People often say that the 1950s were a "simpler time" compared to now. What negative aspects of the 1950s are they overlooking?

There are a number of ways to compare and contrast a previous era in America with today. One I find particularly compelling is to consider the lived experiences of children with physical or cognitive disabilities - especially those born into families who had been historically marginalized by laws, policies, and cultural norms set by those in positions of power.

It wasn't until the passage of the Education for all Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA, Public Law 94-142 - later reauthorized as the Individuals with Disabilities Act) in 1975 that universal, compulsory education became the standard in the United States. This meant, in theory, two things: first, public schools could not turn a child away and second, every child was entitled to an education. (Caveats abound, of course. Due to the 10th Amendment, education is a state's right issue and courts are still trying to work out if children have a constitutionally-protected right to an education. We also have a long history of funding inequities between districts - so while public education must serve every child, the nature of that education can vary dramatically in schools less than a mile apart from each other. Meanwhile, districts have and can turn away children who they determine live outside their attendance zone.)

So let's say you were between the ages of 10 and 16 in 1952, and you were one of the almost 60,000 adults and children who contracted polio and survived. However, like many of those who survived, you no longer had the ability to walk without assistance or had to use a wheelchair for mobility. Assuming your parents didn't succumb to the pressure they likely got from friends, family, and medical professionals to have you placed in an institution or home for children with disabilities, and could afford a wheelchair and/or leg braces, and decided to enroll you in school, your neighborhood school would fully be within their legal rights to turn you away. If the building had been built as a result of the Public Works Administration in the 1930's and had more than one story, they could point to the lack of an elevator as the reason. They may offer your parents a space for you in a grammar school class or in a special class with other children with disabilities on the first floor but they couldn't ensure you'd be cognitively challenged and it was likely you'd spend years reading early childhood books because your teachers hadn't had any real training to speak of in how to attend to multiple cognitive levels in one classroom.

The odds are slim but you may have lived in an area where parents pooled their resources to create an accessible, engaging program like those advocated by the newly formed National Association for Retarded Children (now known as The Arc of the United States.) Or your parents may have been highly educated and socially connected and your district superintendent found the funding for an elevator and you were able to rejoin your chronological peers. Had that happened, you were most likely white.

Had you been a Black child who survived polio in the 1950's, your educational opportunities were limited even further, especially if you lived in a Southern state. "Compulsory education" laws are less what happens to the child and more about the government systems that are in place to ensure every child gets an education. That is, in the absence of compulsory education laws, parents are under no legal obligation to educate their child and schools can turn any child away from any reason. New England states adopted them in the early 1800's and by the 1920's, all states had them in theory, if not in practice. (For a few generations, parents were expected to enroll their child in public schools, with exceptions for private or religious education. Eventually, the norm became for children would stay in school until they finished all twelve years. Following court cases and changes in state laws, parents could chose to homeschool their child or pull them out after 8 or 9 years.)

As the Civil Rights Movement made progress, southern schools and states realized the day would come that Black children might be sitting next to white children and so they took preventative measures - in some cases, passing laws that ended compulsory education or closing entire school districts and transferring school tax dollars to vouchers so parents could pay tuition at white-only private schools. So, if you were a Black child who used a wheelchair for mobility and lived in a Southern state in the 1950's, your chances of getting a high quality, liberal arts education were not great. The most compelling difference between then and the modern era is your parents would have little to no artillery with which to fight. They couldn't point to federal law like IDEA to advocate for your right to an education despite your wheelchair. They couldn't point to state compulsory education laws because they may have been lifted. They couldn't turn to private organizations for children with disabilities because they were often segregated.

But. Let's say, hypothetically, you're a Black teenager who survived polio and need a wheelchair and/or have leg braces for mobility who lives in New York City. Your neighborhood high school was a new build, complete with an elevator, wide hallways, accessible doorways, and an compassionate, helpful nurse who lets you use the private, accessible bathroom in her office (accessible stalls in student bathrooms wouldn't be the norm until schools built in the 1970's). As a result of your race, you're likely in a de facto segregated school - due to housing regulations and policies, most of the young people in your neighborhood were Black. Your teachers were most likely also Black and your school was, all things considered, relatively well-funded. You're able to participate in all of your classes and fulfill all of the class time requirements (known as Carnegie Units) for your high school diploma. Because you're at a high school in New York State, you need to take what's known as the Regents Examinations to graduate.

And let's say you're a girl. As such, you're encouraged to take a class known as Comprehensive Homemaking. The curriculum included how to iron clothes, prepare meals, decorate a home, and maintain personal appearances. To graduate high school, you had to take a two-hour Regents exam in which you had to answer questions about dealing with acne, what style dress looks best on different kinds of bodies, and how to maintain a healthy marriage (don't nag, don't complain about his mother, and let him spend time with his friends.) The default assumption is that you're going to be a wife and mother. Your future is not yours to write unless you're willing and able to fight for your own path forward. So, odds are good when someone says the 1950's were a simpler time, they're an older white American who likely didn't have a disability as a child or had the resources to access support. Basically, the people, policies, and laws of the 1950's seemed to designed to actively make the lives of children with disabilities who were not white and not male as hard as possible.

Rotatori, A. F., Obiakor, F. E., & Bakken, J. P. (2011). History of special education (Vol. 21). Emerald Group Publishing.