Social and Cultural change in the 60s

Question 1

What were key changes in science and technology in the 60s?

Answer 1

• Sexual health (the pill)
• Household appliances and transport (the car)
• Grand projects such as the US moon landings 1969, the Post Office Tower 1965, improving communications and the Concorde (1st supersonic plane)

Question 2

How significant were the changes in science and technology in the 60s?

Answer 2

• Significant in many areas especially personal effects and things that affected people’s lives like sexual health and transport
• Grand projects had limited direct impact on people’s lives, but did widen many people’s horizons.

Question 3

What were the limitations to the expansion of mass media?

Answer 3

• some print media’s advertising revenue fell along with readership

Question 4

How significant was the development of the expansion of mass media?

Answer 4

• By 1961 75% of population had TV in their home and by 1971 it was 91%

Question 5

How did television expand and change through the 60s?

Answer 5

• television became available everywhere, which ended isolation of distant communities
• Hugh Greene became director general of BBC in 1960, he wanted to transform it: money diverted from radio to TV, guidelines on nudity and swearing established, new style of news reading and more popular programmes commissioned
• ITV launched in 1955 allowing expansion of advertising
• BBC2 launched in April 1964 allowing BBC1 to be more populist
• July 1967 BBC2 became first channel to broadcast regular colour programmes

Question 6

How did radios expand and change through the 60s?

Answer 6

• radios continued as they became portable and car radios were introduced. Personal radios meant different audiences could be reached.
• At the start of 1960s only 3 BBC radio stations, so commercial enterprises targeted the youth who listened to nightly broadcasts of pop music from Radio Luxembourg and from 1964 ‘private stations’.

Question 7

How did newspapers expand and change through the 60s?

Answer 7

• The Sun launched in 1964 replacing the working class newspaper the Daily Herald.
• bought by Australian newspaper tycoon Rupert Murdoch and its popularity grew.

Question 8

How did leisure activities grow through the 60s?

Answer 8

• more time for leisure activities like DIY, gardening, shopping and needlework
• car ownership increased rapidly
• leisure travel turned into mass tourism as holidays increased. Britannia Airways was founded in 1964 for holidays abroad to places like Spain (30% of overseas holidays there cost £20 for 2 weeks), Bulgaria and North Africa. The cost however, meant it was mainly middle class who had the opportunity.

Question 9

What were the limitations of a growth in leisure through the 60s?

Answer 9

• live theatre shrank massively, especially outside major cities as well as football matches and other ‘live’ events
• passenger bus, coach and train travel decreased
• abroad holidays are still limited with in 1971 8.4% of total holidays abroad.

Question 10

How significant was the growth of leisure?

Answer 10

• By 1969 TV accounted for 23% of leisure time
• By 1974 the car was used for 77% of journeys up from 39% in 1954.
• in 1951 there were 27 million holidays in total and in 1971 41 million with 7 million being abroad.

Question 11

How did censorship change through the 60s?

Answer 11

• playwrights introduced new type of plays often addressing social issues
• After Edward Bonds controversial play Early Morning was banned in 1967, backbencher George Strauss introduced a bill to abolish theatre censorship. With Jenkins’ support and testimony of famous actor Laurence Olivier the bill was passed in 1968.
• removal of theatre censorship permitted nudity
• social attitudes (politics, religion, sex and violence) were being challenged and discussed through films and TV. Films of the mid-60s like Darling 1965, Alfie 1966, And here we go round the Mulberry Bush 1967.

Question 12

What were the limitations of a change in censorship?

Answer 12

• new plays had to gain licence from Lord Chamberlain’s Office before allowed to be performed and they could be removed if seen as inappropriate.
• films remained under strict censorship by British Board of Film Censors

Question 13

How significant was the reduction in censorship?

Answer 13

• 13 members of cast Hair, an American musical in production at the Shaftesbury theatre in London faced the audience naked for 30 seconds in 1968.

Question 14

What acts concerning female equality were passed in the 60s?

Answer 14

• 1970 Matrimonial Property Act established the work of a wife, whether paid employment or in the home should be taken into account in a divorce settlement.
• 1970 Equal Pay Act established principle of equal pay for equal work.
• The National Health Service Act of 1967 allowed local authorities to provide contraceptives and advice for the first time.

Question 15

What did society do in the 60s to promote female equality?

Answer 15

• Second wave feminism reached Britain through the US and Betty Friedan in the Feminine Mystique published in 1963 challenging the restricted lives of women and the want for education.
• a rally in Britain 1969 led to establishment of the Women’s National Coordination Committee. At the first conference in February 1970 at Ruskin College Oxford 4 demands were put forward: equal pay, free contraception and abortion on request, equal education and job opportunities and free 24-hour childcare.

Question 16

What were the limitations of female equality in 60s?

Answer 16

• only 28% of students in higher education and 5% ever reached managerial posts.
• girls’ education is still seen as domestic and many left school at minimum age and married young.
• working mothers portrayed as unnatural and selfish by the media
• changing attitudes meant number of illegitimate births rose from 5.8% in 1960 to 8.2% in 1970
• Equal Pay Act not happen for further 5 years

Question 17

How significant were the changes to female equality?

Answer 17

• feminist movement encouraged by articles and books like: The longest revolution 1966 by Julie Mitchell and the Female Eunuch 1970 by Germaine Greer
• A number of ‘Women’s Lib’ groups came up around the UK to campaign for social and economic rights.

Question 18

What changes were there in moral attitudes and the permissive society regarding drugs?

Answer 18

• The ‘hippy lifestyle’ with emphasis on ‘free love’ and ‘flower power’ promoted drug culture.
• The Dangerous Drugs Act 1967 made it unlawful to possess drugs like cannabis or cocaine.
• The Wootton Report 1968 suggested legalising soft drugs like cannabis but this was rejected by Home Secretary James Callaghan who wanted to ‘call a halt to the rising tide of permissiveness’.
• In 1970 the maximum sentence for supplying drugs was increased to 14 years of imprisonment.

Question 19

What changes were there in moral attitudes and the permissive society regarding the pill?

Answer 19

• Not all Catholics agreed about the contraceptive pill. Catholic MP Norman St John-Stevas wrote a critical essay called ‘The Pope, The Pill, and The People’ in 1968.

Question 20

What were the limitations of the new moral attitudes and the more permissive society?

Answer 20

• The Catholic Church hostile to contraceptive pills arguing it contrasted God’s law and it was sinful.
• by the end of the decade STI’s increased, especially among the young.
• Surveys by Micheal Schofield on young people 1965 and Geoffrey Gorer on Sex and Marriage in England Today 1969 published in 1971 found most young people virgins on marriage or married their first and only sexual partner.

Question 21

How significant were the new moral attitudes and the more permissive society?

Answer 21

• moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse challenged these changes (in speech to over 3000) and this led to the National Listeners’ and Viewers’ Association in 1965 which soon had 100,000 members.
• Cocaine and heroin addiction became 10x more prevalent in the early 1960s. Even the Beatles turned to LSD due to the hippie movement.

Question 22

How did youth culture change in the 1960s?

Answer 22

• youth began to question sex and drugs and challenged older generations over fashion, music and morals.
• according to a survey in 1969 young people spent more time listening to music in their bedrooms than at festivals or clubs.
• youth listened to private radio stations or from 1967 BBC radio 1
• television directed programmes at the youth like Ready Steady Go! ITV 1963 and Top of the Pops BBC 1964.
• emergence of skinheads and hippies

Question 23

How did youth culture impact the opinion on the Vietnam war?

Answer 23

• summer of 1965 teachings on Vietnam at Oxford University and London School of economics (LSE).
• The Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) set up in 1966 and supported by students.

Question 24

What were the limitations of the increase in youth culture?

Answer 24

• The older generation was unwilling to accept new youth culture and ideas.

Question 25

How significant was the youth culture’s impact on the Vietnam war?

Answer 25

• 17th March 1968 violent anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in London near the American Embassy.
• 28th March demonstration Battle of Grosvenor Square where 200 were arrested
• October 1968 peaceful demonstration (30,000 people)
• 1968 more anti-war protests often combined with protests for more student power.
• At Sussex speaker on Vietnam war was covered in red paint, at essex 2 conservative MPs physically attacked, the Labour secretary of state for education and science was shouted down in Manchester and Denis Healey Labour defence secretary almost had his car overturned by Cambridge students.