Lower, Middle, and Upper Class
Despite the “American Dream” promising social mobility, many Americans lived and died in the same socioeconomic class. Americans were aware of this! Though questioning capitalism was a dangerous thing in the McCarthy era, a working understanding of class structure was important to everyday life. Important enough that educational shorts like this one, a PSA-style film by Knickerbocker Productions, circulated on the airwaves.
The Working Class and Poverty in 1950s America
After World War II, the United States experienced economic prosperity; however, not all Americans participated equally in this upward mobility and success, which was mostly reserved for white Americans with some form of privilege. Poverty and unemployment still ran rampant and the American working class still had limited control over the means of production and little choice in how they made their living. Policies like the GI Bill, which passed in 1944, offered money for veterans to attend college and to buy property. There was a general feeling of optimism and hope after America’s success in World War II, and the yearning for the American Dream was at its peak.
According to federal poverty statistics, at least 20.8% of families lived in poverty – 16.5% of white families and 54.9% of black families lived below the poverty line. The federal government only published poverty statistics on black and white Americans. In 1972, they finally did a study on Hispanic families.
1 out of 2 households, headed by a woman, lived below the poverty line and poverty was concentrated mostly in the South. In the Midwest (where Picnic takes place) 22% lived below the poverty line in the 1950s and ‘60s.
(http://povertyinamerica.mit.edu/download/atlas_of_poverty_in_america_p1.pdf)
In Picnic, Hal is the character with the lowest social status. He believes in the American Dream wholeheartedly and never gives up his quest for raising his social and financial standing. He is the product of a criminal father who died in prison and a mother who either cannot or will not support him. He has coasted by on his status as an athletic and attractive white male in a society where those attributes are supremely valued.
Hal has spent the last few months, as many did in the 1950s – hitchhiking around the country, finding odd jobs, and hoping to find a place to stay at night. In the 1950s and ‘60s, homelessness was on the decline, but “hobo culture” was still a reality for many. A tradition and necessity that rose exponentially during the Depression, again resurfaced after World War II when many men found themselves without jobs or prospects, even amidst the economic boom of post-war America. (http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21583673-report-national-hobo-convention-riding-rails)
These men became known as transients in the 1930s, and would often find themselves in “jungles,” communities of people who would camp out together and then wander to find work. In the 1950s, these camps still existed, but to a much smaller extent.
Hal? Is that you?
“This transient twenty-year-old man, photographed on a freight car between Bakersfield and Fresno, California, in 1940, claimed to have been riding the rails for two years” (NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION).
The Smoothing of the Divide: Widowhood, Spinster-ism, and College Attendance in Social Class
Besides the fate of Hal, there are also the play’s two main clans and company to consider. The Owens’ and the Potts’ are both matriarchal households characterized right in the middle of the growing post-war middle class. Flo Owens has been without her husband for some years, and is left to raise her daughters on her own. She makes ends meet with whatever she can from her sub-textually implied “widow money”, Madge’s job and Rosemary’s rent to pay for food and Millie’s education. Conversely, Mrs. Potts was married for a day before being forced into annulment by her mother. If you’ve read Laura Esquivel’s novel Like Water For Chocolate, you recognize this practice as that of the youngest spawn in a family being relegated to a caretaker position until the end of her elders’ lives. Whatever income is made by the Potts’ probably comes from inheritance and side work cleaning and mending clothes.
Speaking of both Rosemary and clothes, the 1950’s saw a rise in the “spinster”(after the profession of spinning wool) lifestyle. At the time, a spinster was known as a woman who, for a varying degree of reasons, was remained unmarried past the usual or legal marrying age. This applies to Rosemary, a single teacher in her mid-30s. Rosemary, while not independent enough to have a permanent separate residence, can afford a mildly lavish lifestyle. Her hat, based on the other characters’ reactions, is an expensive piece of clothing. While spinster-ism is sometimes a circumstance of environment, like wartime when there is a dearth of viable bachelors, some choose the lifestyle because of financial stability, career commitments(rare at the time), and maybe even a personal preference.
“Please don’t make me beg, Howard!!”
Some other things to consider, especially regarding the characters of Hal, Alan and Millie, is that each, two male and one female and all of widely varying economical status, have or are attended college. In the 50’s, going to college was considered one of the many societal goods that helped to smooth over the social divide between the lower and upper classes created by the Depression. This uptick in college attendance was in part attributed to the establishment of the GI Bill of Rights for servicemen exiting the war. Getting a college education was no longer for the rich or elite, but a mass higher education system that became a consumer necessity.
“Not just for boys anymore”
Bibliography
BEASLEY, MAURINE H. “Transients.” Encyclopedia of the Great Depression, edited by Robert S. McElvaine, vol. 2, Macmillan Reference USA, 2004, pp. 985-989.
Higbie, Frank Tobias. Indispensable Outcasts: Hobo Workers and Community in the American Midwest, 1880-1930. Urbana (Ill.): U of Illinois, 2003. Print.
“Riding the Rails.” The Economist (2013): n. pag. Web.
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21583673-report-national-hobo-convention-riding-rails
Moody, Kim. “The American Working Class in Transition.” Kim Moody: The American Working Class in Transition (October/November 1969). N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.
https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj/1969/no040/moody.htm
Als, Hilton. “Heartland.” The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 22 Jan. 2015. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/21/heartland
http://povertyinamerica.mit.edu/download/atlas_of_poverty_in_america_p1.pdf
Barach, Arnold B. USA and its Economic Future. New York, Macmillan Company, 1964.
Chalmers, David, And the Crooked Places Made Straight Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
PICNIC Dramaturgy 