1960s Youth Counter Culture

Question 1

1960s Youth Rebellion

Answer 1

• Emergence of the teenager had developed a new subculture
• Growth of leisure time, spread of education and increased living standards led to a new teen culture
• Clashed with the older generation over music, fashion, sex and drugs

Question 2

Permissive ‘Free Love’ & Drug Culture

Answer 2

• Young people spent most of their time listening to music in their bedrooms than at youth clubs or rock festivals
• Most were still virgins when they married
• The extent to which teenage promiscuity and drug-taking that occurred was only common in big cities and middle-class, educated people
• Small towns, local communities were still heavily traditional
• Use of soft drugs became common, homosexuality

Question 3

Youth Fashions

Answer 3

• For a short while, London was the capital of the fashion world
• Became acceptable to wear the same clothes for work and the evening
• Women wore trousers, men wore velvets, satins and bright colours
• Mary Quant’s ‘Bazaar’, boutique in Chelsea
• Known for conceiving the mini-skirt
  -Many of her clothes became synonymous with supermodels like Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton and the rest of the public

Question 4

Youth Music

Answer 4

• Young people listened to popular music on pirate radio stations, e.g. Radio Caroline, or Radio One from 1967 onwards
• Television stations also responded with music programmes such as ‘Top of the Pops’
• New tech such as cheap plastic record players and LP records accessible to all
• New, small batter-powered transistor radios were also popular

Question 5

New Youth Countercultures

Answer 5

• Skinheads: shaven heads, red braces, Doc Martens boots
• Skinheads had evolved from Mods in the 1950s
• Hippies: rejected with social conventions and Establishment attitudes
• They embraced ‘flower power’, emanated from America, favoured alternative lifestyles
• Emphasis on environmentalism and peace

Question 6

Anti-War/University Protests

Answer 6

• Many anti-war protests in 1968 (Vietnam War) at a variety of different universities
• Sussex University: speaker on the Viet War from the US Embassy was covered in red paint
• Cambridge University: Labour Defence Secretary almost had his car overturned by the students
• Teach-ins at Oxford University on the Vietnam war