IT WAS THE YEAR THE MUSIC DIED AND THE YEAR TWO NEW U.S. STATES WERE BORN
By Rhonda Reinhart
In this edition of “Looking Back,” we time travel to 1959 – the year we watched Barbie revolutionize the toy industry, the Xerox 914 transform the document-copying business, and America welcome two new states. But 1959 was not without its losses, too. It was also the year we said goodbye to the likes of Buddy Holly, Billie Holiday, Frank Lloyd Wright and George Reeves. Below, we look back at some of the year’s major moments in music, movies, sports and more.
MUSIC
“The Winter Dance Party” of 1959 was supposed to rave on for 24 days through the Midwest, beginning January 23 in Milwaukee. But Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (aka “The Big Bopper”) would play only 11 shows. On February 3, 1959, the young hit-makers were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, on their way to a show in Moorhead, Minnesota. It was The Day the Music Died. The only known poster promoting the ill-fated tour’s February 1 concert at the Riverside Ballroom in Green Bay, Wisconsin, sold for $250,000 in a November 2023 Heritage auction.
SPORTS
Selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the ninth round of the 1955 NFL draft, Johnny Unitas was deemed the worst of four quarterbacks competing for three roster spots and fell back on construction work to make ends meet, playing quarterback on the weekends for a local semi-pro team paying him $6 a game. But when a teammate urged Unitas to tag along for a tryout with the Baltimore Colts, the young QB began an era of unprecedented gridiron dominance. This blue durene jersey, which realized $96,000 in a February 2018 Heritage auction, has been matched to one of Johnny U’s greatest games through photographs snapped at Baltimore Memorial Stadium on December 27, 1959, as Unitas led his Colts to a 31-to-16 victory over the New York Giants.
COMICS
The Green Lantern might have made his first appearance in 1940, in All-American Comics No. 16. But the superhero got a Silver Age revamp 19 years later when DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz premiered a new version of the character in 1959’s Showcase No. 22. The Green Lantern would appear in two more issues of Showcase before getting his own self-titled comic in 1960. This copy of Showcase No. 22, graded NM- 9.2 by Certified Guaranty Company, sold for $149,375 in a November 2017 Heritage auction.
U.S. HISTORY
On March 18, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii Admission Act of 1959 into law. Three months later, the citizens of Hawaii voted to accept statehood, and on August 21, seven months after Alaska became a state, Eisenhower signed the official proclamation admitting Hawaii as the 50th state in the United States. This 1959 Hawaii Statehood Medal commemorating the occasion realized $21,600 in a January 2024 Heritage auction.
SPACE EXPLORATION
In April 1959, six months after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration opened for business, NASA announced its first astronauts. Known as the Mercury Seven, the group consisted of Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton, all of whom went on to lay the groundwork for America’s space program. This photograph, showing the astronauts inspecting a Mercury Atlas model, was taken at Langley Research Center shortly after the men were named as NASA’s first space travelers. The photo, which sold for $35,000 in a November 2021 Heritage auction, is signed by all seven astronauts.
MOVIES
With a budget of more than $6 million, Sleeping Beauty – released on January 29, 1959 – was Walt Disney’s most expensive animated feature to date. The movie debuted to mixed reviews and lackluster box-office results, but over the decades, the story of Princess Aurora and the wicked fairy Maleficent has become a beloved classic. This hand-inked and hand-painted production cel from Sleeping Beauty, featuring Maleficent in her castle, realized $21,600 in a June 2023 Heritage auction.
ILLUSTRATION ART
Artist Amos Sewell was known for his sweet depictions of childhood, a skill that served him well as one of the go-to illustrators for The Saturday Evening Post. In Back to School – which Sewell painted for the cover of the Post’s September 12, 1959, issue – the kids head off to school as a Mad Men-era mom begins to enjoy the welcome peace of a now-quiet house. The painting sold for $112,500 in a May 2019 Heritage auction.
RHONDA REINHART is editor of Intelligent Collector.