, ethnicity, job, self-image and attitude. Select at least five images that illustrate social class and popular culture in the chosen period. In your main posting include: one paragraph stating which time period you chose and what your presentation illustrates about social class; a link to or attachment of your presentation; the presentation must include a minimum of five images with a short headline or phrase for each image.

Paper For Above Instructions

Chosen Time Period and Summary Paragraph

I chose the United States in the 1950s—specifically the postwar era of suburban expansion, mass consumer culture, and the consolidation of corporate white‑collar life. The visual presentation illustrates how class in the 1950s was expressed not only through income and occupation but through consumption patterns, housing and neighborhood, gendered domestic expectations, leisure and car culture, and racialized exclusions from suburban prosperity. By juxtaposing images of Levittown suburbs, television and magazine advertising, drive‑in culture, corporate offices, and urban poverty, the presentation shows that class in the 1950s was an aggregate of economic resources, cultural tastes, educational opportunity, and access to social prestige and power (Cohen, 2003; Jackson, 1985; May, 1988).

Visual Presentation: Five Key Images and Headline Phrases

This image represents mass-produced single‑family homes that became the material hallmark of middle‑class respectability, reflecting patterns of credit access, mortgage policy, and cultural aspiration (Jackson, 1985; Cohen, 2003).

Magazine pages and covers promoted appliances, fashions, and the “good life,” making taste and household consumption key markers of class and gender roles (Galbraith, 1958; May, 1988).

Automobile ownership signified mobility, status, and participation in mass leisure. Teen culture and drive‑ins illustrated classed generational divides in taste (Whyte, 1956; Cohen, 2003).

Photos of office workers demonstrate how job type and corporate culture conferred prestige and shaped everyday class identity, including conformity and consumer expectations (Whyte, 1956).

This image underscores how race and policy kept many African American and immigrant families excluded from suburban gains, highlighting class as entangled with race and institutional power (Jackson, 1985; Cohen, 2003).

Analysis: How These Images Illustrate Social Class

These five images together show that class in the 1950s was multifaceted: it was defined by income and occupation, but equally by access to credit, suburbia, and consumer markets (Cohen, 2003). Levittown-style housing symbolized middle-class respectability achieved through postwar mortgage innovations and government policy; these neighborhoods propagated a material standard of living and a particular lifestyle (Jackson, 1985). Magazine advertising and household appliance marketing turned consumption into moral and social capital: owning labor-saving devices and fashionable goods signaled cultural competence and upward mobility (Galbraith, 1958; Lears, 1983).

Car culture and leisure spaces such as drive‑ins were arenas where taste and leisure differentiated classes and generations. Cars enabled suburban commute patterns that segregated job locations and reinforced class distinctions between suburban commuters and inner-city residents (Whyte, 1956). Corporate office imagery captures the consolidation of bureaucratic, salaried careers whose security and prestige shaped middle-class identity, yet also demanded conformity and organizational loyalty (Whyte, 1956).

Finally, images of urban poverty and segregated neighborhoods reveal the limits of postwar affluence: race, redlining, and discriminatory lending practices restricted access to suburban wealth for many minorities, making class inseparable from racialized structures of power (Jackson, 1985; Cohen, 2003). Thus, class operated through economic capital, cultural tastes, residential geography, institutional power, and identity practices (May, 1988).

Meaning of Class: Multiple Dimensions

Based on the images and scholarship, class in this period encompassed:

• Economic position: income, job security, and access to credit (Cohen, 2003).
• Education and occupational prestige: white‑collar versus blue‑collar work (Whyte, 1956).
• Cultural tastes and lifestyle: consumption, leisure, and media habits that signaled class membership (Galbraith, 1958; Lears, 1983).
• Power and institutional access: homeownership policies and discrimination that structured opportunity (Jackson, 1985).
• Identity and self‑image: how Americans perceived themselves and were perceived by others in classed terms (May, 1988).

Presentation Notes and Practical Choices

The video presentation should open with a brief narration tying film themes to the 1950s, present each image for 10–15 seconds with the headline phrase, include short textual captions and archival credits, and conclude with a 20–30 second synthesis. Each visual element should be credited. For classroom posting provide a single paragraph stating the chosen period and the presentation’s main point, along with a link to the hosted video file (for example, on a learning platform or private video host) or an attached file per discussion board instructions.

Concluding Remarks

By using five curated images and short headline phrases, the visual presentation can effectively demonstrate that class in 1950s America was not reducible to income alone. Instead, it was produced through a combination of policy, consumption, occupation, race, and cultural expectations. Visual evidence paired with historical context shows how popular culture both reflected and reproduced class differences in the postwar United States (Cohen, 2003; Jackson, 1985).

References

• Cohen, L. (2003). A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. Harvard University Press. (Cohen, 2003)
• Jackson, K. T. (1985). Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. Oxford University Press. (Jackson, 1985)
• Galbraith, J. K. (1958). The Affluent Society. Houghton Mifflin. (Galbraith, 1958)
• May, E. T. (1988). Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. Basic Books. (May, 1988)
• Whyte, W. H. (1956). The Organization Man. Simon & Schuster. (Whyte, 1956)
• Lears, T. J. Jackson. (1983). "From Salvation to Self‑Realization: Advertising and the Therapeutic Roots of the Consumer Culture." (Discussed in scholarly literature on advertising and consumerism.) (Lears, 1983)
• Library of Congress. Levittown and postwar suburban photography collections. https://www.loc.gov (Library of Congress, 1950s)
• National Archives. Photographs and records on suburban life and housing policy, 1945–1960. https://www.archives.gov (National Archives, 1950s)
• Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History. Exhibits on 1950s consumer culture and design. https://americanhistory.si.edu (Smithsonian, 1950s)
• Life Magazine archive (selected 1950s covers and advertising pages). https://life.com (Life Magazine, 1950s)