The Museum of Everyday Living · The Decade Tour

The Decade Rooms

Eleven rooms, one century and change — each decade told from the kitchen, the parlor, and the gadget shelf. Walk them in order, or open any door.

1920s

The Twenties — The House Gets a Cord

Radio nights, jazz on the dial, and the first electric everything.

Enter the room →
1930s

The Thirties — Making Do

The Depression decade: thin soup, thick ingenuity, and the New Deal lamp.

Enter the room →
1940s

The Forties — The House Goes to War

Ration books, victory gardens, and the kitchen as home front.

Enter the room →
1950s

The Fifties — Push-Button Living

The television takes the throne; the suburb takes the family.

Enter the room →
1960s

The Sixties — The Living Room Watches the World

The whole decade happens on television: the march, the moon, the war.

Enter the room →
1970s

The Seventies — Operators Are Standing By

Gas lines, shag carpet, and the gadget that learns to sell itself.

Enter the room →
1980s

The Eighties — The Gadget Goes Personal

The Walkman decade: private soundtracks, plastic everything, and the VCR clock blinking twelve.

Enter the room →
1990s

The Nineties — The Beige Box in the Den

Dial-up screech, the flip phone, and the last analog childhood.

Enter the room →
2000s

The Two-Thousands — Everything Shrinks Toward the Pocket

The iPod, the flip phone, and then 2007 - the year the room changed.

Enter the room →
2010s

The Twenty-Tens — The Glass Rectangle

The great consolidation: one screen swallows the shelf.

Enter the room →
2020s

The Twenty-Twenties — The Listening House

The house answers back; the decade is still being written.

Enter the room →
← Back to the tour desk