American Cultural History 1920 – 1929

Early modernism in art, design, and architecture, which began at the turn of the century, continued through to 1940 and the war. In cities, Skyscrapers (first in 1870s) were erected and hundreds of architects competed for the work. The first successful design was the Woolworth Building in New York.   In Chicago, the Wrigley building was designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White while the Chicago Tribune Tower was designed by Howells and Hood.  The Art Deco design was exemplified by the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings (depression projects – the Empire State Building completed early 1931.) Frank Lloyd Wright was prolific during this period, designing homes in California and in Japan.  The term Art Deco (1925-1950) is derived from the International Art Exposition in Paris in 1925.  In the 20s and 30s art of that style was referred to as modern.  Designers included Karl (Kem) Weber and Eliel Saarinen.

Art movements included the modernist movement [George Luks, Charles W. Hawthorne], abstract expressionism [Willem de Kooning], surrealism, and dadaism [Georgia O’Keeffe, Morgan Russell, Man Ray],  realism [ Thomas Hart Benton, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, Leon Kroll] and landscape [Aldro Thompson Hibbard, N.C. Wyeth].   Horace Pippin is considered one of America’s foremost primitive or naive painters.  The best museums featured shows by these important artists.
Web sites

• World Wide Art Resources from the Metropolitan Museum of Art    | Searchable by artists, movement, galleries, museums, architecture.
• 1925 The Year in Review   |  Texas.net Museum of Art – an online art museum.

Books

Following WWI (the war to end all wars), talented young authors, some expatriates in France, wrote about their feelings of disillusionment and alienation. A sense of rebellion developed and the victorian idea of decency was considered hypocritical.  Writers began to write frankly about sexuality. Three important groups during this period were:

 The Algonquin Round Table, also called THE ROUND TABLE, informal group of American literary men and women who met daily for lunch on weekdays at a large round table in the Algonquin Hotel in New York City during the 1920s and ’30s. Many of the best-known writers, journalists, and artists in New York City were in this group. Among them   were Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott (author of the quote “All the things I really like are immoral, illegal, or fattening”, Heywood Broun, Robert Benchley,Robert Sherwood, George S. Kaufman, Franklin P. Adams, Marc Connelly, Harold Ross, Harpo Marx, and Russell Crouse.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Children’s Newbery Book Award winners of the twenties: In 1921 Frederic G.Melcher had the Newbery Medal designed by René Paul Chambellan. The bronze medal has the winner’s name and the date engraved on the back. The American Library Association Executive Board in 1922 delegated to the Children’s Librarians’ Section the responsibility for selecting the book to receive the Newbery Medal.

• A period of slang: slang used for “girls or women”:  a broad, a bunny, a canary (well, one who could sing), a charity girl (one who was sexually promiscuous), a dame, a doll, cat’s meow, cat’s whiskers
• Jazz age jargon included: Joe College – better yet a Joe Yale – or a Joe Zilch , jazzbo, jellybean, blind date, upchuck, jazz babies, pos-a-loot-ly, and the real McCoy.
• Games included mah-jngg, ouija boards, and crossword puzzles
• Endurance races of all sorts gained popularity and included  Marathons and flagpole sitting
• Dance marathons – began in 1923 and really became the rage.
• Harry Houdini was the great escape of the 1920s.
• American Baseball!  and other sports were very popular.
• Miss America contest began in Atlantic City in 1921. Margaret Gorman (16 years old) was the first winner with measurements of 30-25-32
• Dance crazes included the Charleston,  the Black Bottom, and the Shimmy.
• Dining at Sardi’s.

• Early 20th Century Fashion | Links to world wide fashion at the turn of the century. Good ones..
• The Flapper Culture and Style | The Jazz Age.
•  The Roaring 1920s  |  A collection of links to more information.

Men: Clothing for men became a bit more conservative in the 1920s.  Trousers widened to as wide as 24 inches at the bottomes.  Knickers grew in width and length and were called ‘plus fours’.  White linen was popular during the summer.  And during the winter, an outstanding American coat was popular – the racoon coat.  These were very popular with the college men. The slouch hat was made of felt and could be rolled up and packed into a suitcase. A wool suit was only $15.85. Garters were 40 cents. All this and a 12″ long cigarette holder. Cigarettes were 10 cents a pack.

Women:  By 1921 the longer skirt was back – some long and uneven at the bottom.  The short skirt was popular by 1925.  This period was called the Flapper Age.  No bosom, no waistline, and hair nearly hidden under a cloche hat.  This decade began the present hey-dey for the manufacturing of cosmetics.  Powder, lipstick, rouge, eyebrow pencil, eye shadow, colored nails.  They had it all!  AND pearls.

This period marked the spread of ready-to-wear fashion.  More women were wage earners and did not want to spent time on fittings.  The status symbol aspect of fashion was losing its importants as class distinctions were becoming blurred.  Inexpensive fashion became available.  America moved ahead of other countries  mass production of contemporary style clothing for women.  America even produced several designers of this fashion including Jane Derby.

Thanks to Henry Ford and mass production, one could buy a ford for $290.  The Volstead Act became effective Jan 16, 1920 and made the sale of a drink containing as much as one half-ounce of alcohol unlawful. This one unsuccessful act brought about much of the flavor of the Jazz Age or Roaring Twenties as we know them. This was a period of  prohibition and intolerance, speakeasies, flappers, gangsters, and crime. Hootch was supplied by Dutch Schultz and Al Capone.  The Nineteenth Amendment had passed the previous year allowing women the right to vote in national elections.  At the beginning of the decade the US was paralyzed by the grip of the red scare . Racial tensions were high and quotas were set for immigrants coming into America. The Ku Klux Klan was very active during this period. The decade was a wonderful one for all of the arts and literature in America. Technology grew – the country shrunk – as popularity of automobiles, radios, and movies exploded. Buying on credit or installments was an outcome of the industrial age. In the fall of 1929, the New York Stock Exchange was more active than it had ever been. Economists predicted a permanent high plateau. By October 24, 1929, Black Thursday, the stock market crashed and panic broke out. Banks closed. The nation stayed in this depression through the end of the twenties and most of the thirties.  Check out the Regulatory environment of the 1920s

•  Illinois Trail – 1920s  |  Excellent coverage of the decade, from speakeasies to politics.
• 1920s timeline   |  News arranged chronologically.  Very helpful.
• American History from 1860 to the present | Web Guide for this period.
• American Memory Project   | By the Library of Congress, digitized library of photographs
• Turn of the Century From Reconstruction to WWI – from U.S. History Net.
• Historical Atlas of the 20th CenturyCollection of maps and stats of the 20th century.
• Two views of the 20s   | The Roaring 20s and the Boring 20s
• Industry and Technology | Pictures and essays from Library of Congress.
• Biography Index | Biography of over 15,000 famous persons.
• Genealogy Guide |; Helpful in locating past people, places and events

Library of Congress browsing areas :
E -F – U.S. History [ Remember, history covers all areas of the library.]

Important Historic and Cultural Events First Transatlantic flight: Charles Lindbergh , James Doolittle first one-day.  Air flying companies outbid the railroads for transporting the mail  (1926)  Business travelers took to the skies on scheduled coast to coast flights   Flappers, the Roaring Twenties, prohibition, speakeasies and bootleg whiskey  Gangland warfare,  Sing Sing, sawed-off shotguns, and Al Capone  Women vote for the first time in a national election (1920)  Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan debate evolution.  Ku Klux Klan is active in the south and midwest.  Burnings multiply  Admiral Byrd  | Flew over the North and South Poles during the 20s  Stock Market Crashed | October 24, 1929, bank closed – panic on Wall Street.

“There’s nothing surer; the rich get rich and the poor get poorer.” was considered the credo of the roaring 20s. Chicago was hot!  Harlem was hot with Jazz and the so-called “devil’s music’! (The Cotton Club was open to both whites and blacks and packed nightly.)  Jazz was hot! Bessie Smith sang the Blues. But most of the best-selling pop hits were sentimental ballads (I’ll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time and I’m Just Wild About Harry), old-fashioned walzes (Three O’Clock in the Morning and Deep in My Heart) , and nonsense songs (Yes, We Have No Bananas and I Wish That I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate).  Fanny Brice sang Rose of Washington Square and Second Hand Rose in the Ziegfeld Follies and Vaudeville.  The  Grand Ole Opry was transmitted on the radio from Nashville in 1925.

People were going places and singing about them; Chicago; That Toddling Town,  Carolina in the Morning, Way Down Yonder in New Orleans, California Here I Come (love YouTube), Alabamy Bound, and  Puttin’ on the Ritz by Irving Berlin. (featuring Clark Gable. Try the other versions, I just love Young Frankenstein. 🙂

Broadway reached an all time peak. Gershwin was hot with  An American in Paris,  Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein created Show Boat starring Helen Morgan. Fred and Adele Astaire opened in Funny Face.  There were 268 plays offered in New York City in the year 1927.  This compaired with 50-60 in the 1970s.

Radio networks began during this decade:  David Sarnoff’s NBC and William Paley’s CBS both went on the air.  Billboard Magazine published its first charts in 1928.  Bing Crosby and other crooner singing stars aided their sales with their live and recorded radio performances.

• American Popular Music 1900-1950   |  A look at the music and the times.
• Music in the Public Domain   |  Includes song lists – with links to some lyrics.
• Roaring Twenties Online Concert    |  Hear it weekly via your computer or radio
• Arts of the 20s    |  All of the arts of the 1920s

American Cultural History 1900 – 1909

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

• 76,000,000 Americans in 46 states   (by the end of the decade.)
• Policeman arrests woman for smoking in public 
• $46,000,000+ in the U.S. treasury 
• 8,000 cars – 10 miles of paved roads 
• 1900 – Auto deaths 96; lynchings 115 
• San Francisco Earthquake took 700 lives and cost over $4,000,000 in damage. 
• Average worker made $12.98/week for 59 hours 
• Life expectancy: 47.3 female, 46.3 male – 33.0 blacks 
• Essay – Birth of the 20th Century

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The purpose of this web & library guide is to help the user gain a broad understanding and appreciation for the culture and history of the 1900-1909 period in American history. In a very small way, this is a bibliographic essay. Though it is impossible to take you through the entire decade, we have attempted to find notable areas of interest and to select information that is still dear today, for example books we love – movies we watch – songs we sing – events we find interesting – people we admire. We want students to understand the world they live in today is connected to the happenings of the past.

To see the whole picture, we encourage users to browse all the way through this page and the other decades of the 20th century and then visit the suggested links for more information on the decade. As you can see, the best way to immerse oneself in a topic is to use both Internet and the library.  Some information is best viewed or read in books. This is where the real depth of information can be found. Then there is information that will be found only on the Internet. If you can add a valuable site or information to this page, we invite you to write.

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Thanks for the visit.  ENJOY!

ART & ARCHITECTURE

The early twentieth century marked an era of beginnings and endings. Americans had yet to make their mark on the art scene. Many American artists went to Europe to paint.   Realism and  Impressionism artists of this period included  Eakins, Prendergast, and the famous portraitist Sargent [self-portrait to the left]. Painters like Winslow Homer, Charles Russell, and Frederic Remington painted America’s life and landscape.

Early modernists included Max Weber and Arthur Dove. The Ash Can School or Gritty City Art (urban realism) made its  way onto the scene in works like George Luks “Hester Street”,  John Sloan’s “The Wake of the Ferry”, Edward Hopper’s “The El Station,” and George Bellows’ “Penn Station”.  Charles Dana Gibson designed the Gibson Girls and these were published in McCall’s and Ladies Home Journal.  Many of these pictures were framed and hung in homes throughout the country.  George Eastman developed the lightweight, easy to use Kodak box and Alfred Stieglitz became the most renowned photographer of the period.

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Frank Lloyd Wrightdesigned his beautiful low and straight lined homes. Pennsylvania Station and the Biltmore Estate and Vanderbilt 50-room New York City dwelling were designed by Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead, and White in New York. This decade marked the ending of Art Nouveau (1851 – 1914) and Modern Architecture (check out Craftsman style) . Americans began to recognize their past.  The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorized the president to declare national monuments to be historic landmarks.   New and popular Arts and Crafts Movement was created and gained enormous success during this decade.  Late in the decade, people could buy homes from Sears Catalog of Modern Homes .

Books
Library of Congress browsing areas are:
    N – NX,  this area includes all forms of art and art history.

REF N6504.N67 1995 North American Women Artists Biographical information – entries up to 1 page in length. N6505.H64 1997 American Visions:  The Epic History of Art in AmericaExcellent historic look at arts and artists.  Many illustrations.REF NF1390.P53 The Dictionary of 20th Century DesignBrief entries on design and designers. NA 680.F72 1983 Modern Architecture 1885-1919 By decade, world architecture.  Photos, biographies of architecture.

Web Sites

BOOKS & LITERATURE

During this decade newspapers changed to the four-column, tabloid style paper in 1900. Two newspaper magnates, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, turned producing newspapers into a war when they began adding special sections including sp

orts and multiple frame cartoon strips. The Christian Science Monitor was founded in 1908.

Many of the novelists produced ‘happiness novels’ because the women were the greater readers of fiction.  Best selling authors produced many fine books we still enjoy;  L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful World of Oz, Mary Johnson’s To Have and To Hold, Jack London’s Call of the Wild, Alice Hegan Rice’s Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, and Owen Wister’s The Virginian.   Willa Cather,  [Pictured at left] Zane Grey,  William Dean Howells,   and Carl Sandberg were publishing.  As in other decades, books reflected the times in which people lived. Notable books covered topics like big business, urban problems, racism, women’s issues and worker’s problems.

• History of Woman Suffrage, 1881-1902 | Susan B. Anthony
• Sister Carrie (1900)  | Theodore Dreiser
• Frank Norris (1901) | Frank Norris
• The Souls of Black Folk (1903)  | W.E.B. Du Bois
• The Shame of the Cities (1904)  | Lincoln Steffens
• The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904) | Ida Tarbell
• The Jungle (1906) | Upton Sinclair
• The Great American Fraud (1906)  | Samuel Hopkins Adams

Books Covering the Period 

REF 1003.2.C66 1993 American Literacy 4-6 page essays on 50 books that defineAmerican culture.

REF Z1219.C96 1905 (annual) Book Review Digest Indexes and abstracts book reviews.  Use it to locate books written during the period and their reviews 

Links

EDUCATION

Philanthropists like Rockefeller, Phelps-Stokes, and others encouraged the education of Afro-Americans, but the South and part of the North continued the practice of racial segregation in education.  Mary McLeod Bethune, Educator opened the first Negro Girls School.

Books
Library of Congress browsing areas are:
    LA – LB,  this area includes books about education.  Use the catalog for further readings.

LA216.C73 1990 American Education :  The Metropolitan Experience 1876-1980

REF E173.A793 Annals of AmericaREF E174.D52  Dictionary of American History

E187.97.B34H35 1989  Mary McLeod Bethune 

LA11.L8 1972 Our Western Educational Heritage

FADS & FASHION

• Ping pong – invented in Britain in the 1890s it was an inexpensive mimic for lawn tennis, played by the rich.
• Speeding –  The element that made motoring sport was its dangerous speeds.  By 1906, 15 states had speed limits of 20 miles per hour.  Whee!
• The American Boy – 1900 Theodore Roosevelt, excellent article about the American Boy becoming the American Man.

 Books

REF E169.1.P19 1991  Panati’s Parade of Fads, Follies and Manias 

E 169.1.R7755 1964  Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America 

E169.1.S9733 1984  Culture as History : The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century 

The fashion of at the turn of the century was formal and romantic.  Men wore long slim trousers with a bit of fullness at the top.  A cap with goggles and a linen duster made up the motoring outfit.  Shoulders were broad and padded.   The lightweight, cotton knit shirt became popular for beach and sports wear.   Women wore the high, straight-front corset with long hips making the waist as small as possible.  Garters came in during this decade.  The skirt grew shorter to accommodate stepping onto the new automobiles and trolley. The popular hobble skirt measured a yard around, necessitating a knee-high slit at the side to make walking possible.   The high buttoned shoe lasted during this decade.  Bobbed hair made its appearance by the end of this decade.  Hats were large.  People were very clothes conscious and clothes were ‘costumy’.  All in all, a great decade to shop!   And, these styles led to those of the 1920s.

Costumes / Fashion

REF GT610.M46 1990  Men’s Fashion Illustrations from the Turn of the Century 

GT605.W5  1963 Five Centuries of American Costume

GT605.H35 1992 Common Threads: A Parade of American Clothing

• Early 20th Century Fashion    |  Links to world wide fashion at the turn of the century (Edwardian period).  Good ones.
• Twentieth Century Western Costumes    |  History / Timelines.
• American Vintage Clothing – 1900-1909

HISTORIC EVENTS AND TECHNOLOGY

Many changes during this time were brought about through advances in technology.  The turn of the century decade began one of transition and progress and is considered the first decade of materialism and consumerism.  The Industrial age was in full swing, mass production made prices fall to all time lows. Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs were read more than any book other than the bible. Teddy Bears became a fad started from a cartoon of a bear with Teddy Roosevelt  (Letter’s to his Children) (1902) and were mass produced in 1905. During this decade, safety in food processing and the environment became issues and laws were enacted. There were hundreds of job openings for a typewriter secretary.  Radio broadcasts and transportation, especially automobiles, ships, and trains, changed the way people viewed their world.

During this decade the Wright Brothers made their first flight at Kitty Hawk,  the first cross country auto trip took 52 days (love this site).  During this decade the Louisiana Purchase Exposition opened in St. Louis and people flocked to see it.  Cadillac was founded and Henry Ford  provided the first affordable car ($700-900). The Sunday drive became a national pastime.  The Jim Crow laws segregated national baseball (along with everything else) during this decade and Negro baseball teams remained until the early 60s..  

The Presidents were McKinley, [assassinated in 1901] Roosevelt, and Taft.

BOOKS

Library of Congress browsing areas :
     E -F – U.S. History   [ Remember, history covers all areas of the library.]

Events and Issues

• Urban population growth – The urban poor – Disease and filth.
• Big business  – Monopolies, extortion rates for goods & services – Industrial growth triples
• Big 3 companies -U.S. Steel, Standard Oil and American Tobacco 
• Child labor and workers issues
• Segregation worsened.  1904 – U.S. Supreme Court – African Americans denied the vote
• Transportation closed the travel gap across the country
• Carrie Nation begins her crusade against liquor
• The Food and Drug Act passed by Senate – 1906
• Environmental concerns   – Newlands Reclamation Act – 1902
• Public Health advances – Yellow Fever Commission – 1900
• Immigration issues  (Ellis Island)

  Links to Decade News.

•  www-VL | Excellent history links, by year.
• Turn of the Century    |  From Reconstruction to WWI
• The History Net   |  Searchable database for articles of interest.  Use your keywords.
• Historical Atlas of the 20th Century   |  Collection of maps and stats of the 20th century.
•  American Memory |  Pictures and essays from Library of Congress.
•  Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children   |  Illustrated by Roosevelt – great site to visit.
•  American History Guide – 1865- present   |  Kingwood College History Web Guide.
•  The History Channel   |  Speeches, people and places in American History.
• Timeline 1900-1909  |  timeline.
  

PEOPLE & PERSONALITIES

Links Biography Index | Biography of over 15,000 famous persons. Genealogy Guide | Helpful in locating past people, places and events.
Information Please Biographies | Search by keyword.

BOOKS

REF N7593,C93  Dictionary of American Portraits

REF E176.D563 Dictionary of American Biography

REF E176.W64 1897-1942 v.1 Who Was Who in America

MUSIC

Leisure time during the first decade of the twentieth century was spent at family get-togethers, baseball, picnics, long Sunday drives in the horse and carriage (or the new family car). In the evenings families gathered around the piano for a sing-along. Sheet music to popular songs sold over a million copies. Song pluggers carried pianos on their horse-drawn carts and performed for crowds who bought this music from these vendors or dime stores.  Barbershop Quartets harmonized on Saturday nights. Sweet Adeline was one of the most popular songs of the decade.  Nickelodeon was new hottest rage beginning in 1905.  The films were often naughty and men frequented these penny arcades. Nickel arcades came along soon where you paid a nickel to enjoy a short moving picture projected onto a screen. These were enormously popular.  There were 10,000 in operation within 3 years.

Music reflected the events changing in the world outside. In My Merry Oldsmobile, Come Josephine in My Flying Machine, and Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis announced the changes brought about by automobiles and airplanes.  Songs like Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home and The Darktown Strutters Ball echoed the racial prejudices of the period.

During this decade, radios brought music to the country and in 1903, the hand-cranked victrola went on the market and many Americans listened to recordings of opera stars. Broadway musicals flourished.   Irving Berlin and George M. Cohan opened on Broadway. The Ziegfeld Follies (later, but still Ziegfeld) began in 1907.  The waltz was replaced with ballroom dancing (Take time to watch the finale, too).  And my favorite, the beer songs like Under the Anheuser Bush. Many memorable  Vaudeville songs were performed at this time, including She’s Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage .  By the 1900s, Scott Joplin (Maple Leaf Rag) had made ragtime popular by bringing it out of the red-light district onto the legitimate stage.  AND, don’t forget the silent films.

BOOKS
Library of Congress browse area: M  –  Instrumental and vocal music     ML- Literature of Music

LINKS

American Popular Music 1900-1950   |  A look at the music and the times.  History of Ball Room Dancing   |   An essay on the topic – with photographs.
Mudcat Song Files  |  Wonderful collection of lyrics, searchable by keyword Brief Timeline of American Literature, Music, and Movies 1900-1909 | Tie it together. Froggies’ Novelty Song Files   |  First third of the century – songs & lyrics. 

THEATER & FILM

BOOKS

American Cultural History 1960 – 1969

1960 – 1969

The purpose of this web and library guide is to help the user gain a broad understanding and appreciation for the culture and history of the 1960s.   In a very small way, this is a bibliographic essay.  While there is no way we can link to everything, we have attempted to find areas of special interest and to select information that we hold dear today – movies we watch, songs we sing, events that move us, people we admire.

To see the whole picture, we encourage users to browse all the way through this page and then visit the suggested links for more information on the decade.  We feel the best way to immerse oneself in a topic is to use both Internet and the library.  The real depth of  information is best read in books.  More photographs, more information, more depth.   Then, there is information that will be found only on the Internet; a journal from someone, photographs like those on our pages.  If you can add a valuable site or information to this page, we invite you to write.   Thanks for the visit.  ENJOY!

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ART & ARCHITECTURE: Library of Congress browsing areas are: N-NX

ARCHITECTURE

Architecture in the sixties was undergoing  a refinement of Modernism and a move to an even more streamlined contemporary look. Tall buildings or skyscrapers created a distinctly American structural type.  Architects such as Philip Johnson, and  John Burgee, of Johnson & Burgee  (Kline Biological Tower), are some of the architects who designed office buildings which helped create a different look for the skylines of large cities.  Architects used light and space, for example the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library by I.M. Pei , to create buildings which were adapted for the activities which took place in them.  The influence of space and futuristic design was apparent in some public buildings like the  NASA complex at Houston, Texas .  Eero Saarinen created the  Memorial Arch in St. Louis, Missouri  in 1965.   Walter Gropius  designed the  Pan Am Building  (now called the Met Life Building) in 1963 with Pietro Belluschi and Emery Rothe & Sons.  Louis I. Kahn in his Kimbell Art Museum  of Ft. Worth and other buildings brought a feeling of austerity to American architecture.   Robert Venturi wrote  Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture  in 1966 and called for a change in the reductive simplicity of Modernism, beginning a protest in the late 60’s. Perhaps one of the most well known and influential architects whose career began to rise in the sixties is  I. M. Pei .  Peter Eisenman and  Frank O. Gehry  are architects who have become world famous for their distinctive designs and who began making names for themselves during this time.  Designers like Herman Miller left their mark on furnishings.    Sleek contemporary  styles like those by Verner Panton have translated  well into future decades of furniture.

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ART

As in the fifties, art in America of the sixties was influenced by the desire to move into the modern age or future which the space age seemed to forecast.  Major works by  Alexander Calder  (mobiles and sculpture) or Helen Frankenthaler  (non-representational art) showed a desire to escape from  details to interpret.  Artists wanted to inspire the viewer to leap into the unknown and experience art in their own way. A new artist who appeared was  Andy Warhol, a leading name in pop art.  Other forms evolving during this time were  assemblage art,  op art (or optical art) (ex. Vasarely ), or kinetic abstraction  (ex.  Marcel Duchamp ), environmental art   (ex. Robert Smithson ), and  pop art , (ex. David Hockney ).

BOOKS ON ART AND ARCHITECTURE:

• N 6490 .L792  Visual Arts in the Twentieth Century History of art in the 20th Century which includes all art forms and architecture. Set up chronologically by decade.
• N 6512.5 .P6 P63 Pop Art A Critical History Nicely covers this form of art and the artists
• N 6512.5 .M63 F56 Art Since 1940 strategies of being Chapters 9 and 10 cover the sixties. Chapter 11 gives info on the transition to the seventies
• N 6537 .W28 A4  America of the Sixties  Books like this one go into great depth on the career of a single artist and his work.

BOOKS & LITERATURE

Literature also reflected what was happening in the political arenas and social issues of America in the sixties. A book which described some of the turmoil of race relations as they affected people in America,  Harper Lee’s Pulitzer prize winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about a small southern town and social distinctions between races.  Writing about race and gender, women of color like Gwendolyn Brooks, Maya Angelou  and Margaret Walker Alexander helped create new insights on feminism as it developed in America. Sylvia Plath   (The Bell Jar), and Mary McCarthy  (The Group) spoke of women in roles outside those of the happy wife and mother of the fifties.  Women like Betty Friedan, author of  The Feminine Mystique , and Gloria Steinem , led the way for many women.  Disillusionment with the system was the theme of books like Catch-22 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Marshall McLuhan, author of books on communications and the scope of the “global village,” popularized his belief that mass communications were a driving force in the development of modern society in works like The Gutenberg Galaxy  and  Understanding Media .  The Peter Principle, by Laurence Peter, came to epitomize incompetence. In 1963, Maurice Sendak  published Where the Wild Things Are, about a boy named Max who must face some of his childhood fears.  This controversial book with its illustrations, also by  Sendak, won the Caldecott Medal in 1964 and has become a classic in children’s literature.

LINKS

 The Sixties Project

BOOKS: Library of Congress browsing areas include:  PS –  American Literature; Z – Books and Libraries

• E173.A793 Annals of America Vol 18 contains essays by the important writers of the time, including excerpts from books listed above.
• REF Z1003.2. C66 1993  American Literacy  4-6 page essays on 50 books that define the American culture, includes eight books from this decade.
• REF Z1219.C96 1905 (annual) Book Review Digest  Indexes and abstracts book reviews.  Use it to find books written during the period and their reviews
  

Children’s Book Award Winners of the 60’s
Newbery Award Winners – Began in 1922 (awarded to the most distinguished children’s book of the previous year)

Caldecott Award Winners – Began in 1938 (awarded to the most distinguished children’s picture book of the previous year)

EDUCATION

During the sixties, college campuses became centers of debate and scenes of protest more than ever before.  Great numbers (statistics)  of young adults, baby boomers, reaching military draft age (selective service) and not yet voting age (minimum voting age did not become 18 until 1971), caused a struggle which played out on many campuses as the country became more involved  (timeline) in the Vietnam War. The generation gap became a growing phenomenon.

In 1966, James S. Coleman, commissioned by the government, published Equality of Educational Opportunity, a landmark study that led the way to forced integration and busing in the 1970s.

BOOKS

• REF E173.A793  Annals of America  Vol. 18 has a chapter from Equality of Educational Opportunity and several articles about student unrest.
• REF E174.D52  Dictionary of American History  This multi-volume set has a very good entry under “Education”.  Volume 2
• LA 11.L8  Our Western Educational Heritage  The final long chapter contains history of American educational system.
• LA 216.C73  American Education :  The Metropolitan Experience 1876-1980  History of education.  Other titles by Lawrence A. Cremin may be helpful.
• REF LA217.2 .V36  Public Schooling in America   Brief information about all the landmarks of education.

FADS & FASHION

FADS

Youth predominated the culture of the 1960’s.  The post World War II Baby Boom had created 70 million teenagers for the sixties, and these youth swayed the fashion, the fads and the politics of the decade. California surfers took to skateboards as a way to stay fit out of season, and by 1963, the fad had spread across the country.   Barbie dolls, introduced by Mattel in 1959, became a huge success in the sixties, so much so that rival toy manufacturer Hasbro came up with G. I. Joe, 12 inches tall and the first action figure for boys.  Another doll, the troll or Dammit doll (named for it’s creator, Thomas Dam) was a good luck symbol for all ages.   Slot cars overtook toy trains in popularity.

COSTUMES / FASHION

The 1960’s began with crew cuts on men and bouffant hairstyles on women.  Men’s casual  shirts were often plaid and buttoned down the front, while knee-length dresses were required wear for women in most public places.  By mid-decade, miniskirts or  hot pants, often worn with go-go boots, were revealing legs, bodywear was revealing curves, and women’s hair was either very short or long and lanky.  Men’s hair became longer and wider, with beards and moustaches.  Men’s wear had a renaissance.  Bright colors, double-breasted sports jackets, polyester pants suits with Nehru jackets, and turtlenecks were in vogue.  By the end of the decade, ties, when worn, were up to 5″ wide, patterned even when worn with stripes.  Women wore peasant skirts or granny dresses and chunky shoes.  Unisex dressing was popular, featuring bell bottomed jeans, love beads, and embellished t-shirts.  Clothing was as likely to be purchased at surplus stores as boutiques.  Blacks of both genders wore their hair in an afro.

LINKS

•   Costumer’s Manifesto     |  Links to world wide of fashion .  Good ones.
•   Baby Boomers Headquarters | a site on the decade.  Includes an interesting quiz on happenings from 1960-1969.
•   The Sixties Project | the Viet Nam generation
•   Badfads | Descriptions of the styles of the sixties
•   Hairstyle history gallery | Online costume and hair gallery
•   Sixties City | Culture, music, history. A little of everything.
  

BOOKS on art

• REF E169.1.P19  Panati’s Parade of Fads, Follies and Manias  Arranged by decade, includes fads, dance crazes, radio,
  TV, popular books and songs.
• E 169.1.R7755 Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America  Important essays analyzing mass culture in American history.
• GT 596.L64  Radical Rags: Fashion of the Sixties  An in-depth look at the fashion of the sixties.  Great photos

BOOKS on fashion

• REF D840.P27  Day By Day: The Sixties  Two volumes  on the sixties give a closer look at current events during this turbulent decade
• REF E169.12 .A418  Dictionary of Twentieth Century Culture: American Culture After World War II  Encyclopedic listings of prominent people and trends
• GT605.H35  Common Threads: A Parade of American Clothing  Includes an overview of the 20th century,  then chapters on contributors to changes in fashion.  If you only see one book, this is the one.  It has photographs of people in turn of the century dress styles from the suffragettes to the businesslike attire of women & workman’s factory attire to those in the ‘oldest profession’. 

HISTORIC EVENTS AND TECHNOLOGY

The Civil Rights movement made great changes in society in the 1960’s.  The movement began peacefully, with Martin Luther King and Stokely Carmichael leading sit-ins and peaceful protests, joined by whites, particularly Jews. Malcolm X preached about Black Nationalism.  After his assassination, the Black Panthers were formed to continue his mission.  In 1965, the Watts riots broke out in Los Angeles.  The term “blacks” became socially acceptable, replacing “Negroes.”

The number of Hispanic Americans tripled during the decade and became recognized as an oppressed minority.  Cesar Chavez organized Hispanics in the United Farm Workers Association.  American Indians, facing unemployment rates of 50% and a life expectancy only two-thirds that of whites, began to assert themselves in the courts and in violent protests.

The Presidential Commission of the Status of Women (1963) presented disturbing facts about women’s place in our society.   Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray and Gloria Steinem,  (National Organization for Women) questioned the unequal treatment of women, gave birth to Women’s Lib, and disclosed the “glass ceiling.”  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was amended to include gender.  The birth control pill became widely available and abortion for cause was legalized in Colorado in 1967.  In 1967, both abortion and artificial insemination became legal in some states.

The Supreme Court decided in Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 1962, that prayer in the public schools was unconstitutional.  As the 1960’s progressed, many young people turned from mainstream Protestant religions to mystic eastern religions such as Transcendental Meditation (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) or Zen Buddhism.  Respect for authority declined among the youth, and crime rates soared to nine times the rate of the 1950’s.  Marijuana use soared.  Well known Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary encouraged the use of LSD as a mind-opening drug.  The hippie movement endorsed drugs, rock music, mystic religions and sexual freedom.  They opposed violence.  The Woodstock Festival at which 400,000 young people gathered in a spirit of love and sharing, represents the pinnacle of the hippie movement.  Many hippies moved to Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, East Village in New York City, or lived in communes.

When Fidel Castro, soon after overtaking Cuba, declared that he was a communist, the United States broke off diplomatic relations.  Castro seized American property.  The CIA attacked Cuba in an ill-fated mission at the Bay of Pigs.  In 1962, a spy plane identified long range missiles in Cuba.  President John F. Kennedy  readied troops to invade Cuba, and the Soviet Union prepared to fire at US cities if we made a move.

John F. Kennedy was young and charismatic, and his brief reign as president was often called Camelot.  He was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. His Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson became president, and was reelected the following year.  To prevent communist North Vietnam from overtaking South Vietnam, the United States sent military advisors and then soldiers.  It was largely a secret war until 1965, when massive troop buildups were ordered to put an end to the conflict.  The draft was accelerated and anti-war sentiment grew in the US.  College students organized anti-war protests,  draft dodgers fled to Canada, and there were reports of soldiers reflected the growing disrespect for authority, shooting their officers rather than follow orders.  Johnson, blamed by many for the war and the racial unrest in the country, did not run for reelection in 1968.  John Kennedy’s brother, Robert campaigned for the nomination for President and he, too was killed. Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 and Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968.

The Space Race, begun by the Soviets in 1957, was highlighted by Alan Shepard, the first American in space in 1961.  In 1963, John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth.  Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, in Apollo XI, were the first men to walk on the moon in 1969.  The surgeon general determined that smoking was a health hazard, and in 1965 required cigarette manufacturers to place warnings on all packages and in all ads.  The first clone of a vertebrate, a South African tree frog, was produced in 1967.  Dr. Denton Cooley implanted the first artificial heart in a human, and it kept the patient alive for three days until a human heart could be transplanted.

LINKS

• Historical Atlas of the 20th Century   |  Collection of maps and stats of the 20th century
• Early Information and Technology   |  Pictures and essays from Library of Congress.
• Genealogy Guide   |  Helpful guide for locating past people, places and events.
  

• REF N7593 .C93  Dictionary of American Portraits  Photographs or drawings of important Americans.  Brief description of their contribution.  Arranged by person.
• REF E176 .D563  Dictionary of American Biography  Annual.  Arranged by person.  Up to 1 page biographical entries.
  
• REF E176.W64 1897-1942 v.1  Who Was Who in America  Brief entries alphabetical by person.
  

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  MUSIC

In 1960, Elvis returned to the music scene from the US Army, joining the other white male vocalists at the top of the charts; Bobby Darin,  Neil Sedaka,  Jerry Lee Lewis,  Paul Anka,   Del Shannon and Frankie Avalon. America, however, was ready for a change.  The Tamla Motown Record Company came on the scene, specializing in black rhythm and blues, aided in the emergence of female groups such as Gladys Knight and the Pips, Martha and the Vandellas, the Supremes, and Aretha Franklin, as well as some black men, including Smokey Robinson, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, and the  Temptations.   Bob Dylan helped bring about a folk music revival, along with Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary.  The Beach Boys began recording music that appealed to high schoolers.  The Beatles, from England, burst into popularity with innovative rock music that appealed to all ages.  The Righteous Brothers were a popular white duo who used African American styling to create a distinctive sound.

There was a major change in popular music in the mid-1960’s, caused in part by the drug scene.  Acid Rock, highly amplified and improvisational, and the more mellow psychedelic rock gained prominence.  When the Beatles turned to acid rock, their audience narrowed to the young. Jefferson Airplane  and the Grateful Dead grew out of the counterculture in 1967.  The musical phenomena of the decade was  Woodstock, a three day music festival that drew 400,000 hippies and featured peace, love, and happiness…and LSD.   Folk music contributed to the counterculture.

The modular synthesizer (aka moog synthesizer), developed in 1960 by Robert Moog and Donald Buchla, marked a major change in serious music.  Innovative composers were already experimenting with electro-acoustic music.  Now they were able to go further with John Cage’s 0’0 (Zero Silence) to be performed by anyone in anyway; Morton Subotnik’s Silver Apples of the Moon;  Robert Ashley’s Wolfman.  In 1967, Alvin Lucier, one of the co-founders of the Sonic Arts Union, created “Music for a Solo Performer,” in which electrodes were attached to the performer’s scalp.  His alpha waves, controlled by his concentration, resonated from loudspeakers, accompanied by occasional percussion.  Computers were used in music composition and sound synthesis, notably Max Mathews’ Music IV and Music V.  By the end of the decade, popular music was also using synthesizers and other electronic devices.

LINKS

•  LyricFind   |  50,000+ song lyrics.  Search by keyword, artist or title.
•  Radio from the 1960s | Listen to music of the sixties
•  History of Rock ‘n Roll | One stop shopping for information on Rock

THEATER, FILM, RADIO, and TELEVISION

By 1960, Broadway productions had become prohibitively expensive for adventurous offerings, and producers resorted to musicals and works proven elsewhere.  It was a great decade for musicals, including Camelot, Hello Dolly,  Oliver,  Man of La Mancha,  Hair,  and  Funny Girl.  Even Off-Broadway was feeling the economic pinch. leading to the advent of  off-off-Broadway, where innovative shows and new writers could get a start.  Theater expanded outside New York City, and by 1966 for the first time, more actors were employed outside New York City than in it.  The most prestigious playwright of the sixties is Edward Albee, who wrote Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Musicals that proved popular on Broadway were made into movies, including Sound of Music and My Fair Lady.  After Marilyn Monroe died, Audrey Hepburn, star of My Fair Lady and Wait until Dark, was the idol of young girls.  Disney offered family entertainment in 101 Dalmatians and Pinocchio.  Movies became more political, commenting on the arms race as in Dr. Strangelove.  Sex became more explicit, and occasionally nontraditional,  as in Midnight Cowboy,  Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice,  and  The Graduate.  Six James Bond Movies, including Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger, combined sex and violence and were enormously popular.  Previous taboos on sex, violence and language, were ignored, resulting in the need for a new film code by the MPAA.

Radio continued to be the primary means of listening to music.  The major development was a change from primarily AM to FM  .  Radio was supplemented by American Bandstand, watched by teens from coast to coast.  They not only learned the latest music, but how to dance to it.  When Chubby Checker introduced the twist on the show in 1961, a new craze was born, and dancing became an individual activity.  The Mashed Potato, the Swim, the Watusi, the Monkey and the Jerk followed the Twist, mimicking their namesakes.  Each new dance often lasted for just a song or two before the next one came along.  Eventually the names and stylized mimicry ceased and the dancers just moved however they wanted.  For those who preferred watching the dancers, Go-go girls, on stages or in bird cages, danced above the crowd.

Television offered the second prime time cartoon show,  the Flintstones , in 1960.  (The first was Rocky and his Friends in 1959.)  It appealed to both children and adults and set off a trend that included  Alvin & the Chipmunks , the Jetsons , and Mr. Magoo.  The  Andy Griffith Show  was the epitome of prime time family television, and ran for most of the decade.  The Beverly Hillbillies  was another popular sitcom.  The supernatural and science fiction blended in many of the popular shows, including  Bewitched, The Addams Family,  My Favorite Martian , I Dream of Jeannie, Star Trek, the Outer Limits , and the Twilight Zone.   In the late 60’s, humor was revived in a show called Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In, where many regular performers and guests became part of a show biz classic.

LINKS

• Greatest Films – Plot summaries of Hollywood classics
• Movies of the 1960’s – Film trends and censorship in the 1960’s, from the University of Sydney

BOOKS Library of Congress browsing areas for theatre and drama: PN

• REF PN1998 .A2 I48  Illustrated Who’s Who of the Cinema.  Brief entries by name, including photos.

Year and Title of Film:
1964 – Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb  – a satire on the dangers of atomic weapons
1968 – The Graduate – a film showing how the generation gap affects communications
1969 –  Midnight Cowboy  – an example a films with a more mature theme