American-Made Mid-Century Daydreams

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I didn’t plan to spend my summer in 1960s New York. I ended up there anyway. One book, one tv show, and a handful of improbable coincidences sent me down a mid-century rabbit hole.

The best ideas rarely arrive alone and this one arrived in a pair.

My friend recommended I read Ayn Rand, whose controversial philosophy fascinated and divided generations of readers. She thought her work would pique my interest.

And it tickled me. I began with Rand’s book that brought her to public fame: The Fountainhead (published 1943). I found a used copy of it downtown at Sweet Pickle Books and I was surprised at the scripted note on the title page.

Around the same time I started watching the show Mad Men, the period drama series about advertising executives on Madison Avenue in 1960s New York City.

Mad Men and The Fountainhead are fictional tales born from and of the American mid 20th century era. Both ask what happens when society rewards people for fitting recognizable roles instead of becoming themselves.

I became wrapped up in the lives of Rand’s Howard Roark and Peter Keating, two men whose lives diverged over a single question: whether to live by conviction or by someone else’s approval. Meanwhile, Don Draper and his colleagues sold aspirations as effortlessly as they mixed Old Fashioneds.

I noticed there were multiple references made to Ayn Rand in the first season of Mad Men. Kismet. Now how did the two stories relate, rather than one being on my flatscreen and the other on my nightstand?

My chosen novel and television series were two separate threads stitched on the same cut of calico.

My mind entered a mid century haze: a world of cigarette smoke, sharp silhouettes, and carefully constructed ideals.

All of the details became bees on my bonnet: the glamour, fashion and polished femininity. I left my home wearing victory rolls and red lips. I hummed along to doo wop harmonies. I even went so far as to start wearing a cone bra under thin sweaters. I lit up a few Marlboro 27s to add authenticity and edge to the aesthetic.

In the scheme of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of radical individualism, I thought to myself, “But how does all of this really relate to me?”

I dug deeper and remembered my roots. My grandparents belonged to this generation, the “Don and Betty Drapers”. But they were not screen characters; they were real New Yorkers.

I imagine my young grandparents in the Bronx, the city alive with subway noise and the promise that a person could build any life they desired through ambition, marriage, work, and will.

Both of my grandparents earned their high school degrees in Manhattan. My grandmother was one of the first working women of American generations as a phone operator for Bell Atlantic.

My first-generation Irish grandfather, a Korean War veteran, moonlighted at a pub in upper Manhattan as he worked for Con Edison utilities. He enrolled in Columbia University but left before completion to work full-time and raise his family in the Hudson Valley.

The world I inherited has been fashioned from black-and-white images in family photo albums, full of people with real lives, far more complicated lives than the simple ones the media portrays.

Mad Men reveals how American popular culture often reduced people to recognizable identities, leaving little room for genuine individuality.

The ads from the 60s sketched standards of success and beauty based on fantasy and fabricated ideals (it’s kinda the same today, honestly).

An example is from when the team proposes a lingerie ad of two archetypes of women:

Jackie Kennedy by day, Marilyn Monroe by night.

Marilyn epitomizes celebrity, glamour, sexuality, Hollywood, and mass entertainment. Jackie, a graceful representation of American elegance, poise, and refinement. Both are unquestionably unforgettable national icons.

When a woman sees an ad like the one above she may ask herself “Am I the sex symbol or the elegant First Lady?” when they shop for bras.

Marilyn. Andy Warhol, Screenprint (silkscreen) on paper. 1967.

Jackie. Andy Warhol, Screenprint (silkscreen) on paper. 1964.

Are you Marilyn or Jackie? These labels say less about the actual person than the assumptions attached to the label.

Mad Men’s Roger Sterling even brazenly states to Don, “By the time you’re 40, you’ve met every type of person there is.”

Human beings are natural pattern seekers. We notice the opportunist, the caretaker, the dreamer, the narcissist, the loyal friend. Whatever brand of a person they may seem to be. People also tailor themselves to suit the role they wish to perform, or the role they know is expected of them.

A “type” is easier to comprehend than a multidimensional person. Our desire to simplify a person defeats the purpose of truly understanding one another.

Am I a Marilyn or Jackie?

The day I finished The Fountainhead another strange coincidence happened. I was walking around in Meatpacking and noticed an advertisement for an immersive experience being offered at The Genesis House.

Within moments I entered Manifesting Marilyn: The Making of an Icon, a walkable story of a remarkable life told with lights and photographs; displays of Marilyn’s personal items, clothing, letters, and books.

There were many more shades to Marilyn than shiny platinum blonde. She was a dreamer, reader, and performer. She was a savvy businesswoman whose depth was eclipsed by the reduced character the public preferred.

America admired Marilyn and edited her into a symbol. Yet she is remembered and memorialized for being an extraordinarily exceptional individual, far from the ordinariness of a sexy blonde woman wearing diamonds.

Ladies: Don’t you just love diamonds because they match with EVERYTHING?

If you’re wondering, I’m back to living in 2026. But I’m still pouting red lips, laid hair, and a vintage style bra. That’s my way of radically expressing my individuality at the moment. Now tell me- do gentlemen really prefer brunettes?

Cultural inheritance is not simple. We receive the values of those who came before us and learn to recognize the ones that no longer align with our identities in the new age. The world my grandparents’ generation lived in shaped the world we inherited but it does not determine who we are today.

Somewhere between the 1960s and 2026, the work of deciding which ideals deserve to be preserved belongs to all of us. The most human (and perhaps the most radical) thing a person can do is be unapologetically themselves, always willing to become. The rest can remain in the realm of nostalgia and live on as marvelous stories.