The 1960s

• Oct 29, 2011

• #1

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FedoraFan112390

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A question: Any good books on the seemingly overnight transformation from the Kennedy/early LBJ 60s--a still conservative era of hats, short hair, suits, etc--to the era of long hair, beards, T-shirts and Jeans, rock music, etc?

I mean compare 1960 to 1969--Two totally different epochs, really. I'd love to read some books on the change and the rise of long hair and the like.

 

• Oct 30, 2011

• #2

Metatron

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I was wondering about this exact subject recently. Maybe it was the LSD?

 

• Oct 30, 2011

• #3

scottyrocks

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How's this for a start?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sixties

 

• Oct 30, 2011

• #4

Atticus Finch

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FedoraFan112390 said:

A question: Any good books on the seemingly overnight transformation from the Kennedy/early LBJ 60s--a still conservative era of hats, short hair, suits, etc--to the era of long hair, beards, T-shirts and Jeans, rock music, etc?

I mean compare 1960 to 1969--Two totally different epochs, really. I'd love to read some books on the change and the rise of long hair and the like.

Click to expand...

Having lived through the sixties, I can tell you that it wasn't quite the rapid cultural revolution you may think. The seeds of the sixties social transformation had been sewn years before 1960.

It is a tedious read, but James Michner's Kent State may shed some light on your question. He writes about the massacre at Kent State in 1970, but his analysis takes the reader back in time to expore the reasons for what happened there. Much of it also addresses your question here.

AF

 

• Oct 30, 2011

• #5

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clyde

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I always though the early sixties had more in common with the entire 50s than it did with the last half of the 60s.

 

• Oct 30, 2011

• #6

scottyrocks

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It did, but the early 60s was a transition period. There is never any one day when you could say, WHAM, there's the change. The hippie movement owes its beginnings in part into the beatnik movement that preceded it. The 'beat generation' actually started as far back as 1948, and extended through the 1950s and into the early 1960s. The movement was characterized by youthful unrest due to feeling 'beaten down.' The term 'beatnik' originated in 1958.

Although not directly related to the hippie movement, the beat generation paved the way for youth of the '60s to rebel in their own way.

 

• Oct 31, 2011

• #7

HoosierDaddy

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I graduated High School in 1965.
In my little town...real drastic change..arrived somewhat abruptly in the form of Beatles. MopTops. Morfed into Stones...and here came the transformation into new and completely different lifestyles. It may have had earlier roots(true)....but everything seemed to come together in that short period of time. Didn't really last so long..but did certainly change the world in many lasting ways.
HD

 

• Oct 31, 2011

• #8

scottyrocks

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Yes, music and the groups that begin new eras, can be a huge factor in social history, especially at a time when television was on the verge of bringing the world to everyone's front door. The Beatles, for instance, were the right guys in the right place at at the right time.