We had the best cars, too. Oh sure ... in 1957, Euro-intellectuals mocked our way of life (when they weren't busy spawning and pumping out future Eurotrash) and our huge but affordable cars with their wraparound windshields, three-tone paint jobs, chrome trim and giant fins. Then Europe started incorporating our "hideous" style on their own PüniAuto. For example, the 1960 Vauxhall was slathered in chromium and sported an American-like curved windshield. But it remained a shrunken bantamweight parody with a gutless little engine because British gasoline prices were sky-high and they couldn't figure out how to make their bloody cars run on Welsh coal. In the early-1960s, Mercedes cars finally abandoned that 1949 Dodge rear end and sprouted petite fins. Not cool ones, either - clones of '58 Rambler mini-fins.
Fifty years ago or thereabouts, the best - and only - concept cars came from Detroit. Including almost everything shown in the spectacular GM Motoramas, especially the glorious series of Firebird turbine cars. Or FoMoCo's magnificent bubble-topped Lincoln Futura. Some dreams came to life - like the '53 Corvette and '55 Thunderbird.
Custom cars and hot rods were found almost exclusively in America. There was no British George Barris or Japanese Ed Roth. While America was rollin' down the blacktop in gleaming Candy Apple Red T-buckets with chrome-plated, exposed V-8 engines, the Brits were ... er ... 'hillclimbing' - running up muddy embankments in underpowered '30s clunkers. And the Germans were ... ummm ... driving tiny Isettas. Or shrimpy DKWs.
American popular music used to be pretty much the only music. We invented rock and roll; Elvis was a strictly-American phenomenon. In the late '50s, American Bandstand ruled the afternoon airwaves. We made the greatest musicals, too. In 1957, Americans were being entertained by Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. Or The Music Man, or My Fair Lady, while a 9 year-old Andrew Lloyd Webber was munching Weetabix and picking at his butt. The Beatles were gazing in their respective mirrors, testing out pimple creams. And trying to imitate Gene Vincent.
America made the best television sets - Admiral, Philco, Magnavox, Sylvania and Zenith. We produced the greatest TV shows, too. The 1957 season included Perry Mason, The Mickey Mouse Club, The Tonight Show, The Price Is Right, The Phil Silvers Show, Ed Sullivan and Playhouse 90. Meanwhile, Great Britain had the BBC. And Japan offered shadow puppets in the town square of almost every prefecture on weekends.
We invented and manufactured the cleverest stuff; fifty years ago, the first electric wrist watch came - not from the Swiss - but from the Hamilton Watch Co. of Pennsylvania. In 1957, Smith Corona developed a lightweight 14 pound portable typewriter. What did France develop that year? The sack dress.
America had the best toys - mighty Tonka trucks, Lionel trains, rocket ship pedal cars and dolls that peed themselves. Meanwhile, Europe played with little Matchbox toys - tiny cement mixers, delicate milk floats and scale models of the Queen's coronation coach. Or wood blocks from a Scandinavian country.
America offered Disneyland. Sweden offered out-of-focus porn. China spun silk. In 1957, Americans were the only people in the world to purchase more than 3 pairs of shoes per year - an average of 3.48 pairs per person.
So ... what happened?
The long version of that story would require a book - several books, probably. But the short version is that we took our eyes off the ball. We sacrificed long-term goals for the sake of short-term pleasure-profit-efficiency-selfishness-convenience-laziness-greed-expediency-compromise.
That's why we don't make televisions in America anymore. Or much of anything else. That's why Lionel trains are now made in Korea. That's why American cars look more Asian than today's Asian cars do. That's why all the small, locally-owned toy stores have closed and you're buying Chinese-made crap for your kids at a Wal-Mart. That's why Elvis is dead and Björk is alive.
And that's why we don't have a Bullet Train.
In 1957, the U.S. established the Eisenhower Doctrine and extended the Truman Doctrine to protect the Middle East. In the Arctic, the Distant Early Warning System began operation. Three USAF B-52s completed the first nonstop jet circuit of the world in just over 45 hours.