19. Teenage pregnancies in the 1950s were rare, because of chastity
The 1950s are often viewed as a time when teenagers were chaste, and giving birth out of wedlock was rare. It is a myth. Teenage birth rates soared throughout the 1950s. The birth rate for teenage girls aged 15-19 in 2001 was less than half what it had been in 1957. The rate increased beginning in 1950 when just over 80 births per thousand occurred. In 1957 it reached 96.3, then slowly decreased but ended the decade still well into the 80s. In the 1950s the rate remained high across all ethnicities, though it was slightly higher among the Black community than the White. If the 1950s were the often remembered “good old days”, then the argument that teenage chastity was one reason for it is obviously erroneous. Sexual education in schools was not presented in the 1950s, became controversial in the 1960s, and remains controversial today.
As with nearly all other aspects of American life, television ignored these facts completely during the 1950s. Yet television made the teenager a target for marketers, particularly girls. Fashion, makeup, hairstyles, and behavior were all presented with an eye on teenagers, a growing market with disposable income. In addition, teenagers saw the advertisements aimed at adults and the good life they presented, with cigarettes, beer, cocktail parties, entertaining guests, and found themselves compelled to act like the adults in the ads. Even while Lucille Ball was pregnant, both she and Desi advertised cigarettes during their show, and in print advertisements in magazines. The 1950s were a time of flickering images of an America which existed only on television, which ignored the real America outside of the emerging white suburbs.
