The 1950s Statistics
By the Numbers
Rank of Eisenhower, in a 1962 poll of historians asked to rank the best presidents: 22
Rank in 1982: 9
Rank in 2009: 8
Number of viewers who watched Eisenhower's Inaugural Address: 29 million
Number who watched I Love Lucy the night before: 44 million
Retail record sales in 1954: $182 million
Sales in 1960: $520 million
Number of drive-in movie screens in the U.S. in 1958, the peak of the business: 4,063
Percent of persons arrested in 1959 who were under the age of 25: 60
Number of years in a row in which Eisenhower was the most "admired man in the world," according to Gallup polls: 7
Population of the U.S. in 1950: 151 million
Population in 1960: 179 million
Spending on advertising in 1950: $5.7 billion
In 1960: $11.9 billion
Number of television sets in the U.S. in 1946: 7,000
Number in 1960: 50 million