Thursday, March 18, 2010

Peace, love, and happiness

PEACE?
  • the state prevailing during the absence of war
  • harmonious relations; freedom from disputes
  • the absence of mental stress or anxiety
  • the general security of public places
  • a treaty to cease hostilities
And this is what we fought long and hard for. Peace; the unity of everyone in every country, from every race, religion, and class. We wanted to be one. No dictionary definition can explain the true meaning of peace. The overall feeling of the sixties through a hippie's eyes was peace, love, and happiness. They were free spirits. However in the 60's, peace, love, and happiness did not prevail on everyone. Many people were killed or injured during protests that promoted peace. American soldiers had to open fire on Americans. It was a very turbulent time; however, through this era we learned how to live alternate lifestyles and how to go against the mainstream. The counterculture opened up our eyes and taught us that being normal isn't always the only way to live. Living a life of peace, love and happiness is accepted now because of the sixties era.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Music Music MUSIC


MAKE MUSIC NOT WAR

Here are some major artists that blossomed in the 1960's:
Jefferson Airplane
The Beach Boys
The Beatles
Roy Orbison
Buddy Holly
The Drifters
Jim Reeves
The Mamas & the Papas
The Monkees
The Rolling Stones
Simon and Garfunkel
The Supremes
Fleetwood Mac
Aretha Franklin
Gary Puckett & The Union Gap
The Grateful Dead
The Bee Gees
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Cream
Pink Floyd
Moody Blues
David Bowie


Songs of that era reflect the times. In one of Bob Dylan's very famous songs, Blowing in the Wind,
he sings,
"How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a man?
Yes and how many seas must the white dove sail, before she can sleep in the sand?
How many times must the cannon balls fly, before they're forever banned?
The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind"


This reflects the feeling of anti-war and pro-peace. It's saying, do we really have to send a man through hell to call him a man? The dove represents peace, and he's singing how many wars must we go through until we can see peace.

Friday, March 12, 2010

interview

Fiona: Interviewer
Rowena: Interviewee
Mark: Interviewee

F: What do you remember of the 1960's?

R: Well, I was a bit young to really experience the sixties. There was a malt shoppe on main street that all the hippies used to go to, and I would go there to hang out. The music from the sixties also definitely impacted my music choice. The style impacted me too.

M: I remember the disturbances the most. The sixties were a very turbulent time, and there were many uprisings, yes, many uprisings.

F: Do you remember the JFK assassination?

R: No, I was too young.

M: I was walking home from school and someone from the neighborhood came up to me and told me. It was a shock.

F: Tell me about the Vietnam War

R: I'll let Mark take this one.

M: Well, one day I was watching tv with my dad, Huntley-Brinkley was on and a Vietnam newsreel was on. It actually showed the footage of a North Vietnamese soldier getting his blown off. This scarred me, and I remember it vividly to this day. Later on, my name was 40th in the lottery draft. I registered, and was faced with very hard decisions. Flee to Canada, flee the country, go to war, or apply for moral conscience. I would not kill a human being, and I didn't want to flee the country, so I applied for moral conscience. Many people would apply just to get out of it, but I really couldn't stand the thought of killing someone. I brought home dead birds to bury in the backyard; I could not go to war and shoot someone, no matter how just the war. In the end, my form got approved and I had to serve the country with community service in place of the draft. I am very glad I made that decision. I can't imagine what my life would have been like if I had followed through with the war.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

1960's Fasion !

Jackie O's leading Fashion Trends
Twiggy's new standard for fashion
Prairie Dress worn by Hippies
"The Mini" and the Go-Go Boots

During the 1960's, fashion from the previous era quickly went out. New hairstyles, make up, and fashion trends were streaming in. Influences from Europe came too, creating the "mod" era for men's and women's fashion. The social movements of that time "mirrored" the fashion trends. Hippies grew their hair very long and the men grew beards. They wore tie dye, prairie dresses, and bell bottoms. Jacqueline Kennedy started many trends too, as the first lady of the United States. Her pillbox hats, fake eyelashes, and french manicure spread through the entire country. "Twiggy" a revolutionary model of that time, redefined the fashion industry. Models were now better thin, and tall. Psychedelic prints, mismatched colors, mini skirts and dresses, bikinis, and Go-Go boots were all new to this era. The 1960's fashion impacted the fashion world forever.

Bibliography

Sources Cited


Internet:

"1960's articles." Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. http://www.wikipedia.com/

Baker, John. "60's Slang." copyright 1997-2005. www.cougartown.com/slang.html

Rich, Candace. "60's fashion." Copyright 2007 http://www.fiftiesweb.com/fashion/cool-clothes.htm

Goodwin, Susan. "1960-1969" Copyright 1999. http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade60.html

Author Unknown. "1960's." Copyright 2009. http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1960s.html


Human Sources:


Mark Wygent- Fiona's Stepdad
Rowena Macleod- Fiona's mother
Robert Lake- Fiona's History teacher


Film:


Real Woodstock Footage
Live Music Videos
Martin Luther King, Jr Speeches
1960's Slideshows
13 Days


Books:


McWhorter, Diane. A Dream of Freedom. Singapore, Copyright October 2004. Print.

Turner, Steve. A Hard Day's Write. United Kingdom. Copyright 1999. Print.



Betty Friedan

Betty Friedan was an activist, an author, and a woman right's advocate in America during the 1960's. She was a very important author and woman figure at the time. She wrote the book, "The Feminine Mystique" which tried to get women equal to men in the work place and society. Betty Friedan is the best reading we've gotten so far, and i found it captivating because without her, who knows where a woman's place in society would be today. However, I thought Friedan may have gotten the hopes of many women up, just to have them shot down in reality. All in all, Betty Friedan was an extremely prominent figure for woman during the 1960's and is widely famous for her novel, "The Feminine Mystique."

Monday, March 8, 2010

MLK

Martin Luther King was a very influential, strong, powerful african american leader. He wanted desegregation, and equality for all the people. In court, he won and schools were desegregated, however people didn't always follow the law. Racism was very high, and Martin Luther King helped to subdue it and bring all races together. MLK influenced the culture of the era by being anti-violent because it brought about new ways of peace, and was greatly accepted in that time period. He was thought of as America's "Gandhi." It made him seem like a good person, so people trusted him. It had a global effect, too. In Ghana they used protesting instead of violence. His father was a priest, and this greatly influenced his decisions because he had a spiritual guide. In this reading I found it interesting that there was someone before Rosa Parks that sparked the Civil Rights Movement. MLK also began to take on poverty, peace, and human survival. His original purpose expanded to touch the soul of everyone. King went to jail numerous times, for standing up for what he believed in. I prefer Martin Luther King's method to peace than Malcolm X's because Malcolm's used violence and King's used protests and boycotts. I found this reading much more engaging than all the others!

Richard Bissell

Bissell was a man who worked for the CIA. He was an important figure during the Cold War. Bissell was to fly the U2 spy plane over Soviet Territory. Richard Bissell also had to take the risk of "committing 22 million from the CIA's secret fund to the skunk-works project. Bissell also had to manage the project secretly. Bissell went to Yale Today, we have many more mechanical systems, whereas back then human error was much more likely. That being said, the CIA was much more influential back than. Based on the CIA's four main functions, I think the anti-communist sentiment contributed to the agency's misstep's and failures because we were overaggressive and made moves we shouldn't have. All in all, Richard Bissell was a very important man in the Cold War era, and the CIA.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The Clockwork


1. JFK - President of the U.S., youngest president, portrayed the "ideal american family"
2. RFK- Attorney General, JFK's brother
3. Malcolm X - Civil Rights Leader (black power, black panthers), violent methods of peace
4. Linden B. Johnson - Vice President/ President after JFK's assassination
5. Fidel Castro - Dictator of Cuba
6. MLK - Civil Rights Leader (anti-violence, protests)
7. Nikita Krushev - Soviet Union Leader
8. Ho Chi Minh - President of North Vietnam
9. Che Guevara - Major figure of Cuban Revolution
10. Earl Warren - Chief Justice of the U.S.
11. Abbie Hoffman- Leader of the Haight-Ashbury District
12. John Lennon- Beatles lead singer, and cultural movement leader
13. Betty Friedan - Woman's rights activist, author of The Feminine Mystique
14. William F. Buckley - Conservative Author
15. Orson Wells- Director, Author, and Accomplished Artist
These influential people of the sixties shaped the way the era was transformed - they were the clockwork. "A mechanism of geared wheels driven by a wound spring." The wound spring was the energy of the 1960's and the geared wheels were the people.


Wednesday, March 3, 2010

War and Conflicts

And the War rages on...

The 1960's was filled with all sorts of conflicts. The biggest conflict was the Vietnam war.
The Vietnam war's conflict was that we were protecting South Vietnam, and North Vietnam was trying to spread Communism towards the South. To defend and honor our promise to protect our ally South Vietnam, we had to go to war for the sake of freedom. However, there was much protest to this war because of the anti-war movement, and teen soldiers were being enlisted.

Another conflict was the Cuban Missile Crisis. U.S. spy planes flew over Cuba and shot photographs of a missile base in Cuba. Long story short, Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the missiles and return them to the Soviet Union. The United States was also not allowed to invade Cuba once the missiles were out.


Bay Of Pigs was an unsuccessful attempt of American-backed Cuban exiles trying to overthrow the country's dictator, Fidel Castro. The CIA trained the Cuban exiles, and JFK approved it. The mission was a failure however, because U.S. troops did not move in to back up the exiles in their fight. Of 1,300 exiles, 90 were killed and the rest were taken as prisoners.

The Gulf of Tonkin was when North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Gulf of Tonkin is off the coast of Vietnam. It was claimed that there were two attacks, August 2 and 4, 1964. However, the second assault is questioned, and may be fictional. The media said the USS Maddox was on a "routine" route, however we were really providing South Vietnam with help. This proves the "unprovoked attack" statement false.

In the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were two main enemies. It was called a "Cold War" because they didn't want to fight eachother directly. Instead, they used words that degraded the other side. The Cold War was the "major force in world politics" for about half of the twentieth century.

Nuclear War is war with the threat of nuclear weapons. During the 1960's, the world had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the whole entire world. Luckily, no bombs were dropped (excluding WW11)

POP CULTURE !

The Popular Culture
First and foremost, in the 1960's era, music happened. And sure, music was around back in the stone age, however in the 1960's, music happened. In the fifties, Elvis Presley was the big, rebellious musical leader. In the 60's though, rock and roll, the Brittish invasion and all sorts of new alternative music sprang up. The Beatle's sang songs like "A Day in the Life," which described a day in the 1960's era. Drugs were another new thing that just happened. They say if you lived in the true sixties spirit, you probably won't remember it.


Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock
Elvis Presley
Easy Rider

Psychedelics like LSD, or acid, marijuana and all sorts of other drugs were being used the youth that once obeyed everything their parents said. Their was a huge countercultural revolution. Flower Children, people who placed flowers in the the butts of rifles at protests, blossomed. The sexual revolution also erupted with the invention of birth control. The generational gap broadened furthermore. New movies like the Graduate, and Easy Rider were produced; movies that never dared be produced were out in public now. Woodstock was a three day concert in New York. Hundreds of musicians gathered and jammed for the muddy, drugged-out, not to mention naked, youth. All in all, the 60's era took a 180* turn from the generation before them. They were children of the revolution.

The Beatles (Brittish Revolution)
LOVE(Sexual Revolution)
Psychedelic Drugs

1960's Slang:
Dig? - Do you understand? Keen-O - Cool
Dude- Geek/Nerd Pad- House
Fink- Tattletale Fuzz- Police
502- Drunk Driving Scratch - Money
Fox- An attractive Woman Threads- Clothes


Assassinations

Great Men, Down
Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm X
Robert F Kennedy John F Kennedy

During the 1960's, there were four main assassinations.

*John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy

November 22, 1963

*Martin Luther king Jr.

April 4, 1968

*Malcolm X

February 25, 1965

*Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy

June 5, 1968

These four were all very important leaders of their time, and the assassinations were all over the media. Above are pictures of the leaders.



Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Technology

The 1960's Advancements

The Space Race was between the United States and the Soviet Union. We were both making advances in space, however it turned into a race; the space race. The Soviet's would be ahead of us, and then we'd be in the lead, and so on. On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong, Edward Aldrin, and Michael Collins were the history making astronauts. As the years went on, both sides had their failures and their successes, and eventually the space race ended.
The computer was one of the biggest inventions of the 60's. The first computer in the 1960's took up a whole room, and was way too big for home or school use. Later in the 70's however, computers were being distributed to everyone who could afford it. The invention of the computer also lead to the inventions of video games, GPS, mini PC's and much more.
Birth Control, another one of the biggest inventions of the 1960's, lead to the Sexual Revolution. With Birth Control, the youth could experience what their parent's had at a much younger age. This caused a generational gap between the 60's youth and their parents. Birth Control was a very good invention in my opinion because now women had a choice too, which bolstered and sparked the Woman's Rights Movement.

The Movements

In the 1960's era, there were four main movements.
1. The Women's movement
2. The Civil Right's Movement
3. The Anti-War Movement
4. The Cultural Revolution

In a nutshell, the Women's Movement was women coming out of the dark and into the light. They joined the working force(although only earning 60% of what their partner's made), and started to show themselves to society. The Women's Rights Movement drew inspiration from the Civil Rights Movement. Another factor that sparked this movement was the sexual movement, and the invention of birth control.

The Civil Right's Movement was a movement for black rights and desegregation. Martin Luther King was the leader and he preached anti-violence ways of achieving peace. His works went far, however MLK was assassinated before his dream could be lived out. His famous speech, "I have a Dream," was highly regarded and remembered. Malcolm X was also big in the Civil Right's Movement, however he used violent methods of being heard. Sit Ins, Freedom Rides, and registering voters all helped in getting minorities equal rights.

The Anti-War movement erupted in the middle class youth. People their age were being sent to war, and they rebelled and tried to get us out of the Vietnam War. With people from different political, economical, racial groups, and cultural spheres, the Anti-War movement brought everyone together to fight for something they all opposed; in this case getting troops out of Vietnam.
Finally, the Cultural Revolution was one that left a permanent mark on the 1960's. The reputation the 60's era had was because of the cultural revolution. The Beatles, part of the Brittish Invasion, were a key figure in leading the Cultural Revolution. Songs like, Back in the U.S.S.R. , I want to hold your hand, and Get Back, defined the era.
"Freedom to explore one’s potential, freedom to create one’s Self, freedom of personal expression, freedom from scheduling, freedom from rigidly defined roles and hierarchical statuses...". Anders believed some in the counterculture wished to modify children's education so that it encouraged, "aesthetic sense, love of nature, passion for music, desire for reflection, or strongly marked independence."
Jentri Anders, Social Anthropologist who lived in a countercultural community and studied