1. A Look at Fashion Through the 50's and 60's
Everything can change in 70 years; individuals, society, lifestyle, trends, technology and cities.Each second, the humankind has an urge to progress and change the world that they live in. It is a part of human's nature. The play "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams, which takes place in 1940's cosmopolitan New Orleans city, is a great example of this evolution. Back in those times, New Orleans had one of the biggest ports in the world just like today. The city was heavily industrialized, and needed a huge manpower. So, many immigrants came to New Orleans seeking for a job, including Europeans, Asians and Africans. As these people arrived, New Orleans became one of the oldest multicultural cities in the United States. This characteristics of the city formed the infrastructure of the play, both characters and the plot. If the play had been written in a different time, observing the characteristics of that period would be impossible and the representation of social classes, gender roles and people's lifestyles would alter. .
In 1940's, the gap between the social classes was obvious, whereas today classes are intermingled and the conflict has disappeared. In the meantime, New Orleans was an industrialized city that demanded huge manpower and drew many immigrants into the city and formed the working class. Being largest in population, these people constituted the lower class of the society. However, today most immigrants work in service sector and it is considered as the lower-middle class. In the past, aristocrats had huge lands and plantations that gave them a huge power. However, in the middle of the 20th century due to rapid industrialization, agrarian society started to collapse and causing aristocracy to downfall and aristocrats to lose their power. For example, in the play Blanche and Stella lost their plantation in Belle Reve and began to live in the industrialized New Orleans.