1. What was US society like in the 1950s and 1960s?
“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

2. 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?

3. What was life like in America at this time ?

4. 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

5. 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.
Extract from Life Magazine 1956

6. 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 college.
Birth control pill
Education
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…
Civil Rights Act 1964: forbid discrimination on grounds of race and gender
Betty Friedan and Feminism

7. Affluent society in the 1950s
White goods
Pontiac Cars
T.V
American suburbs

8. 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 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
Hire Purchase
Shopping malls

9. Young people and youth movements in the 1950s
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.
Beatniks were ‘dropouts’. Many teenagers turned to sex drugs and rejected their parents morality.
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.

10. 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.
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.
Janis Joplin

11. 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