When a Single-Speaker AM Radio Cost the Equivalent of $780

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To a lot of Americans today, 1959 seems like it was a pretty good year. Oh, sure, the country was just pulling out of a nasty recession that killed Edsel and DeSoto, but the cars looked outrageously great and we were between quagmire wars in the Far East (though another was just starting to heat up).

If you're on the right end of the political spectrum now, 1959 was a time before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Griswold v. Connecticut, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and Miranda v. Arizona changed the country in ways not to your liking. And if you're on Team Left today, 1959 is close to the peak of union membership in America and a year when the very richest Americans had a 91% bite taken by the federal government.

Something for everyone, right? Unfortunately, 1959 was an absolutely horrible year if you didn't have a ton of money yet liked to hear music in your car, as this page from the 1959 Pep Boys catalog makes clear.