The history of nostalgia: why 'Happy Days' weren't really happy
Fifty years ago, the George Lucas film “American Graffiti,” an homage to his high school days of cruising hot rods and ’50s rock music, revved up the age of nostalgia.
People had already been pining for childhood favorites, but the 1950s and ’60s nostalgia of the Baby Boomer generation has been strong ever since. The film begat “Happy Days” and “Grease,” all of which seemed to give folks permission to be wistful for their wonder years.
Lucas’ 1973 film was set in the summer of 1962 (which today would be like making a movie tribute to the year 2012!), a time before Kennedy’s assassination, Vietnam and the counterculture of the '60s.
Downtown Cincinnati: What the past tells us
A look back: Cincinnati’s first Pride parade was shunned by local media
In his review of “American Graffiti” at the time, Enquirer film critic Roger Grooms wrote that “1963 seems very placid, very uncomplicated – and very far away.” It seems even further now.
Now we are nostalgic for the old nostalgia.
I grew up in Modesto, California, the setting for “American Graffiti,” but a generation later. In the 1980s, we had annual Graffiti Nights with classic cars cruising down McHenry Avenue and oldies concerts emceed by Wolfman Jack. We built Lucas Plaza as a tribute to our hometown boy – not with a statue from “Star Wars” but of two teenagers leaning against a ’57 Chevy.
Fun times, about a time before my time.
There’s just something about the pull of nostalgia. It has been a powerful tool for advertisers and marketers. Look at Hollywood today, recycling popular movies from 30 and 40 years ago and new updates of old TV shows. It seems half of the Sirius XM radio stations are classics formats, from The Beatles Channel to ’80s on 8 and Classic Vinyl.
It will likely continue to be that way.
“Nostalgia will always be the wave of the future because it is associated with products and services that people remember,” Jerry Malsh, president of the J. Malsh & Co. advertising agency, told The Enquirer way back in 1987.
That’s why the ’90s boy band Backstreet Boys is now hawking P&G’s Downy fabric softener.
The Future of Rock and Roll: 97X WOXY resurrected for anniversary show
Our History: 5 historic Cincinnati places you won't find in a tourism guide
The history of nostalgia
The term nostalgia was coined in 1688 by Johannes Hofer, a Swiss physician who named the ailment tied to homesickness he found in Swiss mercenary soldiers. Nost means “homecoming” and algia means “pain.” Soldiers suffered from sadness, sleeplessness, loss of appetite and weakness, which he attributed to a longing to go back home.
Some doctors thought this ailment was particular to the Swiss due to the incessant ringing of cowbells in their native Swiss Alps that caused pain in the eardrum and brain. But others suffered from nostalgia as well.
An early reference in The Enquirer, from Feb. 8, 1865, reported of 1,400 sick Confederate prisoners at Camp Douglas in Chicago, with the most frequent cause of death attributed to “‘nostalgia,’ which is the medical designation for ‘homesickness.’ ”
Appletons’ Journal in 1874 described the condition: “The nostalgic loses his gayety, his energy, and seeks isolation in order to give himself up to the one idea that pursues him, that of his country. He embellishes the memories attached to places where he was brought up, and creates an ideal world where his imagination revels with an obstinate persistence.”
The label of nostalgia as a neurological disorder lasted until the early 20th century when it was linked to melancholia or depression.
“But over the next few decades, the understanding of nostalgia changed in two important ways,” psychologist Clay Routledge said in his TED-Ed video, “Why do we feel nostalgia?”
“Its meaning expanded from indicating homesickness to a general longing for the past," Routledge continued. "And rather than an awful disease, it began to be seen as a poignant and pleasant experience.”
Scientists found that nostalgia puts people in a good mood, rather than a bad one.
“By allowing individuals to remember personally meaningful and rewarding experiences they shared with others, nostalgia can boost psychological well-being,” Routledge said.
That’s why we have such nostalgia for Old Coney Island, for listening to Marty and Joe call Reds games on the radio, or shopping at the Downtown department stores. They remind us of less complicated times, but also times with loved ones who are now gone.
This is especially true in the troubled, unsettling times we live in. The fear and suffering of the pandemic, political divisiveness, inflation, prejudice and cancel culture.
“(Nostalgia) works most strongly as a reaction to a sense of loss in the recent past, and it is therefore particularly characteristic of societies undergoing rapid change,” historian John Tosh wrote in “The Pursuit of History.”
It is no coincidence that the emergence of nostalgia came at the time of the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, Roe v. Wade and the oil crisis. In troubled times, we look for the comfort of the past.
The problem with nostalgia
Many historians are critical of nostalgia, though.
Tosh wrote, “The problem with nostalgia is that it is a very lopsided view of history. If the past is redesigned as a comfortable refuge, all its negative features must be removed. The past becomes better and simpler than the present.”
We can get comfort from the past, but that doesn’t mean we can’t look at it critically and with open eyes.
“Nostalgia is a very human trait,” wrote historian Stephanie Coontz in her book, “The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap.” As time passes, she wrote, the complexities of our history give way to our ideal images.
“Selective memory is not a bad thing when it leads children to forget the arguments in the back seat of the car and look forward to their next vacation,” she wrote. “But it’s a serious problem when it leads grown-ups to try to re-create a past that either never existed at all or whose seemingly attractive features were inextricably linked to injustices and restrictions on liberty that few Americans would tolerate today.”
Nostalgia gets us looking to the past for comfort, while studying history forces us to confront that past. The past wasn’t the same for everyone. A time before women’s liberation, civil rights or gay pride would create different memories for different people.
One last comment from a local voice:
“I am convinced that this nostalgia, so appealing to all of us today, is for many in reality an attempt to recapture the seemingly placid days before blacks became resistant (and decided to demand their full participation in our society), before students dared to call our hypocrisy to our attention (and decided that perhaps morality had to do with something other than sex), and before ‘authority’ in our schools, churches and almost every other type of institution began to be questioned (as to its source and as to its relevance in a rapidly changing world.) …
“To the extent, however, that this nostalgia does reflect an inability to cope with and recognize the realities of today’s social, economic and racial facts, I think it is a form of escapism which does not serve us well.”
That was written by the late William R. Schumacher, director of the Office of Social Action Programs for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, in a guest column published by the Cincinnati Post in 1971.
Back in the good old days.