You Might Never Need to Know This...

In the 3rd season of the AMC series “Mad Men”, ad executive Don Draper makes a midnight snack with his daughter Sally at their suburban home in Ossining, a suburb of New York City. About to crack an egg, Don holds it up to the light and peers through it.

“Are you making sure there’s no chick in there?” Sally asks.

“I am.”

Sally then tells her dad about a class trip to a farm where they learned why a chick would never hatch from an egg: “Because it came from the store!” she says. Don presumably knew this and checked his egg out of habit, because where he grew up an egg could indeed contain the beginnings of a chick.

I loved this scene because it illustrates one of the show’s biggest themes: America’s mid-century conversion from naïve agricultural (or Old World immigrant) society to a sophisticated urban consumerist culture. Don’s secretary/co-worker Peggy leaves behind an insular Catholic family in the depths of Brooklyn to work in Manhattan. Don grew up in poverty in rural Pennsylvania, and his father was killed when he was kicked in the head by a horse. Both flee their histories to remake themselves in the city.

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