MORE 1958 HISTORY
Dwight D. Eisenhower was President in 1958, and Richard M. Nixon was Vice President.
BEST 1958 TOY
Introduced in 1958 by Wham-O Manufacturing, the Hula Hoop is the most popular American toy ever made. It cost $1.98, and was so popular that stores kept running out. In the first six months, Americans purchased 20 million Hula Hoop toys. In 1958, 100 million were sold world- wide. HULA HOOP originated the concept of twirling a hoop around your hips or knees, or even your arms and neck. HULA HOOP brand hoops are made with extra durable materials that resist buckling. The HULA HOOP Original comes in three swirly colors and three hoop sizes.

How many Hoops can you keep going at once?
ACADEMY AWARDS
Best Picture:
"Gigi"

Best Director:
Vincente Minnelli ... "Gigi"

Best Actor:
David Niven ... "Separate Tables"

Best Actress:
Susan Hayward ... "I Want to Live!"
GRAMMY AWARDS
A group of record exec - utives alarmed by the explosive success of rock 'n' roll - and the threat rock posed to "quality" pop, launched the Grammy Awards. Songs from that year were judged in the The first Grammy Award ceremony held on May 4, 1959, in the Grand Ballroom of the Beverly Hills Hotel. There were 28 award categories, with one nominee each in the Best Country & Western Performance and Best Rhythm & Blues Performance. The first award for rock music wasn't given until 1961 - Chubby Checker won the Best Rock & Roll Recording.

Record of the Year:
"Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)" ... Domenico Modugno

Song of the Year:
"Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)" ... Domenico Modugno

Album of the Year:
"The Music from Peter Gunn" ... Henry Mancini

Male Vocalist:
Perry Como ... "Catch a Falling Star"

Female Vocalist:
Ella Fitzgerald ... "Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook"

Best Performance of a Vocal Group  or Chorus: “That Old Black Magic,” Louis Prima and Keely Smith

Best Rhythm and Blues Performance:
“Tequila,” Champs (Danny Flores, Dave Burgess, Gene Alden & Buddy Bruce)

Best Jazz Performance, Individual:
Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Song  Book, Ella Fitzgerald

Best Jazz Performance, Group:
Basie, Count Basie

Best C&W Performance: “Tom Dooley,” Kingston Trio (Dave  Guard, Bob Shane & Nick Reynolds)

Best Original Cast Album, Broadway or Television:

The Music Man, Meredith Wilson

Best Soundtrack Album, Dramatic Picture Score Or Original Cast:
Gigi, (Original Motion Picture  Soundtrack) André Previn


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MORE 1958 PRICES
Ford Cars $ 1,967 - $3,929
Chef Boy-Ar-Dee Spaghetti, 15.5 oz Can $.19
Swiss Steak, Pound $.75
Gallon of Milk $.42
Uncle Ben's Rice, 14 lb Box $.14
Nathan's Hot Dog $.25
Gas Range $ 98.00
5-piece Kitchenette Set $ 298.00
3-piece Bedroom Set $ 139.00
Dinnerware Set for 12 - 101 pieces $ 27.88 - $ 42.99
Air Conditioner $128.00

Refrigerator $118.00
Men's Necktie $ .89 - $ 1.59
Men's Shoes - Bostonian $ 14.95 - $ 20.00
Sears Craftsman Lawn mower $ 66.66 - $ 89.95
Lawn Sprinkler/hose - 20 ft. $ .66
Men's Summer Suit $ 29.95 - $ 45.95
Newspaper $ .07
Women's Haircut $ 2.00
Auto Mechanic - hour $ 2.25
Barber - week $ 89.00
Engineer - year $ 6,000 - 15,000
Executive Secretary - week $ 80.00
Experienced Typist - week $ 60.00
Assembler - electro/mechanical - week $ 100.00
1958 TV
Gunsmoke, Rawhide, The Life & Legend of Wyatt Earp, Wagon Train, General Electric Theatre, Tales of Wells Fargo, The Millionaire, What's My Line, Dragnet, Maverick, The Ford Show, The Red Skelton Show, American Bandstand - Dick Clark, December Bride, People are Funny, The Jack Benny Show, The Rifleman, Father Knows Best, The Danny Thomas Show, The Price is Right, Zane Grey Theater, I've Got a Secret, Name That Tune, The Gale Storm Show, The Restless Gun, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Sugarfoot, The Lineup, The Loretta Young Show, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Lassie, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Real McCoys, Zorro, Have Gun Will Travel, Perry Mason, The Jackie Gleason Show, The Texan, Cheyenne, Peter Gunn, The Lawman, This Is Your Life, Twenty-One, The $64,000 Question, The Ann Sothern Show, The Perry Como Show, You Bet Your Life, The Amos and Andy Show.
1958 SPORTS
This year in sports, New York defeated Milwaukee 4 to 3 in the seventh game to win the World Series and basketball star Wilt Chamberlain signs with the Harlem Globetrotters. In football, the Colts defeat the Giants 23-17 to win the NFL title and Jimmy Byran won the Indy 500 with an average speed of 133.8 mph. The Brazilian soccer team defeated Sweden 5-2 to win the World Cup, and a horse named Tim Tam ridden by jockey I. Valenzuela, won the Kentucky Derby. In boxing, Floyd Patterson knocked out Roy Harris in the 12th round in Los Angeles to remain Heavyweight Champion.
1958 TOP MOVIES
The Bridge on the River Kwai; Peyton Place; Sayonara; No Time for Sergeants; The Vikings; Search for Paradise; South Pacific; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ; Raintree Country; Old Yeller; Vertigo; King Creole; The Blob; Dracula;
1958 SONGS
The Number One song of 1958 was Tommy Edwards' tune "It's All in the Game." This song was originally written in 1912 as an instrumental by Charles Gates Dawes, who would one day become Vice President of the United States under Calvin Coolidge. Back in 1958, other popular songs of that time were: At the Hop, Danny & The Juniors; Great Balls of Fire, Jerry Lee Lewis; All the Way, Frank Sinatra; Stood Up, Ricky Nelson; Don't, Elvis Presley; Short Shorts, Royal Teens; Sugartime, McQuire Sisters; Get a Job, The Silhouettes; Good Golly Miss Molly, Little Richard; 26 Miles, Four Preps; All I Have to Do is Dream, Everly Brothers; Tequila, The Champs; Sweet Little Sixteen, Chuck Berry; Catch a Falling Star, Perry Como; Lollipop, Cordettes; He's Got the Whole World in His Hands, Laurie London; Twilight Time, Platters; Hard Headed Woman, Elvis Presley; Splish Splash, Bobbie Darin; Purple People Eater, Sheb Wooley, Yackety Yak, Coasters; Little Star, Elegants; Rockin Robin, Boddie Day; To Know Him is to Love Him, Teddy Bears; Chipmunk Song, Chipmunks; Book of Love, Monotones; La Bamba, Richie Valens; Fever, Peggy Lee; Do you Wanna Dance, Bobby Freeman; Maybe, Chantels; The Strool, the Diamonds, Tears on My Pillow, Little Anthony & the Imperials; Maybe Baby, Buddy Holly and the Crickets; Jingle Bell Rock, Bobby Helms; Dede Dinah, Frankie Avalon; Lonesome Town, Ricky Nelson; and, Who's Sorry Now, by Connie Francis.

The #1 selling album was the soundtrack from South Pacific.
POPULAR SINGERS
Elvis Presley; Billie Holiday; Ricky Nelson; Frank Sinatra; The Everly Brothers; Ella Fitzgerald; Jerry Lee Lewis
MOST POPULAR BOOKS - FICTION
Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak; Anatomy of a Murder, Robert Traver; Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov; Around the World with Auntie Marne, Patrick Dennis; From the Terrace, John O'Hara; Eloise at Christmastime, Kay Thompson; Ice Palace, Edna Ferber; The Winthrop Woman, Anya Seton; The Enemy Camp, Jerome Weidman; Victorine, Frances Parkinson Keyes
MOST POPULAR BOOKS - NON FICTION
Kids Say the Darndest Things! Art Linkletter; Twixt Twelve and Twenty, Pat Boone; Only in America, Harry Golden; Masters of Deceit, Edgar Hoover; Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Jean Kerr; Better Homes and Gardens Salad Book, Meredith Publishing Co.
The New Testament in Modern English, translated, J. P. Phillips; Aku-Aku, Thor Heyerdahl; Dear Abby, Abigail Van Buren; Inside Russia Today, John Gunther.
1958 RE-CAP
45 million households have TV's; The Jolly Green Giant appears on TV with less than stellar results! In his first incarnation he looks like a monster which scares kids. So they lightened him up and added "Ho, ho, ho" and the lilting "Good things from the garden" song; Modern consumer credit is born. The American Express Company introduces a charge card meant to compete with the successful Diners Club card. The Bank of American introduces the BankAmericard, which will become the Visa card; Crest toothpaste inaugurates the "Look, Ma! No cavities!" ad campaign; Eighteen-year-old Frank Carney sees a story in the Saturday Evening Post about the "pizza fad" among teenagers and college students. With $600 borrowed from his mother, he opens the first Pizza Hut in Wichita, Kansas; On the Air! You'd find 3,156 AM radio, 537 FM radio and 492 TV Stations; 31.3% of all domestic passenger travel was by railroad; 27.7% by bus; and 38% by air; 30.6% of all advertising dollars are spent on newspapers - 13.3% on TV; Sweet n' Low is introduced as an artificial Sweetener, using saccharin instead of sugar. Sweet'N Low received U.S. trademark patent no. 1,000,000; Nelson Mandela weds Winnie Madikizela; UP & International News Service merge into United Press International; The first ever Grammy Awards!; Sterophonic recordings, which use two separately recorded channels of sound to recreate a sense of space, come into commercial use. Now this is progress! Friskees introduces the first dry cat food; Japans new Datsun (Model 211) cars begin shipping to the US but only 52 will sell; Pope Pius XII declares Saint Clare of Assisi patron saint of television. Her placement on the television set is said to guarantee good reception; Right after that, Pope Pius XII died; Harry Winston, Inc. donates the 45.52 carat Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution; This is the peak year for drive-in movies with 4,063 outdoor screens nationwide; In the worst recession since World War II, nearly 5.5 million people are out of work; 400 million frozen pot pies are sold in the US (there's a statistic you won't see just anywhere); Bill and Mark Richards of Dana Point, CA, invented the first skateboard. They attached rollerskate wheels to a square board and sold them at their Val Surf Shop for $8 each; The first domestic jet-airline passenger service is begun by National Airlines between New York City and Miami; Rice-a-Roni, The San Francisco Treat, is introduced; 9,000 scientists of 43 nations petition UN for nuclear test ban; Prime commercial paper (4 to 6 mos) was at 2.46%; In New York City a commercial loan ran 4.12%; Pulitzer prize awarded to James Agee for his book Death in the Family; Air Force Academy opens in Colorado Springs, CO. The all male facility won't go co-ed unto 1976; Mao Tse tung start "Great leap forward" movement in China; Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate go on their killing spree; the nuclear submarine Nautilus traverses the North Pole under the polar icecap; the National Association of Broadcasters bans subliminal ads; there is a 55.9% business failure rate; the Chevrolet Impala is introduced; Cocoa Krispies breakfast food is introduced by the Kellogg Company - it's 45.9% sugar; Cocoa Puffs is introduced by General Mills - it contains 43% sugar; Dr Ake Senning installs the first pacemaker; American will import 430,808 passenger cars; there are 36,981 motor vehicle related deaths; while in the air, there were 8 accidents resulting in 125 fatalities; unemployment is 6.8%; U.S. GNP (Gross National Product) is $468.3 billion.

Civil Rights - Dr. Martin Luther King published his first book, "Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story". While at a book signing in Harlem, he is stabbed in the chest by Izola Ware Curry; NAACP Youth Council begin sit-ins at Oklahoma City Lunch counters; an employee of the Bethel Baptist Church at Birmingham, Ala., finds a dynamite bomb beside the church on June 29th and moves it to an open area where it explodes without injuring anyone. The church's pastor, Fred L. Shuttlesworth, is a civil rights leader and authorities will arrest a Ku Klux Klan leader in 1977 on charges of trying to blow up the black church; the U.S. Civil Rights Commission swears in six members on January 3rd, and begins operations.