1954

On Feb. 23, 1954, the first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine began in Pittsburgh.

from today’s New York Times

 

I remember standing in line for that shot.  This was a big, big deal back in the 1950s, when every community had polio victims, when people were afraid to use public swimming pools for fear of conntagion.  One of my cousins, Buddy, was in an iron lung and ultimately died from this disease.  So seeing this ‘look back’ in the paper this morning really did make me look back. 

 

1954:

• Nasser seizes power in Egypt and becomes premier and head of state
• St. Lawrence Seaway project approved by Eisenhower
• Dien Bien Phu taken by Vietnamese Communists
• US Supreme Court rules that segregation by color in public schools is a violation of the 14th Amendment
• SEATO established
• Sen. Joseph McCarthy continues his witch-hunting activities culminating in a nationally televised hearing seeking to prove Communist infiltration in the U.S. Army.  his formal censure and condemnation by Senate follow
• Nobel Prize for Literature:  Ernest Hemingway; for Drama:  Tennessee Williams
• Other great literature:  Tolkien, "Lord of the Rings"; Amis, "Lucky Jim"; Lindbergh, "The Spirit of  St. Louis"; Golding, "Lord of the Flies"; Patrick, "The Teahous of the August Moon"
• Films:  "La Strada," "On the Waterfront,"  "Rear Window,"
• First annual Jazz Festival held at Newport, R.I.
• Popular songs:  "Hernando’s Hideaway,"  "Mister Sandman,"  "Young At Heart," "Three Coins in the Fountain," "Hey , There"
• U.S. atomic physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer is dismissed from gov’t service and his security clearance withdrawn
• U.S. tests hydrogen bomb at Bikini
• Concern in Europe and America about fallout and disposal of radioactive waste
• Salk starts inoculating schoolchildren with his antipolio serum
• Linus Pauling, Nobel Prize for Chemistry, for study of molecular forces
• 29 million U.S. homes have TV
• Temple of Mithras excavated in the City of London
• Roger Bannister runs a mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds
• The U.S. contains 6 % of the world’s population but has 60% of all cars, 58% of all telephones, 45% of all radio sets, and 34% of all railroads
• Arnold Palmer wins Amateur chammpionship of U.S. Golf Association

I was twelve years old in 1954, just beginning my journey through life and more interested in rock and roll and my friends than anything else.  Still, I remember much of this.  The bomb tests were huge, and of course, we are the generation that had bomb drills in school, not just fire drills.   We, the whole country, just felt on the brink of so much.  WWII was not that far behind us;  our fathers were starting to earn good money, so we had a pletora of  thiings in our lives.  Still, I was surprised by the percentages listed above concerning tv, phones, etc.   We were not aware of having so much more than our fair share of wealth.  The only difference I can see today is that we ARE aware and feel guilty.  That doesn’t make us have/use less.

Events were already leading to our involvement in Vietnam, a war that took many of my generation, scarred many more.   Indeed, have we yet recovered from that?  Or learned anything from it?   We seem destined to be involved in one hopeless military conflict after another.  Sometimes I think it’s just an elaborate employment scheme, with guns thrown in. 

Still, we had such hope back then.   That song,  "Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes," really did describe us, and not just us teenagers, but all of us.  I still have a few stars left in mine; hope you do, too.