“Learning to Lead our Lives”
What was US society like in the 1950s and 1960s?
Skill: Knowledge and Understanding, Communication
NGfL: USA
All images/ cartoons are believed to be in the public domain. Many of the images were sourced
from the internet encyclopaedia wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org
Who are these celebrities?
Sinatra video clip
Hendrix video clip
Click here to watch Sinatra
singing….
What are the differences between
them and their music?
What was life like in
America at this time ?
http://www.archive.org/details/Designfo1956
Key features of
society…
Theme
1950s
1960s
Young people &
the youth
movement
Women's roles
Affluent society
Task: Using the images from the following slides record the
changes that occurred from the 50s to the 60s
The role of women in the 1950s
Life magazine described the
ideal woman as being “a
thirty-two year old pretty
and popular suburban
housewife, mother of four,
who had married at the age
of sixteen, an excellent
wife, mother, hostess,
volunteer, and home
manager who makes her
own clothes, hosts dozens
of dinner parties each year,
sings in the church choir,
works with the school PTA
and Campfire girls and is
devoted to her husband.
www.cnn.com
Extract from Life Magazine
1956
www.mypimlico.uk
The role of women in the 1960s
By the mid 1960s
women had begun to
challenge the
traditional roles that
had been laid out for
them by society. Betty
Friedan encouraged
women to marry later
in their lives, get an
education first. While
single working women
were free to pursue
their lives in relative
freedom, many single
young women were in
Civil
Rights Act 1964:
college.
forbid discrimination
on grounds of race
and gender
www.ku.edu
Birth control pill
Education
http://www.brockport.edu/~library1/suny50.htm
The symbolic act of tossing those clothes
into the trash can was meant as a
serious critique of the modern beauty
culture, of valuing women for their looks
instead of their whole self. "Going
braless" felt like a revolutionary act …
rebelling against the practice of our
mother's generation…
www.womenshistoryabout.com
Betty Friedan
and Feminism
Affluent society in the 1950s
White goods
www.andrewweb.merelis.com
www.members.tripod.com
Pontiac Cars
T.V
American
suburbs
Affluent society in the 1960s
It was the dawn of the space age with more advanced
American rockets soaring off into the sky every year
and the first man landing on the moon in 1969. Fast
cars, fast food, instant suburbs, and the American way
of life were sold to the rest of the world on television,
in magazines, and in the movies.
The baby boomers were growing up fast, their tastes
and styles dominating, as only teenagers can, the daily
lives of their parents. As the richest and best-educated
generation in history, they were destined to inherit the
American prosperity and culture their parents had
worked so hard to build.
Kemmons
Wilson
started the
‘Holiday
Inn’ chain
www.cnn.com
Hire
Purchase
http://www.darrenfleeger.com/shopping_mall_large.
jpg
Shopping malls
Young people and youth movements in
the 1950s
www.cnn.com
James Dean starred in
‘Rebel Without a Cause’
a film about a young
man who became very
disillusioned with society.
Dean represented all
that was rebellious:
smoking, wearing
leather etc.
Beatniks were ‘dropouts’.
Many teenagers turned to
sex drugs and rejected
their parents morality.
Elvis Presley exploded onto
the scene with songs like
Jailhouse Rock. In 1956
Elvis sold 10 million records.
Parents and teachers were
worried about his sensual
dancing and sneer. Millions
of teenagers copied his
look.
Young people and youth movements in
the 1960s
Many people turned against the lifestyle
and strict expectations of their parents.
Some turned to radical politics,long hair,
hippie clothes, mystical religions, drugs
and loses sexual behaviour. They were
non-violent and angry about the Vietnam
War (Make Love Not War). Many were
middle class students who rejected getting
a well-paid job.
www.sfgate.com
Hippies
Woodstock was an
enormous outdoor music
festival organised to
protest against the
Vietnam War. This
followed other protests
by Hippies at Universities
across America and
marches on Washington.
www.hiphappy.com
Janis Joplin
Historical ‘just a minute…’
Talk for one minute without hesitation,
deviation or repetition about the following topics:
Hippies
Women in the 1950s
Women in the 1960s
The Affluent society