5) Social Change 1950-2000

Question 1

Which type of music did the 1950s witness the birth of?

Answer 1

Rock and roll

Question 2

Who was a significant artist in the 1950s?

Answer 2

Elvis Presley who was a great success with teenagers but parents and teachers disliked him.

Question 3

What significant type of hero arose in Hollywood in the 1950s?

Answer 3

The anti-hero a main character who has a lack of traditional heroic qualities such as idealism or courage. James Dean played one of these antiheroes.

Question 4

How did cinema change in the 1950s?

Answer 4

Drive in cinemas became very popular, they had an immoral reputation and were often called ‘passion pits’.

Question 5

How did the amount of families who owned a TV increase in the 50s?

Answer 5

7000 to 50 million by the end of the 50s.

Question 6

Which type of dramas made their first appearance in the 1950s?

Answer 6

Historical dramas.

Question 7

Which literary counterculture emerged in the 50s?

Answer 7

The Beat Generation- is he beatniks were a group of novelists and poets who led the way in rebelling against conservative values.

Question 8

What was the great American novel of the 50s?

Answer 8

The quest to write a novel which defined the meaning of being American. It built in the work of pre-Second World War novelists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Question 9

What sort of technology was used in the 1950s?

Answer 9

Early use of non-personal computers.

Question 10

Which British bands took the USA by storm in the 1960s?

Answer 10

Beatles and the Rolling Stones

Question 11

What type of rock grew popular in the 1960s?

Answer 11

Hard rock

Question 12

What type of song became popular in the 1960s?

Answer 12

Protest songs, Bob Dylan became more popular.

Question 13

How did music reflect youth culture in the 1960s?

Answer 13

The beach boys reflected a Southern California culture of surfing, cars and romance.

Question 14

What did white middle class parents of the sixties think about rock and roll?

Answer 14

That this music encouraged teenage crime.

Question 15

What sort of cinemas emerged in the 60s?

Answer 15

Multiplex movie theatres

Question 16

Which film in the 1960s showed some integration?

Answer 16

The Lone Ranger- still many white actors but had a Native American actor in it.

Question 17

Literature in 1960s:

Answer 17

• ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ themes of rape and inequality

- Betty Friendan produced the ‘Feminine Mystique In 1963 which challenged the traditional role of women.

Question 18

What technological advancements were there in the 1960s?

Answer 18

First man on the moon.

Question 19

Which music was particularly popular with women after the 1960s?

Answer 19

Rock and roll

Question 20

Which sort of music gained popularity in the time after the 60s performed by artists such as Led Zeppelin?

Answer 20

Heavy metal music which was associated with aggression and masculinity.

Question 21

Which two artists wrote music about the struggles of everyday life in the time after the 60s?

Answer 21

• Springsteen Gaines popularity- music focussed on everyday life, struggles of the working class.
• Mellenchamp also wrote about the ordinary, he set up a Farm Aid Concert to stop families losing land.

Question 22

Which sort of music developed in the 1970s and onwards?

Answer 22

Rap and hip hop music
Rap music e.g. Jay Z
Disco e.g. Bee Gees

Question 23

What sort of films emerged in the 1970s and onwards?

Answer 23

Blockbusters e.g. ET, Star Wars and Jaws

Question 24

Which type of acting emerged in the 1970s and onwards?

Answer 24

Method acting with actors such as Robert De Niro.

Question 25

What was cinema attendance like in the 90s?

Answer 25

It was up

Question 26

Which stars emerged in 70s+?

Answer 26

Sylvester Stallone and Tom Cruise

Question 27

What sort of film was Jurassic park that emerged in the 1970s and onwards?

Answer 27

A film with special effects.

Question 28

What was the literature like in the 1970s and onwards?

Answer 28

It heavily contradicted the literature of the 1950s- it went from conveying the greatness of the USA to criticising it.

• Epic novels: Blood Meridian by Cormac MCCarthy
• Tony Morrison- Nobel prise for ‘beloved’

Question 29

Technology in the 1970s and onwards…

Answer 29

• 1971: computer space
• 1975: Microsoft, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Wonziak and Ronald Wayne: apple computer inc
• 1980s: Nintendo introduced
• NES 1st Modern game console
• 1990s internet developed at university of Minnesota
• 1991: Internet interface

Question 30

What was life like for women during the WW2 era?

Answer 30

• Women started to work which gave them a sense of independence, around 6 millions were working in factories and 20,000 joined the army.

Question 31

What would women do in the 1950s?

Answer 31

• Stay at home
• Have children
• Cook
• Tremendous societal pressure for marriage

Question 32

Which era was the 1950s for women?

Answer 32

Era of the ‘happy homemakers’

Question 33

What were women who decided to work in the 1950s deemed?

Answer 33

Women who decided to work when they could afford the cost of living were deemed selfish.

Question 34

How did society treat single mothers in the 1950s?

Answer 34

They were shunned by society for the duration of their pregnancy.

Question 35

What sort of education were women deprived of in the 1950s?

Answer 35

An Ivy League education

Question 36

What new thing for women did 1960 see the approval of?

Answer 36

The birth control pill

Question 37

Were women entering the workforce in the 1960s?

Answer 37

Yes. More females than ever were entering the paid workforce.
One in 5 women with children under 6 and nearly a quarter of women whose children were over 16 held payed jobs in the 60s.

Question 38

Who were some inspirational women in the 1960s?

Answer 38

• Betty Friedan

- Physicist Marie Goepper-Mayer won a noble prize for the first time.

Question 39

What happened in the 60s when Leslie Gore’s song ‘you don’t own me’ clones the charts?

Answer 39

‘Leave it to beaver’ and ‘Father knows best’ dominated television.

Question 40

What legislation was passed for women in 1963?

Answer 40

The equal pay legislation, but it did not help the problem of low pay in jobs considered female.

Question 41

Which act in 1964 banned discrimination on the basis of race and sex?

Answer 41

The civil rights act

Question 42

Which women’s organisation was formed in 1966?

Answer 42

The ‘National Organisation for Women’ (NOW). It was mainly white, middle class women and it challenged discrimination. By 1970 it had 40,000 members.

Question 43

What other, more radical women’s movements arose in the 1960s?

Answer 43

The women’s liberation movement, members were more radical and therefore feminists. They wanted nothing to do with men.
This movement did more harm than good as they made it hard for people to take women’s rights seriously.

Question 44

What did the Women’s liberation movement do in 1968?

Answer 44

They picketed a Miss America beauty contest in Atlantic city and even crowned a sheep Miss America.

Question 45

What new thing for young people emerged in the 1950s?

Answer 45

The teenager and teenage rebellion.

Question 46

What had teens been like before the 1950s?

Answer 46

In the past teens had simply copied their parents’ tastes and fashions.

Question 47

How did the new teens of the 1950s develop their own identity?

Answer 47

They formed gangs, cruised in cars, drank heavily and attacked property. They wore distinctive clothes and listened to their own music.

Question 48

What was the change in teenage culture due to?

Answer 48

• Had far more money than previous generations.
• 1st generation to grow up under shadow of nuclear war- world could end at any time so they wanted to enjoy ‘today’
• Influenced by youth films e.g. rebel without a cause.

Question 49

How did rebel without a cause influence young people?

Answer 49

It was the first film to appeal to a teenage audience. The film made a cult hero of James Dean- Dean plays a character who rebels against his parents even coming into blows with his father, and gets into trouble with the local police for drunkenness.

Question 50

How did youth counterculture continue to develop in the late 1950s and 60s?

Answer 50

• Longer hair and beards
• Blue jeans and t-shirts rather than slacks, jackets and ties
• Use of illegal drugs
• Contraceptive pill encouraged greater sexual freedom.

Question 51

Who were the hippies?

Answer 51

Some young people began to ‘drop out’ of US society and became hippies.

Question 52

How did the hippies travel?

Answer 52

They travelled around the country in buses and vans and wore flowers in their hair as a symbol of peace rather than war.

Question 53

What famous slogan did the hippies develop?

Answer 53

‘Make love, not war’

Question 54

What were hippies known as?

Answer 54

‘Flower children’

Question 55

What did the hippies think about the police?

Answer 55

Their behaviour especially use of illegal drugs often led to clashes between them and the police who they called ‘pigs’.

Question 56

Which rock groups were the hippies influenced by?

Answer 56

‘Great Dead and the doors’

Question 57

What was the high point of the hippie movement?

Answer 57

Woodstock a three day music festival in rural New York State in August 1969 attended by almost half a million people. The festival gave its name to the era- the Woodstock generation.

Question 58

Why did the hippie movement concern the older generation?

Answer 58

• Hippies refused to work
• Experimented with drugs e.g. marijuana and LSD
• Middle-class and not underprivileged
• anti-capitalist

Question 59

Why were the sixties called the ‘swinging 60s’ ?

Answer 59

The young distanced themselves from the older generation.

Question 60

Why was the youth movement important?

Answer 60

• Most long lasting achievement was youth culture itself
• Young became far more fashion conscious- e.g. the miniskirt- reflection of greater sexual permissiveness
• Although SDS and student protests did not end war in Vietnam, they helped force shift in government policy.
• Provided greater publicity for racism
• Mainly middle class so would have been expected to support the government.