Introduction

Many harken back to the period of the 1950s in reflection of more innocent times. As tract housing grew and suburbs exploded, the American dream became synonymous with the white picket fence. To sum up the era of the fifties in this fashion is to deny the McCarthy witch hunts, the practice of espionage in favor of patriotism, and the mounting racial tensions that set the civil rights movement in motion.

Religious Revivalism

In the late 1940s, the fervor that fueled religious revivalism during the 1930s had long since died due to dishonest clergy and other unsavory characters at the core of the movement. Billy Graham, a Charlotte, North Carolina, native would change all of that. After graduating from Wheaton College in Illinois in 1943, he became the local pastor of a church in Illinois. He also headed up the Youth for Christ movement on a national level...