Revision Topic Sheet 7: Social Change Flashcards
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How did the Age of Affluence impact people’s lives?
- TVs bought for the first time - number of households owning a tv rose by 32% from 1957 to 1959 and there were 10 million TVs by 1960
- TV Programming encouraged people to spend more - Consumerism rose
- People could develop hobbies like DIY and gardening
- Car ownership rose by 25% between 1957 and 1959
- More people could afford to go on holiday
What was the Establishment?
Term for rich and powerful people who went to private schools and gained influence through knowing the right people and networking with each other - included people such as judges, MPs and army officers
Why were attitudes towards class changing?
- Second World War weakened class divisions
- Creation of the Welfare State
- Age of Affluence
- Satire boom in the media in 1960
- Conservative mistakes such as the Profumo Affair which made people laugh at the upper classes
What was seen as a woman’s priority in the 1950s?
Housewives and mothers only - no place at work
What was the nuclear family and why is it significant?
Seen as the ideal family with a mum, dad and children - showed that the government encouraged women to stay at home as the welfare state was based on men working and family allowance made it so that women didn’t need to work
By how much did women’s lives improve after 1957?
- Number of washing machines rose by 54%
- Number of fridges rose by 58%
- Women had more time as they didn’t need to go shopping with a fridge and washing clothes would take a whole day without the machine
- Women made up 1/3 of the workforce, although 2/3 was in low-pay secretary and teaching jobs
What was the Empire Windrush?
Boat that sailed from Jamaica to Britain in 1948 bringing 492 migrant workers with it
Why was the Empire Windrush significant?
Showed that Britain was becoming more of a multicultural and multiracial society
What was the issue with immigrants within the country?
Raised tension with the residents of the poor areas inhabited by these immigrants - riots started to break out in 1958 in Nottingham and Bristol
What was passed in 1962 to try and help immigrants?
Commonwealth Immigration Act - backfired and was condemned for being racist by restricting immigrants based on their ethnic origins
Why were some people migrating from Britain?
Australia and North America were offering houses, jobs and assisted passages - immigration rose by around 45% and emigration rose by around 31%
How had youth culture developed?
- Rising wages and better paid jobs meant that young people had money to spend for the first time
- Labour saving devices such as fridges meant that girls had more free time
- Conscription ended in 1960 so boys had more time
- Baby boom in the 1940s led to more teenagers by 1960
- Advertising encouraged them to be different - magazines and tv programmes directed at teenagers during the 1950s
- Decline in the Establishment encouraged teenagers to act differently from their elders
How had the media changed?
- A more Liberal society led to a desire to talk about previously taboo topics
- Racial tensions portrayed in the film ‘Sapphire’ in 1959
- Drama about homelessness called ‘Cathy Come Home’
- Gang violence shown in the 1962 novel ‘A Clockwork Orange’
- ‘A Taste of Honey’ (1958) was a play that portrayed an interracial relationship in film with a white woman pregnant after a relationship with a black sailor
- ‘Victim’ (1961) was the first English-language film to use the word homosexual
Society remained Conservative - true or false?
True - backlash to many of the aforementioned changes - Conservative backlash led by Mary Whitehouse in the 1960s
Why were social changes significant?
They indicated that society was becoming more permissive
