The Age of Optimism
The Post-War Era opened on a new, dramatically altered geopolitical landscape. "America stood astride the world like a colossus," wrote British historian Robert Payne.
Half the world, anyway. As Churchill observed, an Iron Curtain had fallen across Europe — and soon after, much of the rest of the world. Decades of "Cold War" between communist dictatorships and the Free World championed by America ensued, sometimes flaring into vicious, internecine "hot" wars in places like Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan. And through it all, the dark threat of The Bomb, the "unthinkable" catastrophe of nuclear war and "Mutually Assured Destruction" rumbled in the background of politics and the public mind.
Meanwhile, babies boomed. The American economy and its labor force were demilitarized. Industry retooled and began producing automobiles and household appliances in place of tanks and fighter-bombers. In fits and starts, America worked its way from wartime austerity to levels of mass prosperity unprecedented in world history.
The oil industry was fueling America's optimism with cheap and plentiful energy, helping to create what author Daniel Yergin described as Hydrocarbon Man. He was the liberated worker-consumer who could commute easily from his job to a new home in the suburbs. First came cars, then highways and interstates. And then, inevitably, suburbs –– and a new landscape for America.
Gas wars further supported the mobile lifestyle, as pricing gyrated unbelievably from one station to the next on a daily basis.
As Helmerich & Payne moved through the 1950s, changes in the industry and in the company were also proceeding at a dynamic pace.
By 1954, the industry was in the midst of another severe slump. Stacked rigs were costing Helmerich & Payne $100,000 a month. The old hands who had been through the perpetual feast-and-famine cycles were realizi
ng times were changing. The highs were not so high, and the lows were lower and longer. Only the smart, the efficient, and the tough were going to survive.
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