The Material Fifties was a special installation devoted to 1950s mass culture presented in conjunction with the special exhibition The Tumultuous Fifties: A View from the New York Times Photo Archives from January to April 2002.

Objects featured included original recordings of the era; a rare cherry-red 1952 Harley; a Coke machine; posters advertising cigarettes and fast cars; highway signs; first editions of Beat fiction and poetry; Wonder Woman, Mad, and Atomic War comic books; U.S. government Cold War pamphlets; and pulp fiction.

This installation provides a tangible complement to the black-and-white world represented in the photographs from the New York Times Photo Archives.