The 1960s

The Election of 1960 Richard Nixon (R) vs. John F. Kennedy (D) Television debates

Election of 1960 Why did Kennedy win?

The Kennedy White House Camelot

New Frontier More funding for education Aid the civil rights movement Committed to the Space Race Environmental cleanup Clean Air Act (1963) Foreign aid Peace Corps – volunteers serving internationally Alliance for Progress – focused on Latin American nations Tariff reductions

Assassination November 22, 1963

Warren Commission Conspiracy ? Magic Bullet

Lyndon B. Johnson War on Poverty 40 million under poverty line “hand up, not a hand out”

Aiding Poverty Equal Opportunity Act Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Head Start – free kindergarten to families that qualify Community Action VISTA

Election of 1964 Beginning of LBJ’s Great Society 88th Congress Democrats dominated Voting Rights Act – 1965 Literacy tests illegal for voter registration Medical Care Act – 1965 Medicare – aid to elderly Medicaid – aid to disabled or lower income families Less immigration restriction

Culture of the 1960s US Population – 177,830,000 Avg. salary - $4743 Minimum wage - $1.00/hr Continuation of the 1950s Conformity – “keeping up with the Joneses” Consumerism Television

Mass Culture Music Motown British invasion Classic rock

counterculture

Changing Culture Why? Boredom from the 1950s Rock-n-roll Mass culture – US taking on one identity Rebellion against conformity Baby boomers becoming teenagers (Rebel Without a Cause) Beatniks (“Beats”) – anti-conformists, more of an intellectual culture of questioning the status quo

Allen Ginsberg Leader of the Beat Generation Stood against materialism, war, sexism Capitalism and Conformity = destruction of self Ginsberg referred to his parents, in a 1985 interview, as "old-fashioned delicatessen philosophers". His father, Louis Ginsberg, was a published poet and a high school teacher. Ginsberg's mother, Naomi Livergant Ginsberg, was affected by a psychological illness that was never properly diagnosed. She was also an active member of the Communist Party and took Ginsberg and his brother Eugene to party meetings. Ginsberg later said that his mother "made up bedtime stories that all went something like: 'The good king rode forth from his castle, saw the suffering workers and healed them.'" Of his father Ginsberg said "My father would go around the house either reciting Emily Dickinson and Longfellow under his breath or attacking T. S. Eliot for ruining poetry with his 'obscurantism.' I grew suspicious of both sides."

Timothy Leary Harvard Psilocybin Project

Youth International Party (Yippies) Abbie Hoffman against the “establishment”, anti conformity and Vietnam “Steal this Book” Pigasus 1968

Hippies

The Flower Children Known for Style Music Homelessness Drug culture

Haight-Ashbury Hippy neighborhood in San Francisco, CA

Woodstock - 1969