Smoking in hospitals, children without seat belts in the back seat, leaded petrol and no mobile phones. A look at everyday life in an era when risks were often ignored and safety rules were still a distant ideal. It shows how society changes, often for the better, but not without hidden costs.

(Staff: USA & Europe / Culture & History)

Year 1962. Against the background of the Cold War and the Cuba Missile Crisis, ordinary people were trying to live their daily lives. It was a world without the Internet, without smart phones and without the modern notion of „health and safety”. What seems unthinkable to us today, from the way people traveled to the way they raised their children, was then the absolute norm. If we could take a time journey, we would be shocked by what our parents and grandparents generation considered to be a perfectly normal day.

Smoking, everywhere and at any time

Today, if one would light a cigarette in the lobby of a hospital or during a meal at a restaurant, they would be looked down upon or even kicked out. In 1962, smoking was ubiquitous. Doctors smoked in the offices while consulting their patients. In planes, buses and cinema halls, the air was always thickened by tobacco smoke. Tobacco companies sponsored sports events and television shows, and advertisements promoting the „charities” of cigarettes were displayed without any embarrassment.

Cars without seat belts and children in the back

If you look at a 1962 family photo of a car, you will notice that no one was wearing a seat belt. Belts were not mandatory, and in many cars they didn’t even exist in the back seat. The children were standing, playing or sleeping lying on the bench as the parents raced on the highways. Children’s car seats, today mandatory and extremely safe, were a rarity. Also, cars were powered by leaded gasoline, a substance that we know today as extremely toxic to the nervous system.

Childhood without GPS

One of the biggest shocks to parents today would be how children spent their free time. In 1962, the children left the house in the morning and returned in the evening, at dinner time. There were no mobile phones to check where they were, there were no surveillance cameras in the park, and no one was afraid that something bad would happen to them. They played in the streets, climbed trees and explored the neighborhood freely. It was a freedom that today’s children, with strict schedules and supervised activities, rarely know anymore.

Money, technology and libraries

In 1962, there were no ATMs, and credit cards were just beginning to appear. People paid almost exclusively with cash, and salaries were often given in envelopes. If you needed some information, you would go to the library and look in a book. If you wanted to talk to someone far away, you would call the landline, and if the person wasn’t at home, you just couldn’t find them. The idea of having access to all the knowledge of the world in a pocket device was just a dream of science fiction writers.

Social norms and work

Beyond technology, social norms were radically different. The women who worked were often fired when they became pregnant. Job ads were strictly divided into „men’s jobs” and „women’s jobs”. Workplace harassment was not sanctioned, but considered a normal part of office life, and discrimination based on race or gender was legalized in many states.

Conclusion

Looking back at 1962, we can’t help but feel a mixture of nostalgia and amazement. We have gained enormously in terms of safety, health and human rights. We have learned that smoking kills, that belts save lives and that all people deserve equal respect. But perhaps we have lost something of the innocence and freedom of a world where life seemed simpler, even if it was, objectively speaking, much more dangerous. And this history lesson reminds us that the „normal” is not a constant. It changes, sometimes for our own good, sometimes radically transforming the way we understand life.