Though Revolutionary Road is not a historical novel per se, it is a work of realism, specifically post-war American realism. Thus, a rudimentary knowledge of the important historical, political, and cultural aspects of the 1950s is helpful in understanding the pressures placed upon the characters.

The decade of the 1950s is often viewed as a Golden Age in American history. The US emerged triumphant from World War II, its economy had fully recovered from the Great Depression and the war, and business was booming. People became more affluent than ever before and there were great strides in technological innovations. This was also the age when the suburbs as we understand them were truly created. People were moving out of the cities looking for standalone homes or toward the cities from the countryside for work; these two demographics both met in the suburbs. With more buying power than ever before, an increasing number of people could purchase homes for the first time.

However, this rise in wealth and prosperity was also coupled with the frightening reality of atomic warfare and the Cold War. The Korean War was fought between 1951-1953. Politically, a red scare was on the rise in the form of McCarthyism, resulting in a general sense of paranoia about being labeled a communist.