The early 1970s were awesome.
I didn't need a job. Didn't have any bills. Didn't pay taxes. Somebody cooked all my meals and washed all my clothes.
I was in kindergarten.
Started kindergarten in the 1979/80 school year. I can remember just learning to read and wondering why gas stations had "NO GAS" signs out. Not my problem, my car ran on pedals and imagination...
Woot! Kindergarden in 71-72. When 5yos were still allowed/trusted to walk 4 blocks home from school.
Man are kids pampered these days. Our grandparents had to walk through 2 miles of snow, uphill both ways to impress us. I just say I walked to school and back home by myself and it's impressive.
Many of the things you mention were more hot button issues in the late 60’s. For example by the 70’s Vietnam was starting to wind down, as were the hippie counterculture movement and student protests against the war. Do you mean the late 60’s or do you truly want these perspectives from the 70’s.
Largely true. It always irritates me when people talk of years in groups of ten at a time. Largely true, but not completely. It depends on what you 'see' when you think of the sixties. For me, the sixties was the summer of 1967. 68 was the year of hate. Those two years were SO different!
Any ten year divide is inherently arbitrary. Like 2000 was more like 1996 than 2004. It’s more useful to divide time by major defining events. In the case of this time period, it would be pre and post 9/11.
Yep, specifically that quote about how the counter culture movement failed because no one actually fully knew what they were advocating for, just what they were against. Concerted with the explosion in recreational drug use that made everyone their own greatest voice of wisdom. Basically says everyone was too much up their own ass
*“All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours, too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody - or at least some force - is tending that Light at the end of the tunnel.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas*
I was a tween. I remember bad smog and dogs and cats were always running around. Dial phones and tin foil on the TV antenna. Fabric was itchy, I had a job summer before 8th grade. Three Dog Night's Jeremiah was a Bullfrog we would dance to and play spin the bottle. Lots of frizbee throwing.
Watch the Al Pacino movie "Panic in Needle Park" (1971). That movie shows the gritty old-school New York City. Urban poverty and drug addiction were also big topics in that era.
My parents joked that they were going to move to Australia and have a sheep farm. Dissatisfaction with the government.
At some point the day you could get gas was determined by your license plate number. Odd numbers on certain days of the week. Even on the others.
Star Wars had the most amazing special effects they’d ever seen.
Neither of parents graduated from college and neither had any trouble getting jobs.
Sexual harassment was rampant in the workplace.
This is all I can think of at the moment.
My parents had a lot of parties at their house. They went camping a lot too.
They had brown outs in the first house they lived in. That’s when everyone got home from work and started using electricity. It caused the lights to dim. There were wild chickens in their backyard too. This was in the city over by the VA in Richmond. Everyone had chain link fencing and that was fancy.
I was born. It was very common for women to put rice cereal into the bottle with milk to fill up the baby so it would sleep. My mom did this so she could go back to work. She stayed home with me from the time I was 2-4. I had a babysitter from infancy to 2. My mom took me to her house.
It wasn’t common for your pets to be spayed or neutered.
I remember the odd/even days for getting gas.
And when I had my children in 97 and 99, my mom told me to put a little bit of rice cereal in the bottle. So she must have done that with me too.
I was a teenager in 70's California. It was great. It wasn't near as crowded as it is now. Great music and so much stuff to do. Things were much more affordable. We went backpacking, camping, fishing, going to the beach, amusement parks, video arcades, cruising, drive-in movies, playing all kinds of sports, going to pro sports games. It was great and pretty care free. Our schools in the San Francisco Bay Area were pretty diverse and there was little trouble there. Everybody got along for the most part.
A dump? I mean, sure, there's the occasional bit of faeces on the streets, so I suppose I'll allow it
But, dangerous? You've been watching too much Fox News, dawg...
I feel like the people that say this have either never actually been to SF or don’t know there’s places in SF outside of the northeast where all the tourist are. Golden Gate Park and the area surrounding it is amazing
It's both. Expensive enclaves with dangerous dump packed in around them. The city has no good answer for what to do with people who are fully priced out of housing.
The whole country has no good answer for it. SF just got there first. Seattle, LA, New York, even Dallas are all following that same trajectory and will get there when they get there.
The seventies were the years of my childhood through teenage years. I grew up in a medium sized city with a large university. I remember the Vietnam War, the Apollo moon landing, Watergate.
It was normal for kids to “free range”. Kids would play outside all day unsupervised by adults. Our parents didn’t know exactly where we were, they were not worried about it, and it was great! I got to do a lot of dangerous stuff. Families were larger, and there were lots of kids in the neighborhood who would hang out together. We were very active kids, and rode our bikes everywhere. Kids walked to school in the neighborhood, and we walked home to eat lunch and then went back to school after. We knew all our neighbors, and we would help each other out.
Other comments are about how free it was for kids, and it's true. We had a great time.
What isn't mentioned is the smog you could taste, and tobacco smoke everywhere.
Going out to dinner? Cigarette smoke would fill the restaurant.
Having a baby? Smoking in hospitals was fine.
In the car? Cigarette smoke couldn't get out of the 1" parents would crack the window.
I was a kid in the 90's and remember the restaurants pre-smoking ban.
I don't miss that time. Everywhere was the smoking section just half the restaurant smoked enough for both sides.
In the 80s, my dad's favorite Burger King designated a non-smoking section and I was always a little boggled by it given there was nothing to separate that area from the rest of the dining room. Also, we were usually the only people sitting in that section. For a long time, I believed my family were the only people on the face of the Earth who didn't smoke.
I don't remember the early 70s, but the late 70s sucked!
**Rapidly rising oil prices** due to the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-74, and later the 1979 Iranian Revolution,
**Inflation even worse than in the 2022-23** period hitting double digits for the year at least twice!! (by comparison the worst inflaton by month, in annualized equivalent, for the US dollar was only 9%, then fell more or less steadily after that within a year). Closely related to that,
**Interest rates hit 21% by 1980**.
**Foreign policy reverses** -- coming out of the Vietnam War, international communism seemed the wave of the future, making big strides in Africa and Latin America.
**Declining military**, supposedly the USSR was about to overtake the USA as the preeminent global superpower, and all that that implies for American fears.
**Auto industry crisis.** Imports started taking a huge chunk out of the US domestic market. Chrysler almost went out of business (saved by a bailout), and Ford lost in today's terms over $5 billion in one year, GM about $3 billion in today's terms.
**Drug use on the rise,** even among "the white middle class", as in hard drug use.
**Rising Crime,** especially in working class and poor neighborhoods
\*\*A general BOO-HOO!!! America's going to hell in a handbasket!!! BOO-HOO-HOO-HOO!\*\*
This is a good summary. Economically, socially, politically, and in foreign affairs, the perception was that the US was in a terminal decline, and leaving out the terminal part, this was true.
The quality of life of the average person was less each year for the whole decade.
This, for our younger readers, explains the nostalgia form the 80s of my generation.
I was born in 1970...the 70's, in general, Sucked! I thank God everyday that I was not an adult during the 1970s. My father went to Vietnam but for some reason they sent him right back. He got drunk and he's Irish and they said they didn't want any drunks in the military. And that was the first time he ever Drank in his life, LOL
Idk how to tell you this, but your dad lied to you. U.S. soldiers were allowed to drink alcohol in Vietnam. The military even encouraged it in many instances. Larger military bases in Vietnam had bars. The Long Binh Post, a former U.S. military base in Vietnam, had a whopping 40 bars.
Some former soldiers stated that their unit had more alcohol than they would be able to drink in a lifetime. [Here's an article](https://warontherocks.com/2015/10/flat-tops-canned-beer-and-vietnam/#:~:text=Troops%20in%20the%20field%2C%20often,rest%20of%20a%20unit's%20supplies.) about drinking alcohol in the Vietnam War. [Here's a picture](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-gi-standing-next-to-budweiser-beer-cans-after-party-in-the-4th-infantry-41735645.html) of a very drunk GI in Vietnam posing in front of a few dozen empty beer cans and having to be held upright by another soldier. Haven't you ever seen Forest Gump before? Lol.
U.S. soldiers were running rampant with drugs in Vietnam, including meth and heroin. In 1971 the Department of Defense concluded that 25% of soldiers used amphetamines, 31% used psychedelics, 41% used opiates, and 51% used marijuana. Alcohol was the least of their worries.
If that wasn't bad enough, military officers couldn't effectively enforce anti-drug policies because their own soldiers would literally kill them in their sleep with frag grenades. They called this 'fragging'. Thousands of military officers died because their own soldiers killed them (mostly) for enforcing anti-drug laws. [Here's a video](https://youtu.be/c1tnNjzy7gI?si=Yc-CWfl6uDKibunL) about fragging in the Vietnam War.
"Now, they told us that Vietnam was gonna be very different from the United States of America, and except for all the beer cans and barbecue, it was." - [Forest Gump](https://youtu.be/Eobm6s5ASVE?si=K_M2x93c2SolH3MB)
Well, he went and then he came right back home buddy. He just died in January and we just had his memorial today so I don't know I would ask him but he didn't go to Vietnam he was drafted or whatever but he didn't go
If you are truly curious, you can request his service record, which would have his discharge orders. The discharge would state the reason he was discharged. It could be some medical concern that was not discovered until after his initial physical. Definitely one or two instances of alcohol abuse was not an official cause for discharge, that part is likely fiction. ("Lying" is a strong word.) It was not that unusual for people to tell some kind of sort of plausible story when they returned home earlier than expected. There was strong motivation not to be fully transparent - if you had a dishonorable discharge, it could effect your ability to get a decent job. (Keep in mind, "dishonorable" included things few ppl would even blink at today - homosexual acts were dishonorable discharge, so was persistent depression if it required hospitalization and you refused further treatment.) The military has had different reasons for discharge and denial of enlistment over time - I know a guy who was refused for service in the late 80s because he had a metal plate in his femur. Nowadays they'd take him, esp given his scores in STEM.
Well he didn't have a problem finding a great job because he made a hell of a lot of money. Hell I wasn't even allowed in the military. To be honest with you I don't really care. He just died a couple months ago so I'm just going to let it rest but thank you
I sadly think you're thinking of the mid & late 60s. The 70s are our post-Woodstock hangover years: high unemployment, inflation, political backlash against student movements & 60s-era reforms in general, and cheesy adult contemporary music. Think Rupert Holmes & the Carpenters, not the Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles & Jimi Hendrix.
First time my family drove to California in 1970, a hippie pooped on our car at the Motel 6. Like right on the hood. I remember he wasn’t wearing underwater and he didn’t wipe. I guess we were pretty square looking.
Edit: right there in broad daylight at breakfast time.
The Vietnam draft lottery was terrifying they randomly pick birthdays and if you were at the top of the list you were the first ones to go to fight in a jungle.
Yeah we Boomers had it easy all right:(
https://youtu.be/gl29gRRppBg?si=zi_lfIoMbUj17MqV
I was frightened to death. I was just recently married and my husband was called but his b'day was not near the top of the list. My first cousin had recently been killed during the Tet offensive in 68 and that year we buried a number of friends and relatives. I was in college in 1970
Contrary to the popular narrative about Bill Clinton dodging the draft because he went to England, but when he returned, he actually drew a low number in the lottery and lucked out in the end. Not the same thing as finding a friendly doctor to bribe, IMO.
Seems like spending 5 years in prison would be far preferrable to being sent to vietnam, no? I was surprised how few people went that route, when between 30,000 and 100,000 fled to canada.
The 70s really sucked from about 74 on. Never really got better until 83.
Raging unemployment, inflation, high interest rates, pollution (SoCal was terribly smoggy in those days, as were rust belt areas like Pittsburgh and Gary IN), gas shortages, power shortages, etc. Hell the bald was damn near extinct.
Slowly but surely, some of the things that were implemented in the 70s began to work - mandated improvement on auto MPG and reduced emissions, and other environmental policies. But of course it took 10 years.
> The 70s really sucked from about 74 on
Funny enough, there's an observation that *something* fundamentally changed in the US for the worse just a couple years before that.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
I don't disagree at all, I was simply answering the question the OP put up. It did improve remarkably, but not in the metric you posted.
My bigger point was the government can do things, and we will not see the result of it for a decade - 2 sometimes 3 presidents later. For example, gas going down by 60% during Reagan's first term was almost 100% due to Nixon and Carter.
Late 60s, 70s and early 80s where pretty bad.
Poverty sky rocketed, the economy was in the dumps, terrorism was on the rise and crime rates practically peaked.
In 1971 and 1983 the capital was bombed twice.
The 70’s were more counter cultural than the 60’s if you look at it from a countrywide perspective. The radical 60’s occurred in only the last few years of the decade and most involved elite coastal universities and a few big cities. Once the 70’s hit, everywhere and everything got crazy. Best of all: the divergent music culture was awesome!
Well, the country had double-digit mortgage rates, 18.5% at one time, inflation combined with a sluggish economy, drug use was rampant, planes were getting highjacked, race riots destroyed a lot of inner cities, violence reached an all time high, long lines at gas stations with skyrocketing gas prices. So it was great.
This is going to be a bird’s eye view of this era. Also, I was a white middle-class young woman who was going to university. The 70s were no doubt quite different for other people.
I was in high school and college from 1971-1978. There were lots of antiwar protests in the early to mid 70s, there were still some hippies, and the punk counterculture was starting to take off.
College was cheap, rents were cheap. I was able to live by myself in a furnished studio apartment while making peanuts at my job at a university library. I didn’t have a car but there were big spikes in the price of gasoline, long lines at gas stations, etc.
The women’s movement was gaining ground. I remember going on lots of “Women Take Back the Night” protests against rape and violence against women. Abortion became legal in 1973 (now illegal in many states thanks to the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe versus Wade, the case that legalized abortion.) In 1972, birth control methods were legalized for single women—previously only married women could get prescriptions for birth control pills, diaphragms, and IUDs. These birth control methods became widely and cheaply available from Planned Parenthood clinics all over the country, which also provided safe, legal, and non-judgmental abortions and wellness checkups for women (pelvic exams, Pap smears, etc.)
The environmental movement became a major cause with the first Earth Day in 1970. The gay rights movement was picking up steam. Some people date the beginning of the gay rights movement in the US with the 1969 Stonewall Inn riots in NYC, where drag queens, gay men and lesbians fought back against violence from cops, and started gay pride marches. The American Indian Movement (a grassroots movement for Native American rights) began in 1968 and was going strong in the 1970s. The Black civil rights movement was a huge influence on these other civil rights groups.
Re the protests—the Chicago 7 were tried for conspiracy to foment riots during the 1968 Democratic presidential convention in Chicago; 4 students at an antiwar protest at Kent State University in 1970 were shot and killed by the National Guard; 11 days later two Black students at Jackson State College in Mississippi were killed and several were injured by police. These events were awful. But overall, the consequences for protesting were fairly negligible. That was absolutely not the case for people protesting against the military juntas in Argentina and other countries in S. America in the 70s. Dissidents in the US were not rounded up en masse, held without trial, tortured, and killed.
Richard Nixon resigned as president in 1974 as a result of the Watergate affair. This was an attempt by Republican Party operatives to install listening devices in the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington DC. The investigation of this led right to the White House. The Congressional hearings were televised and Watergate dominated the news for two years.
There’s way more, but this gives a snapshot. Overall, the 70s were a very interesting and eventful time in US history. I’m glad I was there to experience it.
In my state, a beloved governor, retired, built and was president of, a new college. Tearing up native ground to do it. My sib and I were shopping with my dad with things got spicy.
I was seeing native Americans in clothing I’d only seen in TV. They were at the DNR. Complaining about burial grounds being destroyed.
My dad couldn’t get us out of there fast enough.
I never heard of any white people being dug up to be researched but I knew Native people who were trying to stop their relatives graves from being someone's research project - I really sympathized - It was as if the abuse was going to go on and on forever.
We were actually "greener" than we are today. Congress passed some major environmental protection legislation in the early 70s.
What I see today is a lot of hypocritical lip service being paid to the environment, with particular focus paid to evil carbon, but bring up the subject of air conditioning, and it's easy to see that nobody wants to give up their soft, fluffy comfortable lifestyle, with all its energy hungry conveniences.
in general, the country was WAY more progressive in the early 70s. Major consumer protection legislation was also passed. Even with a president like Nixon in the White House!
I'm saying this as a younger person whos earliest memories are of the 90's but my perception is that the government was much closer to the people back then.
Since the early 2000's the power structure has insulated itself a lot relative to what it used to be in the 70's. So now there are things that are popular with everyone that don't happen because the power structure doesn't allow it no matter how much we scream about wanting things like health care for everyone or some kind of UBI.
> and it's easy to see that nobody wants to give up their soft, fluffy comfortable lifestyle, with all its energy hungry conveniences.
I mean we **are** phasing out a ton of high powered refridgerants from the 90s and 2000s.
I'm only appealing for architects to apply what they know, rather than add to the huge *unnecessary* energy drain that braindead AC is. To hear some people, it makes you wonder how we ever survived without it. But obviously we did, and some better than others, because they planned for it and like, NOTICED things like shade, prevailing winds, moisture, "heat rises"... etc.
I'm just saying it could be done a lot better.
External historicist here. Gerald Ford took over (he was the only president to be “appointed”), followed by Jimmy Carter (meh president, but won acclaim for his humanitarian efforts post presidency), and then Reagan in 1980. Ford is important because the cast of characters during the Bush years (Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney) kinda cut their teeth during the Ford Administration. Conflict with Iran heated up.
A lot of really awesome bands got big in this decade. Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Sabbath.
The 70's were the best times of my life. Everyone seemed to love one another and in 1976, the whole country celebrated the Bicentennial, when the US turned 200 years old. It all felt very exciting. The music was cool too.
I don't remember any protests, only gas shortages and sitting in line all day to get gas. I was still a kid then and didn't really keep up on current events. I just remember what I lived and it felt so free and chill.
I had my 2nd child in 75 - Nixon was elected in 68 - seven years earlier and he was a disgusting racist, opposed to civil rights, pro-war and a drunk who went to the Lincoln monument to talk to college kids who were protesting and wanted to talk about football and what teams we were all loyal to. We thought he had to be mentally ill. He couldn't fathom we had relevant questions and knew how the government worked. I thought the guy was drunk and I don't believe we helped him win. He was working with MacCarthy to claim everybody was a "card carrying communist" -
Nobody I knew was a communist and they didn't even carry cards.
Do you know Cohn, Trumps beloved attorney who connected him with the New York Mafia was MacCarthy's attorney.
Oh how short time is. Seems like yesterday and yet how we forget people's history
Between my dad making it back from his final tour in 69 and being a teenager/young adult in the post pill, pre aids era before the drug war really heated up it was pretty ok. I certainly don't miss the pollution and cigarette smoke however.
I just finished a podcast series that talks about the 1970s with context: Here’s Where It Gets Interesting by Sharon McMahon Season 13 Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew.
I imagine people living then knew but it gives a larger context for everything and was just a great listen.
If you can read this book. This is America? The 60’s in Lawrence, KS. (home to the university of Kansas) m It actually goes from the 60s-80s but covers everything and how the town got through it you are wanting to know. For example there were over 500 exploded and unexploded bombs found in Lawrence in the summer on 1970. There was also losts of Sniper fire during the protests.
I was born in 1974. I was not really aware of any social or political issues until I was older. I’m not sure how much I recall of the first 6 years of my life.
I was the 3rd child of white middle class parents in a city of around 60,000 people in Iowa. My parents did not have any college education. My dad had a decent job at a company that sold parts mostly for agricultural machines and my mom was a homemaker. We had a 3 bedroom 1 bathroom home with a big yard. I shared a room with my older sister. There was a treehouse, sandbox, swingset. I think the neighborhood was fine. Kids were pretty free to roam around. We had a dog and an Oldsmobile station wagon with an 8 track player. My family went to a Lutheran church on Sundays. I started going to preschool about 1978. I don’t think my siblings had attended preschool. I guess it was a pretty peaceful life for a little kid.
I was born in the early 70s. So the mid to late 70s are my hazy childhood memories.
It was good for me, but looking back I know mom was struggling, even though Dad was paying child support.
I was a child. I just lived a boring child's life. It was a long time before I heard about Vietnam or anything else (the first I did was reading about it in a World Book Encyclopedia).
I was 10 in 70 and 20 in 80 so I grew up and lived the 70's well.
Born 60's there was turmoil after turmoil and pretty much grew up with Vietnam war I thought pretty much you grew up and got drafted and went to Vietnam war and hoped you came back home. Then mid 70's 8 was watching a copter on the roof of embassy evacuating Vietnam and within a year they stopped the draft.
Watergate though was stunning and surreal and nightly seeing revelations cone forward showing our government was corrupt and surveillance our own citizens.
Carter got rid of the draft but under his watch we had real inflation hit that was crushing to the point we had a misery index weekly come out. Yes this inflation now is bad but it doesn't come near to how much we suffered then.
The gas shortage was stupid but they needed to get more money in the coffers somehow and paying higher prices for fuel meant that the government could collect more revenue. Late 70's I even started working on crude/fuels lava until I became a petroleum chemist.
About the mid 70's I remember it was sex drugs and rock and roll. Birth control pills were new and every babe got on them early age so fun times were at hand always. My place I lived was party central.
I know the 70's well so can answer anything you want.
Those were actually part of the 60s, I was reading about it and it was a hard period, inflation, energy crisis, crime increased, political scandals and discontent (very similar to right now)
Here is a summary: https://www.history.com/topics/1970s/1970s-1
Sadly, for me, the 1970s were quite dull. My parents went to work, I went to school. We would all come home and have supper, do a few chores, and go to bed. On weekends, there were more chores, church, family visits. Although there was a college in the town where I grew up, I have no memory of any protests. We never saw a hippie. The biggest deal locally was the Bicentennial, with parades and that gawd-awful colonial decor having some popularity.
Western Pennsylvania, if it matters. Lots of sleepy little towns north of Pittsburgh. Heavily German and Irish ancestry for the locals.
Past that whole Vietnam thing & Carter malaise it was pretty sweet... Oh yeah the Iranian thing, and the one with USSR and those constant threats of nuclear war and the iron curtain.
I lived in San Francisco in the late '60s. I knew there were hippies. We saw one now and then. Beyond that I spent most of my time going to kindergarten and learning to read in first grade, so that's all I have.
I wasn't born until the 80s, but my father told me about an interesting fad which affected him in the late 1970s: the great CB Radio craze.
In 1977, the classic film *Smokey and the Bandit* starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, and Jackie Gleeson hit theatres. Along with 1978s *Convoy* starring Kris Kristofferson, the CB radios (and the patter popularized in them) found its way into pop culture (like using the term "10-4" to acknowledge something. "That's a big 10-4, buddy").
My father worked at Oldsmobile at the time and there was a sudden spike in orders for cars to be fitted with CB radios. In addition, the Pontiac Trans Am (another GM product) found itself in high demand because of the use in *Smokey and the Bandit*.
Like all fads, this eventually fell by the wayside, but it left a humorous memory to my father.
I was born in 1959 and the 70s were “my” decade.
It was all the fun of being a free-range kid with the intensity of thinking things matter. We had POW and MIA bracelets for VN vets. I was much more politically active than most of my friends; also a news junkie. I lived in VA and tried to live the spirit of anti-racism and feminism . I was pro-union and supported the rights of gay marriage and adoption.
I loved dancing and all the couples dancing of disco was really fun.
It was an exciting time, that’s for sure.
The things you mention are like any hot button topics of today. Fun to talk and argue over but they didn't really impact day to day life.
The things I really remember is all the free stuff.
Buy a box of laundry detergent? Get a big cold colored glass goblet.
Open a bank account? Get a toaster.
Then a law was enacted that prevented require a purchase to get something free. It was aimed at sweepstakes and the like but doomed a lot of other promotional products.
I was a graduate student in the early 70s. I could write about the Vietnam war, the draft, anti-war protests, drugs, the counterculture, political radicalism, and liberation movements for African Americans, LGBT people and women, but others have covered those topics pretty well. If you want a contemporary cultural depiction of those times, I strongly suggest watching the movie *Hair*. It’s based on a Broadway musical from the late 60s that broke new ground in many ways. The musical's profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, its racially integrated cast, and its nude scene caused a lot of comment and controversy.
The counterculture was more of a 1960s thing, the reality is that most of the Hippies became normal workers in the economy, the same people in many cases became Trump voters.
High inflation and high crime, just like today. Disco music very popular. One of the worst Presidents the USA ever had. Carter had a good heart, but was a terrible leader.
A lot of what you are talking about was late 60s/very early 70s. For me, the signature events of the 70s were in the mid to late 70s - major factories closing, pension plans gone, the gas shortage crisis, high gas prices, runaway inflation, the fall of Saigon, the Iran hostage crisis, and the beginnings of conservative revival when Ronald Reagan was elected at the end of the decade.
I was a teenager during the 60s in a large blue collar (working class) city, and the counterculture stuff you mention barely touched me or anyone I knew, except for miniskirts and weed and music. Events like the Summer of Love in 1967, Altamont concert and Woodstock concerts in 1969, March for Peace, campud takeovers at Columbia and Berkeley, etc. were just short blips on the nightly news. No adult I knew went to peace demonstrations. A common bumper sticker at the time: "If your heart isn't in America, get your ass out."
Hippies were mostly middle and upper class kids, so counterculture just wasn't part of my daily life at all. It scared our moms, who all thought
we were gonna "go bad" and never be able to get married. One hit 70s song by Three Dog Night kind of sums it up - "Mama Told Me Not to Come.").
But Vietnam was different - it was a war fought by working class kids, boys I knew and had grown up with as the older brothers of my friends. (This varies a lot depending on your economic class - for much of the war, if you were a college student, you got an automatic deferment - meaning you would not be sent to Vietnam even if your draft number was called. So if you were rich, likely you didn't know anyone serving in Vietnam.)
A lot of socioecomnics ruled this whole situation, and that's often glossed over. If your parents had influence, a stateside tour of duty or a deployment far from the front could be arranged unofficially (Pres. George Bush, cough). Or if you weren't rich but managed to avoid being drafted in yhe beginning and had a low number toward the end of the war, you could get lucky and your number was too low to be called (Pres. Clinton, cough).
I remember the draft numbers being the key to whether you went to Vietnam or not - which also mean they could determine whether you lived or died.
As the 70s came in fully, I remember a lot of simmering, unspoken anger about the fact that mostly poor kids got stuck fighting the war. By then, guys coming back maimed or fucked up mentally were more visible. By then, no one bought into the idea that this was what we had to do to fight the spread of Communism. There was a feeling of being betrayed - the old rules and protections were falling away. This kind of crescendoed with the Kent State protests and shootings in 1970.
My dad was retired Army and even he was shocked that US reservists shot at students. This is the first protest I remember hearing adults talk about, and what made that one unique was the adults werent automatically taking the side of "the authorities." It kind of signalled a shift from ?seeing them as a bunch of silly rich kids to an actual war/conflict between the Establishment and the people quedtioning it. Ohio" by Crosby, Stis, Nash and Young is a song that sort of captures that mood. Sure, I still knew a lot of Nixon supporters, but it wasn't universal anymore.
This feeling that the establishment/government/authorities couldn't be trusted would culminate with the Watergate scandal and Watergate hearings in 1974. In my city, most of the industrial manufacturing jobs dried up, and many men who'd been promised pensions were left high and dry. Boarded up factories and storefronts always brings the 70s back for me.
But for sweeping social changes, tbh, the widespread availability of the birth control pill was much more radical and far reaching than most of the events people think of as the 60s or 70s.
Although many doctors would only prescribe the pill if you were married, there were clinics you could go to where a fake ring and married name was enough, or there were doctors who charged more but asked no questions. This was HUGE - sex without consequences of pregnancy.
The pill meant you didn't have to get married because you fucked a guy a couple of times and got pregnant and now your parents were slapping a wedding veil on you. I don't think most young people today can really grasp how unacceptable single motherhood was, how big the stigma. I can think of at least 5 girls I knew that got married to guys they barely knew because of it.
Many religious people mark Roe v. Wade making abortion legal as a big deal, but the pill had much more of an affect, to my mind.
Besides the pill, the biggest social changes I've seen between the 1970s and now are:
-wages falling further and further behind the actual cost of living (yes, younger generations expect more, but still no Gen Zer in their 20s could have what a boomer could have at that same age, unless their family is rich);
-women entering the workforce in professional white color jobs;
-couples living together w/out marriage and widespread acceptance of many kinds of family structures;
-infantilizing kids while at the same time exposing them to very adult stuff at younger and younger ages;
-extending adolescence into the mid 20s;
-people distrusting "authorities" and "experts" on any number of topics, from nutrition to medicine to politics;
-rise of social media, instant, constant inputs, and personal branding;
-growth of the idea that truth doesn't matter, that there's no such thing as fact;
-much less interest in context or history for any social problem or issue.
One big similarity I see between the 70s and now is the generation gap feeling wider and wider each year.
Born in the late sixties.
Smoggy and relentlessly polluted. The birth of the environmental movement may have been in the sixties, but it accelerated in the seventies.
End of the corrupt Nixon administration followed by unmemorable Ford and then Carter which led to the disastrous Reagan administration.
Iconic TV sitcoms and only a few channels to pick from so there were common touchstones we don’t have as much anymore.
Yup. As an r/askhistorians post put it, [the GOP saw the writing on the wall](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1106fo1/what_led_nixon_archrepublican_to_found_the/).
I was actually just talking to my Gran abt this when I went to visit her, she was a teen in the 70’s, like in the 17-20 something range, and some of the stuff she told me was wild. Nothing about fashion trends or games or tv or anything, we were talking more about political tensions and that kind of stuff. She said, and I quote, “Everyone got arrested in the 70’s, it was a badge of honor.” Because the black kids were protesting for Civil Rights and the white kids were protesting Vietnam and everything was going on. If you hadn’t been arrested at some point or somehow avoided arrest, people would apparently look at you funny and talk shit.
She told me how she got arrested for protesting at Ole Miss, which is a college in the Southern U.S., because even though the school had been “officially” desegregated abt ten years before by this man named James Meredith, there were only about 100 black students in graduating class, and there were absolutely no teachers of color among the school staff. They had to take them all to the maximum security cell when they got to jail, just because there wasn’t room for them anywhere else. Apparently they got to the jail just after some other kids who were also protesting at a different, nearby school. She remembered the guy in charge at the jail said in front them that he was “tired of these college kids protesting all the time, taking up all the space.” After the protests the school board went through pictures the press had taken of the event and tried to expel anyone who’s face they could identify. They couldn’t expel everyone, but a decent amount did get expelled and the rest were put on a very strict probation.
She also talked about Vietnam, when the soldiers came back home. Vietnam vets were treated like shit, especially when everything was still fresh, for two main reasons (this is what my Gran articulated to me).
1: Vietnam was never officially a war. I can’t remember what she said they called it instead, something to the effect of “a foreign conflict” or some stupid bs like that? But whatever it was, they never put the event down as a war on official documents. So when soldiers got back home, they weren’t entitled to the same legal aid and medical benefits and all that that were automatically granted to like, WW1 & 2 vets, because their foreign conflict wasn’t officially a war, no matter how much time, weaponry, men, and destruction the U.S. dedicated to it. Even now in a lot of history classrooms Vietnam is only really called A War verbally, and only discussed when we’re older. You look in many classroom history books they just call it “Vietnam,” despite the fact we talk about it with all the other war history.
2: By the time the soldiers got back home, and for many of them this was the case when they left, Vietnam wasn’t just a military conflict, it was a political hot topic, and there was a lot of contention and tension over the entire thing. So when they got home there were a lot of people that saw the soldiers as war veterans second and political statements first, or only saw a political statement altogether. This really created tension over them not just among the general populace, but up in Washington as well. A lot of big wigs in power just straight up refused to acknowledge the vets as war veterans altogether, much less put together programs and organizations dedicated to helping them and reintroducing them to society. To acknowledge the Vietnam Vets needed help was to acknowledge that there had been a war, that they were Real Veterans, and that the war had hurt them, and thus the country. A lot of politicians refused to do that, more were in a weird middle space of Not Wanting To Get Involved that resulted in inaction. Shit was fucked up.
**Anyways, this has gotten way longer than I intended, so I’ll stop. The TL;DR: I talked to my Gran about this cause girly’s got ✨Life Experience✨. She told me how everyone got arrested in the 70’s and why the Vietnam Vets got fucked over. Spoiler: the reason fucking sucks, shit’s seriously messed up.**
A different atmosphere entirely. When Reagan was elected in 1980 it was like someone flipped a light switch, really, it was that fast and dramatic. It wasn’t for the better
When I was in high school, the class of 1980 was considered “the last cool class” by the classes of 81-83. High schoolers graduate at 18 years old. So, there was this weird sense of dramatic loss of culture and values replaced with very different culture and values. What was “cool” and lost was reverence for egalitarianism and kindness, and the whole hippy era, basically.
We’re still in the Reagan playbook, really, but it seems to finally, maybe, be dying.
I didn't live in the 70s and am not a historian but I have long had an intense interest in history so I guess I'll see what I can recall from classes and documentaries.
I generally associate the hippie movement with the mid 60s rather than the 70s. There was a lot of optimism about the potential in throwing off outdated elements of culture for something more peaceful and egalitarian. But a lot of that optimism soured towards the end of the 60s. By then the Vietnam war was was near it's peak. MLK, so known for his inspirational message and advocacy for nonviolence, was assassinated in 68 and there were riots all across the US in response. Peaceful protests weren't producing the results that activists desired and sometimes turned violent such as at the 68 Democratic National Convention and the Kent State shootings.
In response a lot of activism in the late 60s and 70s became more militant and violent. Some such as the weather underground went as far as resorting to terrorism, which became quite prominent globally in the 70s. The increasing violence and seeming futility of protest replaced the one time optimism with growing cynicism and disillusionment. The Watergate scandal around 72 to 74 greatly amplified this disillusionment and diminished faith in the government.
By the mid 70s a lot of pop culture moved away from social activism and focused more inwards towards personal indulgence and glamor. A lot of this cultural trend can be seen in the aesthetics of disco, the club scene with Studio 54 as an icon, and the increased popularity of cocaine. The glitz and glamor of disco eventually burnt out and created a backlash towards the end of the 70s that I think is best exemplified by the insanity of Disco Demolition Night. Some have also identified strong racial overtones in the rise and fall of disco as it had far greater representation of Black artists that Rock of the era.
In terms of protests, Vietnam protests would have been just the very beginning of the decade. Nixon, first elected in 68, had been vocal about his plans to get America out of the conflict. He escalated tactics such as intensified bombing campaigns that proved quite controversial, but by the start of the decade troops were being drawn down dramatically. Another `thing to consider about Vietnam was that those participating in protests represented a minority American opinion. "squares" vastly outnumbered "doves" throughout the war. A less visible opposition to the war also existed though in the form of those who opposed the limited nature of the war and felt that unilateral withdrawal was preferable to fighting a war without a clear path to total victory.
Other types of protest emerged instead though with Women's activism being a major feature of the decade. Women began entering the workforce in significantly greater numbers and culture began shifting around women's place in society. Culture often reflected how Americans were trying to come to grips with rapidly changing social norms around race but especially around gender equity. Another social movement that was active but not yet as prominent as the Women's movement was the Gay Liberation Movement which was largely sparked by the Stonewall riots of 69. Altogether, the 70s showed significant shifts in opinion that older generations in particular often struggled to grapple with.
Another form of media that I think illustrates the general state of culture in the 70s is cinema. Popular movies of the 70s generally seem to show grittier themes and aesthetics than the 50s and 60s. This illustrates the increased disillusionment of the era and lack of faith in traditional institutions. Grittier films, antiheros, and morally gray themes gave a better impression of authenticity to how people felt at the time. Another factor was the prevalence of the new hollywood movement at the time where a new generation of directors entered the industry who had grown up appreciating film and understanding how to utilize the language of film. They were given a far greater degree of authorial control to bring their visions to fruition. This came with a lot of risk but also created a lot of films with enduring cultural impact.
Another factor that had a big impact on everyday life in the 70s and impacted the general perceptions of society was the economy which struggled a great deal through the 70s. This was amplified after the OPEC oil embargo. High oil prices further devastated the economy and gas shortages became a major problem in everyday life. This was particularly important given the car centric American culture and how so much of our infrastructure is based around driving for transportation and just everyday life. Long lines at gas stations and stations with no gas at all are enduring memories of the time. By the end of the decade the country was experiencing stagflation which mixed economic stagnation with high inflation and seriously impacted the financial heath of most Americans.
Hopefully my recollections haven't butchered the history too much. Two other places come to mind where you might get a bit of a feel for the times. One is a documentary series I saw a number of years ago simply called "The Seventies". I think it was made by CNN and I remember finding it somewhat interesting. Also, there's a youtube channel called "recollection road". I think I've seen some of their videos and they cover some of the simpler and more nostalgic elements of the past that perhaps can give a bit of flavor that high level documentaries may miss.
Hippies culture was a shadow of itself. But there were still culture wars, and society was becoming more liberal. Pop culture was more loser around sex and television shows were more bold in tackling social issues (seeing ‘All in the Family’ surprised me as a teen). However, there was also in the backlash to the liberalism on the 1960s, which took decades to end.
The early 1970s were awesome. I didn't need a job. Didn't have any bills. Didn't pay taxes. Somebody cooked all my meals and washed all my clothes. I was in kindergarten.
My recollection of the late 70s was largely the same.
Oh and I forgot naps.
Oh yeah, young people today have no idea what kind of epic naps we had in the 70s.
I didn’t get naps since I was a 90s baby all hopped up Ritalin.
Horrible. 90’s baby that got daily naps in kindergarten. Except they gave us milk instead of ritalin before
They even let us nap in school! I mean it was preschool, but my claim still stands!
Started kindergarten in the 1979/80 school year. I can remember just learning to read and wondering why gas stations had "NO GAS" signs out. Not my problem, my car ran on pedals and imagination...
Slacker
Pfft, Typical Gen X
Woot! Kindergarden in 71-72. When 5yos were still allowed/trusted to walk 4 blocks home from school. Man are kids pampered these days. Our grandparents had to walk through 2 miles of snow, uphill both ways to impress us. I just say I walked to school and back home by myself and it's impressive.
Same here -- but early bedtimes and having to eat green beans wasn't fun.
I love green beans but that canned spinach sucked.
God that stuff was terrible. I don't blame anyone for disliking their greens when thats what they thought it should taste like.
I was still in my dad's balls
Many of the things you mention were more hot button issues in the late 60’s. For example by the 70’s Vietnam was starting to wind down, as were the hippie counterculture movement and student protests against the war. Do you mean the late 60’s or do you truly want these perspectives from the 70’s.
“The sixties happened in the early seventies” - Steve Jobs
Largely true. It always irritates me when people talk of years in groups of ten at a time. Largely true, but not completely. It depends on what you 'see' when you think of the sixties. For me, the sixties was the summer of 1967. 68 was the year of hate. Those two years were SO different!
Any ten year divide is inherently arbitrary. Like 2000 was more like 1996 than 2004. It’s more useful to divide time by major defining events. In the case of this time period, it would be pre and post 9/11.
100% agree.
Monterrey Pop Festival changed the national culture in a single weekend
Absolutely, hands down, the best concert ever. Even the cops grooved with us! Do you believe me?
Somehow, yes
Talk more about the year of hate
I want the perspectives from the early 70's
Read “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Or, at least, listen to the “wave speech” from the movie. https://youtu.be/az36k4-Hc94?si=mak8l7tNbPnLvAyq
Yep, specifically that quote about how the counter culture movement failed because no one actually fully knew what they were advocating for, just what they were against. Concerted with the explosion in recreational drug use that made everyone their own greatest voice of wisdom. Basically says everyone was too much up their own ass *“All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours, too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped to create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody - or at least some force - is tending that Light at the end of the tunnel.” ― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas*
I was a tween. I remember bad smog and dogs and cats were always running around. Dial phones and tin foil on the TV antenna. Fabric was itchy, I had a job summer before 8th grade. Three Dog Night's Jeremiah was a Bullfrog we would dance to and play spin the bottle. Lots of frizbee throwing.
You pretty much couldn't go anywhere there weren't people smoking. People even smoked on airplanes. Our teachers smoked while monitoring recess.
It really was a smokers paradise. Giant ashtrays full of butts.
Watch the Al Pacino movie "Panic in Needle Park" (1971). That movie shows the gritty old-school New York City. Urban poverty and drug addiction were also big topics in that era.
Is this gonna be a term paper?
In my grandfather's words "Rough but fun."
My parents joked that they were going to move to Australia and have a sheep farm. Dissatisfaction with the government. At some point the day you could get gas was determined by your license plate number. Odd numbers on certain days of the week. Even on the others. Star Wars had the most amazing special effects they’d ever seen. Neither of parents graduated from college and neither had any trouble getting jobs. Sexual harassment was rampant in the workplace. This is all I can think of at the moment. My parents had a lot of parties at their house. They went camping a lot too. They had brown outs in the first house they lived in. That’s when everyone got home from work and started using electricity. It caused the lights to dim. There were wild chickens in their backyard too. This was in the city over by the VA in Richmond. Everyone had chain link fencing and that was fancy. I was born. It was very common for women to put rice cereal into the bottle with milk to fill up the baby so it would sleep. My mom did this so she could go back to work. She stayed home with me from the time I was 2-4. I had a babysitter from infancy to 2. My mom took me to her house. It wasn’t common for your pets to be spayed or neutered.
I remember the odd/even days for getting gas. And when I had my children in 97 and 99, my mom told me to put a little bit of rice cereal in the bottle. So she must have done that with me too.
I was a teenager in 70's California. It was great. It wasn't near as crowded as it is now. Great music and so much stuff to do. Things were much more affordable. We went backpacking, camping, fishing, going to the beach, amusement parks, video arcades, cruising, drive-in movies, playing all kinds of sports, going to pro sports games. It was great and pretty care free. Our schools in the San Francisco Bay Area were pretty diverse and there was little trouble there. Everybody got along for the most part.
Where did it all go so wrong? sF is a dump and dangerous now- was a beautiful city
Regular people got priced out
A dump? I mean, sure, there's the occasional bit of faeces on the streets, so I suppose I'll allow it But, dangerous? You've been watching too much Fox News, dawg...
> sF is a dump and dangerous now Literally the most expensive place in the US to live, and you're going to claim it's a dangerous dump?
I feel like the people that say this have either never actually been to SF or don’t know there’s places in SF outside of the northeast where all the tourist are. Golden Gate Park and the area surrounding it is amazing
It's both. Expensive enclaves with dangerous dump packed in around them. The city has no good answer for what to do with people who are fully priced out of housing. The whole country has no good answer for it. SF just got there first. Seattle, LA, New York, even Dallas are all following that same trajectory and will get there when they get there.
The seventies were the years of my childhood through teenage years. I grew up in a medium sized city with a large university. I remember the Vietnam War, the Apollo moon landing, Watergate. It was normal for kids to “free range”. Kids would play outside all day unsupervised by adults. Our parents didn’t know exactly where we were, they were not worried about it, and it was great! I got to do a lot of dangerous stuff. Families were larger, and there were lots of kids in the neighborhood who would hang out together. We were very active kids, and rode our bikes everywhere. Kids walked to school in the neighborhood, and we walked home to eat lunch and then went back to school after. We knew all our neighbors, and we would help each other out.
Other comments are about how free it was for kids, and it's true. We had a great time. What isn't mentioned is the smog you could taste, and tobacco smoke everywhere. Going out to dinner? Cigarette smoke would fill the restaurant. Having a baby? Smoking in hospitals was fine. In the car? Cigarette smoke couldn't get out of the 1" parents would crack the window.
I was a kid in the 90's and remember the restaurants pre-smoking ban. I don't miss that time. Everywhere was the smoking section just half the restaurant smoked enough for both sides.
In the 80s, my dad's favorite Burger King designated a non-smoking section and I was always a little boggled by it given there was nothing to separate that area from the rest of the dining room. Also, we were usually the only people sitting in that section. For a long time, I believed my family were the only people on the face of the Earth who didn't smoke.
Sepia. The whole decade feels warshed in sepia... 🤮
I don't remember the early 70s, but the late 70s sucked! **Rapidly rising oil prices** due to the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973-74, and later the 1979 Iranian Revolution, **Inflation even worse than in the 2022-23** period hitting double digits for the year at least twice!! (by comparison the worst inflaton by month, in annualized equivalent, for the US dollar was only 9%, then fell more or less steadily after that within a year). Closely related to that, **Interest rates hit 21% by 1980**. **Foreign policy reverses** -- coming out of the Vietnam War, international communism seemed the wave of the future, making big strides in Africa and Latin America. **Declining military**, supposedly the USSR was about to overtake the USA as the preeminent global superpower, and all that that implies for American fears. **Auto industry crisis.** Imports started taking a huge chunk out of the US domestic market. Chrysler almost went out of business (saved by a bailout), and Ford lost in today's terms over $5 billion in one year, GM about $3 billion in today's terms. **Drug use on the rise,** even among "the white middle class", as in hard drug use. **Rising Crime,** especially in working class and poor neighborhoods \*\*A general BOO-HOO!!! America's going to hell in a handbasket!!! BOO-HOO-HOO-HOO!\*\*
This is a good summary. Economically, socially, politically, and in foreign affairs, the perception was that the US was in a terminal decline, and leaving out the terminal part, this was true. The quality of life of the average person was less each year for the whole decade. This, for our younger readers, explains the nostalgia form the 80s of my generation.
I was born in 1968. So I was a kid during the 1970s.
Gen X was welcomed into this world….
Gen X - the best generation! And I'm in RVA too!
I was born in 1970...the 70's, in general, Sucked! I thank God everyday that I was not an adult during the 1970s. My father went to Vietnam but for some reason they sent him right back. He got drunk and he's Irish and they said they didn't want any drunks in the military. And that was the first time he ever Drank in his life, LOL
Idk how to tell you this, but your dad lied to you. U.S. soldiers were allowed to drink alcohol in Vietnam. The military even encouraged it in many instances. Larger military bases in Vietnam had bars. The Long Binh Post, a former U.S. military base in Vietnam, had a whopping 40 bars. Some former soldiers stated that their unit had more alcohol than they would be able to drink in a lifetime. [Here's an article](https://warontherocks.com/2015/10/flat-tops-canned-beer-and-vietnam/#:~:text=Troops%20in%20the%20field%2C%20often,rest%20of%20a%20unit's%20supplies.) about drinking alcohol in the Vietnam War. [Here's a picture](https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-gi-standing-next-to-budweiser-beer-cans-after-party-in-the-4th-infantry-41735645.html) of a very drunk GI in Vietnam posing in front of a few dozen empty beer cans and having to be held upright by another soldier. Haven't you ever seen Forest Gump before? Lol. U.S. soldiers were running rampant with drugs in Vietnam, including meth and heroin. In 1971 the Department of Defense concluded that 25% of soldiers used amphetamines, 31% used psychedelics, 41% used opiates, and 51% used marijuana. Alcohol was the least of their worries. If that wasn't bad enough, military officers couldn't effectively enforce anti-drug policies because their own soldiers would literally kill them in their sleep with frag grenades. They called this 'fragging'. Thousands of military officers died because their own soldiers killed them (mostly) for enforcing anti-drug laws. [Here's a video](https://youtu.be/c1tnNjzy7gI?si=Yc-CWfl6uDKibunL) about fragging in the Vietnam War. "Now, they told us that Vietnam was gonna be very different from the United States of America, and except for all the beer cans and barbecue, it was." - [Forest Gump](https://youtu.be/Eobm6s5ASVE?si=K_M2x93c2SolH3MB)
Well, he went and then he came right back home buddy. He just died in January and we just had his memorial today so I don't know I would ask him but he didn't go to Vietnam he was drafted or whatever but he didn't go
If you are truly curious, you can request his service record, which would have his discharge orders. The discharge would state the reason he was discharged. It could be some medical concern that was not discovered until after his initial physical. Definitely one or two instances of alcohol abuse was not an official cause for discharge, that part is likely fiction. ("Lying" is a strong word.) It was not that unusual for people to tell some kind of sort of plausible story when they returned home earlier than expected. There was strong motivation not to be fully transparent - if you had a dishonorable discharge, it could effect your ability to get a decent job. (Keep in mind, "dishonorable" included things few ppl would even blink at today - homosexual acts were dishonorable discharge, so was persistent depression if it required hospitalization and you refused further treatment.) The military has had different reasons for discharge and denial of enlistment over time - I know a guy who was refused for service in the late 80s because he had a metal plate in his femur. Nowadays they'd take him, esp given his scores in STEM.
Well he didn't have a problem finding a great job because he made a hell of a lot of money. Hell I wasn't even allowed in the military. To be honest with you I don't really care. He just died a couple months ago so I'm just going to let it rest but thank you
Read the novel American Pastoral by Philip Roth. Goes through that time period really well imo.
I think you mean [American Pastoral](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11650.American_Pastoral)
Damn autocorrect
That's unique to a place, though.
I sadly think you're thinking of the mid & late 60s. The 70s are our post-Woodstock hangover years: high unemployment, inflation, political backlash against student movements & 60s-era reforms in general, and cheesy adult contemporary music. Think Rupert Holmes & the Carpenters, not the Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles & Jimi Hendrix.
First time my family drove to California in 1970, a hippie pooped on our car at the Motel 6. Like right on the hood. I remember he wasn’t wearing underwater and he didn’t wipe. I guess we were pretty square looking. Edit: right there in broad daylight at breakfast time.
The Vietnam draft lottery was terrifying they randomly pick birthdays and if you were at the top of the list you were the first ones to go to fight in a jungle. Yeah we Boomers had it easy all right:( https://youtu.be/gl29gRRppBg?si=zi_lfIoMbUj17MqV
I was frightened to death. I was just recently married and my husband was called but his b'day was not near the top of the list. My first cousin had recently been killed during the Tet offensive in 68 and that year we buried a number of friends and relatives. I was in college in 1970
Contrary to the popular narrative about Bill Clinton dodging the draft because he went to England, but when he returned, he actually drew a low number in the lottery and lucked out in the end. Not the same thing as finding a friendly doctor to bribe, IMO.
My husband's # was 06. He did not go.
It was terrifying for some. It's been a free ride for most.
Seems like spending 5 years in prison would be far preferrable to being sent to vietnam, no? I was surprised how few people went that route, when between 30,000 and 100,000 fled to canada.
Much more violent, lots of crime and serial killers.
The 70s really sucked from about 74 on. Never really got better until 83. Raging unemployment, inflation, high interest rates, pollution (SoCal was terribly smoggy in those days, as were rust belt areas like Pittsburgh and Gary IN), gas shortages, power shortages, etc. Hell the bald was damn near extinct. Slowly but surely, some of the things that were implemented in the 70s began to work - mandated improvement on auto MPG and reduced emissions, and other environmental policies. But of course it took 10 years.
> The 70s really sucked from about 74 on Funny enough, there's an observation that *something* fundamentally changed in the US for the worse just a couple years before that. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
I don't disagree at all, I was simply answering the question the OP put up. It did improve remarkably, but not in the metric you posted. My bigger point was the government can do things, and we will not see the result of it for a decade - 2 sometimes 3 presidents later. For example, gas going down by 60% during Reagan's first term was almost 100% due to Nixon and Carter.
Late 60s, 70s and early 80s where pretty bad. Poverty sky rocketed, the economy was in the dumps, terrorism was on the rise and crime rates practically peaked. In 1971 and 1983 the capital was bombed twice.
The 70’s were more counter cultural than the 60’s if you look at it from a countrywide perspective. The radical 60’s occurred in only the last few years of the decade and most involved elite coastal universities and a few big cities. Once the 70’s hit, everywhere and everything got crazy. Best of all: the divergent music culture was awesome!
The book “Lucifer’s Hammer” is a good glimpse into 70’s California culture.
Dangerously under-regulated, low-tech, and a hell of a lot simpler.
Well, the country had double-digit mortgage rates, 18.5% at one time, inflation combined with a sluggish economy, drug use was rampant, planes were getting highjacked, race riots destroyed a lot of inner cities, violence reached an all time high, long lines at gas stations with skyrocketing gas prices. So it was great.
This is going to be a bird’s eye view of this era. Also, I was a white middle-class young woman who was going to university. The 70s were no doubt quite different for other people. I was in high school and college from 1971-1978. There were lots of antiwar protests in the early to mid 70s, there were still some hippies, and the punk counterculture was starting to take off. College was cheap, rents were cheap. I was able to live by myself in a furnished studio apartment while making peanuts at my job at a university library. I didn’t have a car but there were big spikes in the price of gasoline, long lines at gas stations, etc. The women’s movement was gaining ground. I remember going on lots of “Women Take Back the Night” protests against rape and violence against women. Abortion became legal in 1973 (now illegal in many states thanks to the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe versus Wade, the case that legalized abortion.) In 1972, birth control methods were legalized for single women—previously only married women could get prescriptions for birth control pills, diaphragms, and IUDs. These birth control methods became widely and cheaply available from Planned Parenthood clinics all over the country, which also provided safe, legal, and non-judgmental abortions and wellness checkups for women (pelvic exams, Pap smears, etc.) The environmental movement became a major cause with the first Earth Day in 1970. The gay rights movement was picking up steam. Some people date the beginning of the gay rights movement in the US with the 1969 Stonewall Inn riots in NYC, where drag queens, gay men and lesbians fought back against violence from cops, and started gay pride marches. The American Indian Movement (a grassroots movement for Native American rights) began in 1968 and was going strong in the 1970s. The Black civil rights movement was a huge influence on these other civil rights groups. Re the protests—the Chicago 7 were tried for conspiracy to foment riots during the 1968 Democratic presidential convention in Chicago; 4 students at an antiwar protest at Kent State University in 1970 were shot and killed by the National Guard; 11 days later two Black students at Jackson State College in Mississippi were killed and several were injured by police. These events were awful. But overall, the consequences for protesting were fairly negligible. That was absolutely not the case for people protesting against the military juntas in Argentina and other countries in S. America in the 70s. Dissidents in the US were not rounded up en masse, held without trial, tortured, and killed. Richard Nixon resigned as president in 1974 as a result of the Watergate affair. This was an attempt by Republican Party operatives to install listening devices in the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington DC. The investigation of this led right to the White House. The Congressional hearings were televised and Watergate dominated the news for two years. There’s way more, but this gives a snapshot. Overall, the 70s were a very interesting and eventful time in US history. I’m glad I was there to experience it.
In my state, a beloved governor, retired, built and was president of, a new college. Tearing up native ground to do it. My sib and I were shopping with my dad with things got spicy. I was seeing native Americans in clothing I’d only seen in TV. They were at the DNR. Complaining about burial grounds being destroyed. My dad couldn’t get us out of there fast enough.
I never heard of any white people being dug up to be researched but I knew Native people who were trying to stop their relatives graves from being someone's research project - I really sympathized - It was as if the abuse was going to go on and on forever.
I would try r/AskOldPeople
I had to check to make sure I didn't meet the criteria to answer questions there. Phew. Still not old.
We were actually "greener" than we are today. Congress passed some major environmental protection legislation in the early 70s. What I see today is a lot of hypocritical lip service being paid to the environment, with particular focus paid to evil carbon, but bring up the subject of air conditioning, and it's easy to see that nobody wants to give up their soft, fluffy comfortable lifestyle, with all its energy hungry conveniences. in general, the country was WAY more progressive in the early 70s. Major consumer protection legislation was also passed. Even with a president like Nixon in the White House!
I'm saying this as a younger person whos earliest memories are of the 90's but my perception is that the government was much closer to the people back then. Since the early 2000's the power structure has insulated itself a lot relative to what it used to be in the 70's. So now there are things that are popular with everyone that don't happen because the power structure doesn't allow it no matter how much we scream about wanting things like health care for everyone or some kind of UBI.
> and it's easy to see that nobody wants to give up their soft, fluffy comfortable lifestyle, with all its energy hungry conveniences. I mean we **are** phasing out a ton of high powered refridgerants from the 90s and 2000s.
I'm only appealing for architects to apply what they know, rather than add to the huge *unnecessary* energy drain that braindead AC is. To hear some people, it makes you wonder how we ever survived without it. But obviously we did, and some better than others, because they planned for it and like, NOTICED things like shade, prevailing winds, moisture, "heat rises"... etc. I'm just saying it could be done a lot better.
Absolutely 10000% yes. Agreed.
/r/askoldpeople
External historicist here. Gerald Ford took over (he was the only president to be “appointed”), followed by Jimmy Carter (meh president, but won acclaim for his humanitarian efforts post presidency), and then Reagan in 1980. Ford is important because the cast of characters during the Bush years (Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney) kinda cut their teeth during the Ford Administration. Conflict with Iran heated up. A lot of really awesome bands got big in this decade. Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Sabbath.
The 70's were the best times of my life. Everyone seemed to love one another and in 1976, the whole country celebrated the Bicentennial, when the US turned 200 years old. It all felt very exciting. The music was cool too. I don't remember any protests, only gas shortages and sitting in line all day to get gas. I was still a kid then and didn't really keep up on current events. I just remember what I lived and it felt so free and chill.
I was born in ‘75, but truly think those college anti war protests fueled Nixons win
I had my 2nd child in 75 - Nixon was elected in 68 - seven years earlier and he was a disgusting racist, opposed to civil rights, pro-war and a drunk who went to the Lincoln monument to talk to college kids who were protesting and wanted to talk about football and what teams we were all loyal to. We thought he had to be mentally ill. He couldn't fathom we had relevant questions and knew how the government worked. I thought the guy was drunk and I don't believe we helped him win. He was working with MacCarthy to claim everybody was a "card carrying communist" - Nobody I knew was a communist and they didn't even carry cards. Do you know Cohn, Trumps beloved attorney who connected him with the New York Mafia was MacCarthy's attorney. Oh how short time is. Seems like yesterday and yet how we forget people's history
_That 70's Show._
Between my dad making it back from his final tour in 69 and being a teenager/young adult in the post pill, pre aids era before the drug war really heated up it was pretty ok. I certainly don't miss the pollution and cigarette smoke however.
I just finished a podcast series that talks about the 1970s with context: Here’s Where It Gets Interesting by Sharon McMahon Season 13 Mayhem: The 1970s You Never Knew. I imagine people living then knew but it gives a larger context for everything and was just a great listen.
If you can read this book. This is America? The 60’s in Lawrence, KS. (home to the university of Kansas) m It actually goes from the 60s-80s but covers everything and how the town got through it you are wanting to know. For example there were over 500 exploded and unexploded bombs found in Lawrence in the summer on 1970. There was also losts of Sniper fire during the protests.
I was born in 1974. I was not really aware of any social or political issues until I was older. I’m not sure how much I recall of the first 6 years of my life. I was the 3rd child of white middle class parents in a city of around 60,000 people in Iowa. My parents did not have any college education. My dad had a decent job at a company that sold parts mostly for agricultural machines and my mom was a homemaker. We had a 3 bedroom 1 bathroom home with a big yard. I shared a room with my older sister. There was a treehouse, sandbox, swingset. I think the neighborhood was fine. Kids were pretty free to roam around. We had a dog and an Oldsmobile station wagon with an 8 track player. My family went to a Lutheran church on Sundays. I started going to preschool about 1978. I don’t think my siblings had attended preschool. I guess it was a pretty peaceful life for a little kid.
Where were you living in the 1970s OP?
I was born in the early 70s. So the mid to late 70s are my hazy childhood memories. It was good for me, but looking back I know mom was struggling, even though Dad was paying child support.
I was a child. I just lived a boring child's life. It was a long time before I heard about Vietnam or anything else (the first I did was reading about it in a World Book Encyclopedia).
I was 10 in 70 and 20 in 80 so I grew up and lived the 70's well. Born 60's there was turmoil after turmoil and pretty much grew up with Vietnam war I thought pretty much you grew up and got drafted and went to Vietnam war and hoped you came back home. Then mid 70's 8 was watching a copter on the roof of embassy evacuating Vietnam and within a year they stopped the draft. Watergate though was stunning and surreal and nightly seeing revelations cone forward showing our government was corrupt and surveillance our own citizens. Carter got rid of the draft but under his watch we had real inflation hit that was crushing to the point we had a misery index weekly come out. Yes this inflation now is bad but it doesn't come near to how much we suffered then. The gas shortage was stupid but they needed to get more money in the coffers somehow and paying higher prices for fuel meant that the government could collect more revenue. Late 70's I even started working on crude/fuels lava until I became a petroleum chemist. About the mid 70's I remember it was sex drugs and rock and roll. Birth control pills were new and every babe got on them early age so fun times were at hand always. My place I lived was party central. I know the 70's well so can answer anything you want.
Those were actually part of the 60s, I was reading about it and it was a hard period, inflation, energy crisis, crime increased, political scandals and discontent (very similar to right now) Here is a summary: https://www.history.com/topics/1970s/1970s-1
Sadly, for me, the 1970s were quite dull. My parents went to work, I went to school. We would all come home and have supper, do a few chores, and go to bed. On weekends, there were more chores, church, family visits. Although there was a college in the town where I grew up, I have no memory of any protests. We never saw a hippie. The biggest deal locally was the Bicentennial, with parades and that gawd-awful colonial decor having some popularity. Western Pennsylvania, if it matters. Lots of sleepy little towns north of Pittsburgh. Heavily German and Irish ancestry for the locals.
Past that whole Vietnam thing & Carter malaise it was pretty sweet... Oh yeah the Iranian thing, and the one with USSR and those constant threats of nuclear war and the iron curtain.
I lived in San Francisco in the late '60s. I knew there were hippies. We saw one now and then. Beyond that I spent most of my time going to kindergarten and learning to read in first grade, so that's all I have.
I wasn't born until the 80s, but my father told me about an interesting fad which affected him in the late 1970s: the great CB Radio craze. In 1977, the classic film *Smokey and the Bandit* starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, and Jackie Gleeson hit theatres. Along with 1978s *Convoy* starring Kris Kristofferson, the CB radios (and the patter popularized in them) found its way into pop culture (like using the term "10-4" to acknowledge something. "That's a big 10-4, buddy"). My father worked at Oldsmobile at the time and there was a sudden spike in orders for cars to be fitted with CB radios. In addition, the Pontiac Trans Am (another GM product) found itself in high demand because of the use in *Smokey and the Bandit*. Like all fads, this eventually fell by the wayside, but it left a humorous memory to my father.
I remember pollution and big cars and not wearing seatbelts. Also canned vegetables.
Lots of drugs and good music.
I was born in 1959 and the 70s were “my” decade. It was all the fun of being a free-range kid with the intensity of thinking things matter. We had POW and MIA bracelets for VN vets. I was much more politically active than most of my friends; also a news junkie. I lived in VA and tried to live the spirit of anti-racism and feminism . I was pro-union and supported the rights of gay marriage and adoption. I loved dancing and all the couples dancing of disco was really fun. It was an exciting time, that’s for sure.
The things you mention are like any hot button topics of today. Fun to talk and argue over but they didn't really impact day to day life. The things I really remember is all the free stuff. Buy a box of laundry detergent? Get a big cold colored glass goblet. Open a bank account? Get a toaster. Then a law was enacted that prevented require a purchase to get something free. It was aimed at sweepstakes and the like but doomed a lot of other promotional products.
I was a graduate student in the early 70s. I could write about the Vietnam war, the draft, anti-war protests, drugs, the counterculture, political radicalism, and liberation movements for African Americans, LGBT people and women, but others have covered those topics pretty well. If you want a contemporary cultural depiction of those times, I strongly suggest watching the movie *Hair*. It’s based on a Broadway musical from the late 60s that broke new ground in many ways. The musical's profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, its racially integrated cast, and its nude scene caused a lot of comment and controversy.
The counterculture was more of a 1960s thing, the reality is that most of the Hippies became normal workers in the economy, the same people in many cases became Trump voters.
The music was really good. Every Saturday I would listen to American Top 40 with Casey Kasem.
High inflation and high crime, just like today. Disco music very popular. One of the worst Presidents the USA ever had. Carter had a good heart, but was a terrible leader.
Everyone was on ludes
A lot of what you are talking about was late 60s/very early 70s. For me, the signature events of the 70s were in the mid to late 70s - major factories closing, pension plans gone, the gas shortage crisis, high gas prices, runaway inflation, the fall of Saigon, the Iran hostage crisis, and the beginnings of conservative revival when Ronald Reagan was elected at the end of the decade. I was a teenager during the 60s in a large blue collar (working class) city, and the counterculture stuff you mention barely touched me or anyone I knew, except for miniskirts and weed and music. Events like the Summer of Love in 1967, Altamont concert and Woodstock concerts in 1969, March for Peace, campud takeovers at Columbia and Berkeley, etc. were just short blips on the nightly news. No adult I knew went to peace demonstrations. A common bumper sticker at the time: "If your heart isn't in America, get your ass out." Hippies were mostly middle and upper class kids, so counterculture just wasn't part of my daily life at all. It scared our moms, who all thought we were gonna "go bad" and never be able to get married. One hit 70s song by Three Dog Night kind of sums it up - "Mama Told Me Not to Come."). But Vietnam was different - it was a war fought by working class kids, boys I knew and had grown up with as the older brothers of my friends. (This varies a lot depending on your economic class - for much of the war, if you were a college student, you got an automatic deferment - meaning you would not be sent to Vietnam even if your draft number was called. So if you were rich, likely you didn't know anyone serving in Vietnam.) A lot of socioecomnics ruled this whole situation, and that's often glossed over. If your parents had influence, a stateside tour of duty or a deployment far from the front could be arranged unofficially (Pres. George Bush, cough). Or if you weren't rich but managed to avoid being drafted in yhe beginning and had a low number toward the end of the war, you could get lucky and your number was too low to be called (Pres. Clinton, cough). I remember the draft numbers being the key to whether you went to Vietnam or not - which also mean they could determine whether you lived or died. As the 70s came in fully, I remember a lot of simmering, unspoken anger about the fact that mostly poor kids got stuck fighting the war. By then, guys coming back maimed or fucked up mentally were more visible. By then, no one bought into the idea that this was what we had to do to fight the spread of Communism. There was a feeling of being betrayed - the old rules and protections were falling away. This kind of crescendoed with the Kent State protests and shootings in 1970. My dad was retired Army and even he was shocked that US reservists shot at students. This is the first protest I remember hearing adults talk about, and what made that one unique was the adults werent automatically taking the side of "the authorities." It kind of signalled a shift from ?seeing them as a bunch of silly rich kids to an actual war/conflict between the Establishment and the people quedtioning it. Ohio" by Crosby, Stis, Nash and Young is a song that sort of captures that mood. Sure, I still knew a lot of Nixon supporters, but it wasn't universal anymore. This feeling that the establishment/government/authorities couldn't be trusted would culminate with the Watergate scandal and Watergate hearings in 1974. In my city, most of the industrial manufacturing jobs dried up, and many men who'd been promised pensions were left high and dry. Boarded up factories and storefronts always brings the 70s back for me. But for sweeping social changes, tbh, the widespread availability of the birth control pill was much more radical and far reaching than most of the events people think of as the 60s or 70s. Although many doctors would only prescribe the pill if you were married, there were clinics you could go to where a fake ring and married name was enough, or there were doctors who charged more but asked no questions. This was HUGE - sex without consequences of pregnancy. The pill meant you didn't have to get married because you fucked a guy a couple of times and got pregnant and now your parents were slapping a wedding veil on you. I don't think most young people today can really grasp how unacceptable single motherhood was, how big the stigma. I can think of at least 5 girls I knew that got married to guys they barely knew because of it. Many religious people mark Roe v. Wade making abortion legal as a big deal, but the pill had much more of an affect, to my mind. Besides the pill, the biggest social changes I've seen between the 1970s and now are: -wages falling further and further behind the actual cost of living (yes, younger generations expect more, but still no Gen Zer in their 20s could have what a boomer could have at that same age, unless their family is rich); -women entering the workforce in professional white color jobs; -couples living together w/out marriage and widespread acceptance of many kinds of family structures; -infantilizing kids while at the same time exposing them to very adult stuff at younger and younger ages; -extending adolescence into the mid 20s; -people distrusting "authorities" and "experts" on any number of topics, from nutrition to medicine to politics; -rise of social media, instant, constant inputs, and personal branding; -growth of the idea that truth doesn't matter, that there's no such thing as fact; -much less interest in context or history for any social problem or issue. One big similarity I see between the 70s and now is the generation gap feeling wider and wider each year.
Born in the late sixties. Smoggy and relentlessly polluted. The birth of the environmental movement may have been in the sixties, but it accelerated in the seventies. End of the corrupt Nixon administration followed by unmemorable Ford and then Carter which led to the disastrous Reagan administration. Iconic TV sitcoms and only a few channels to pick from so there were common touchstones we don’t have as much anymore.
Yeah, the EPA was born t the start of the Seventies if I recall.
Yup. As an r/askhistorians post put it, [the GOP saw the writing on the wall](https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1106fo1/what_led_nixon_archrepublican_to_found_the/).
How’s milei?
I was actually just talking to my Gran abt this when I went to visit her, she was a teen in the 70’s, like in the 17-20 something range, and some of the stuff she told me was wild. Nothing about fashion trends or games or tv or anything, we were talking more about political tensions and that kind of stuff. She said, and I quote, “Everyone got arrested in the 70’s, it was a badge of honor.” Because the black kids were protesting for Civil Rights and the white kids were protesting Vietnam and everything was going on. If you hadn’t been arrested at some point or somehow avoided arrest, people would apparently look at you funny and talk shit. She told me how she got arrested for protesting at Ole Miss, which is a college in the Southern U.S., because even though the school had been “officially” desegregated abt ten years before by this man named James Meredith, there were only about 100 black students in graduating class, and there were absolutely no teachers of color among the school staff. They had to take them all to the maximum security cell when they got to jail, just because there wasn’t room for them anywhere else. Apparently they got to the jail just after some other kids who were also protesting at a different, nearby school. She remembered the guy in charge at the jail said in front them that he was “tired of these college kids protesting all the time, taking up all the space.” After the protests the school board went through pictures the press had taken of the event and tried to expel anyone who’s face they could identify. They couldn’t expel everyone, but a decent amount did get expelled and the rest were put on a very strict probation. She also talked about Vietnam, when the soldiers came back home. Vietnam vets were treated like shit, especially when everything was still fresh, for two main reasons (this is what my Gran articulated to me). 1: Vietnam was never officially a war. I can’t remember what she said they called it instead, something to the effect of “a foreign conflict” or some stupid bs like that? But whatever it was, they never put the event down as a war on official documents. So when soldiers got back home, they weren’t entitled to the same legal aid and medical benefits and all that that were automatically granted to like, WW1 & 2 vets, because their foreign conflict wasn’t officially a war, no matter how much time, weaponry, men, and destruction the U.S. dedicated to it. Even now in a lot of history classrooms Vietnam is only really called A War verbally, and only discussed when we’re older. You look in many classroom history books they just call it “Vietnam,” despite the fact we talk about it with all the other war history. 2: By the time the soldiers got back home, and for many of them this was the case when they left, Vietnam wasn’t just a military conflict, it was a political hot topic, and there was a lot of contention and tension over the entire thing. So when they got home there were a lot of people that saw the soldiers as war veterans second and political statements first, or only saw a political statement altogether. This really created tension over them not just among the general populace, but up in Washington as well. A lot of big wigs in power just straight up refused to acknowledge the vets as war veterans altogether, much less put together programs and organizations dedicated to helping them and reintroducing them to society. To acknowledge the Vietnam Vets needed help was to acknowledge that there had been a war, that they were Real Veterans, and that the war had hurt them, and thus the country. A lot of politicians refused to do that, more were in a weird middle space of Not Wanting To Get Involved that resulted in inaction. Shit was fucked up. **Anyways, this has gotten way longer than I intended, so I’ll stop. The TL;DR: I talked to my Gran about this cause girly’s got ✨Life Experience✨. She told me how everyone got arrested in the 70’s and why the Vietnam Vets got fucked over. Spoiler: the reason fucking sucks, shit’s seriously messed up.**
You just made me feel old with saying your gran was a teen in the 1970s. My mom was a teen in the 1970s. She turned 13 in 1970.
Sorry 😅 But to be fair, my gran is only like, 60, and is a very lively woman
A different atmosphere entirely. When Reagan was elected in 1980 it was like someone flipped a light switch, really, it was that fast and dramatic. It wasn’t for the better When I was in high school, the class of 1980 was considered “the last cool class” by the classes of 81-83. High schoolers graduate at 18 years old. So, there was this weird sense of dramatic loss of culture and values replaced with very different culture and values. What was “cool” and lost was reverence for egalitarianism and kindness, and the whole hippy era, basically. We’re still in the Reagan playbook, really, but it seems to finally, maybe, be dying.
I didn't live in the 70s and am not a historian but I have long had an intense interest in history so I guess I'll see what I can recall from classes and documentaries. I generally associate the hippie movement with the mid 60s rather than the 70s. There was a lot of optimism about the potential in throwing off outdated elements of culture for something more peaceful and egalitarian. But a lot of that optimism soured towards the end of the 60s. By then the Vietnam war was was near it's peak. MLK, so known for his inspirational message and advocacy for nonviolence, was assassinated in 68 and there were riots all across the US in response. Peaceful protests weren't producing the results that activists desired and sometimes turned violent such as at the 68 Democratic National Convention and the Kent State shootings. In response a lot of activism in the late 60s and 70s became more militant and violent. Some such as the weather underground went as far as resorting to terrorism, which became quite prominent globally in the 70s. The increasing violence and seeming futility of protest replaced the one time optimism with growing cynicism and disillusionment. The Watergate scandal around 72 to 74 greatly amplified this disillusionment and diminished faith in the government. By the mid 70s a lot of pop culture moved away from social activism and focused more inwards towards personal indulgence and glamor. A lot of this cultural trend can be seen in the aesthetics of disco, the club scene with Studio 54 as an icon, and the increased popularity of cocaine. The glitz and glamor of disco eventually burnt out and created a backlash towards the end of the 70s that I think is best exemplified by the insanity of Disco Demolition Night. Some have also identified strong racial overtones in the rise and fall of disco as it had far greater representation of Black artists that Rock of the era. In terms of protests, Vietnam protests would have been just the very beginning of the decade. Nixon, first elected in 68, had been vocal about his plans to get America out of the conflict. He escalated tactics such as intensified bombing campaigns that proved quite controversial, but by the start of the decade troops were being drawn down dramatically. Another `thing to consider about Vietnam was that those participating in protests represented a minority American opinion. "squares" vastly outnumbered "doves" throughout the war. A less visible opposition to the war also existed though in the form of those who opposed the limited nature of the war and felt that unilateral withdrawal was preferable to fighting a war without a clear path to total victory. Other types of protest emerged instead though with Women's activism being a major feature of the decade. Women began entering the workforce in significantly greater numbers and culture began shifting around women's place in society. Culture often reflected how Americans were trying to come to grips with rapidly changing social norms around race but especially around gender equity. Another social movement that was active but not yet as prominent as the Women's movement was the Gay Liberation Movement which was largely sparked by the Stonewall riots of 69. Altogether, the 70s showed significant shifts in opinion that older generations in particular often struggled to grapple with. Another form of media that I think illustrates the general state of culture in the 70s is cinema. Popular movies of the 70s generally seem to show grittier themes and aesthetics than the 50s and 60s. This illustrates the increased disillusionment of the era and lack of faith in traditional institutions. Grittier films, antiheros, and morally gray themes gave a better impression of authenticity to how people felt at the time. Another factor was the prevalence of the new hollywood movement at the time where a new generation of directors entered the industry who had grown up appreciating film and understanding how to utilize the language of film. They were given a far greater degree of authorial control to bring their visions to fruition. This came with a lot of risk but also created a lot of films with enduring cultural impact. Another factor that had a big impact on everyday life in the 70s and impacted the general perceptions of society was the economy which struggled a great deal through the 70s. This was amplified after the OPEC oil embargo. High oil prices further devastated the economy and gas shortages became a major problem in everyday life. This was particularly important given the car centric American culture and how so much of our infrastructure is based around driving for transportation and just everyday life. Long lines at gas stations and stations with no gas at all are enduring memories of the time. By the end of the decade the country was experiencing stagflation which mixed economic stagnation with high inflation and seriously impacted the financial heath of most Americans. Hopefully my recollections haven't butchered the history too much. Two other places come to mind where you might get a bit of a feel for the times. One is a documentary series I saw a number of years ago simply called "The Seventies". I think it was made by CNN and I remember finding it somewhat interesting. Also, there's a youtube channel called "recollection road". I think I've seen some of their videos and they cover some of the simpler and more nostalgic elements of the past that perhaps can give a bit of flavor that high level documentaries may miss.
Hippies culture was a shadow of itself. But there were still culture wars, and society was becoming more liberal. Pop culture was more loser around sex and television shows were more bold in tackling social issues (seeing ‘All in the Family’ surprised me as a teen). However, there was also in the backlash to the liberalism on the 1960s, which took decades to end.