Jennifer Anderson December 6, 2013 C&T 806 Defining an Undefined Decade Ah, the 1970s.

It was a time of confusion and change; it was, as historian Judith Stein puts it, a pivotal decade,1 so why isnt it presented that way? Some people look at the 1970s and dont consider it to be history yet; we, as a society, are not far enough removed from the decade enough to critically evaluate and make judgments about the time period. Others think that its just a wash of a decade, one of those decades where nothing really happened and theres not a lot to focus on. As Alice Echols puts it, the seventies seem the decade when nothing, or nothing good, happened an era memorable for the countrys hapless presidents, declining prestige, bad fashions, ludicrous music, and such over-the-top narcissism that Tom Wolfe dubbed it the Me DecadeFor many Americans, there were the forgettable years.2 That, however, is starting to change. Recently there has been a lot of renewed interest in the time period and many people have tried to tackle this undefinable decade and give it just that, a definition, and that is what I propose to do as well. Stephen Tuck (2008) talks about the struggle and fight that black people continued on; the fight for Civil Rights was still stayed strong in the 1970s and even intensified and expanded during this time. Kutulas (2010) piece takes a hard look at the struggle that many young men and women were going through, trying to figure out what love was and what they wanted in a relationship and many turned to the music and the musicians for guidance, not their parents. The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, I am going to try to define this undefinable decade; give a little bit of history and discuss the new
1

Stein, J. (2010). Pivotal decade: How the United States traded factories for finance in the 1970s . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2 Echols, A. (2010). Hot stuff: Disco and the remaking of American culture (p. xv). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.

revelations that have come out about the 1970s. Second, I am going to discuss ways that this time period should be presented to high school students in a Social Studies class. Unlike the previous decades in the 20th century, the 1970s has not had a clear definition; the 1930s are defined by the Great Depression and rebuilding the economy, the 1940s are defined by WWII and its aftermath, the 1950s are defined by the red scare and the baby boomers, the 1960s is defined by hippies, Civil Rights, and Vietnamand then comes the 1970s. Too often a time, the 1970s is an overlooked decade. It is more seen, and presented as a decade of events, just one thing right after the other and often time it is rushed through. Typically the decade starts off with the Vietnam War, then the Nixon presidency, the event known as Watergate and its aftermath, then goes into the oil crisis and OPEC then there is some focus on the Carter administration and then its onto President Reagan and Reaganomics. No wonder most people and students think that the 1970s is just a so-so decade; just a lot of events not a lot of definition. Struggle for Identity African Americans So what were the 1970s really like? The decade was definitely defined by change and a struggle to find a new identity and their place in this new decade. Take African Americans for example. When students think of that Civil Rights movement, many just think that it was an issue that happened and ended in the 1960s; many students think that everything was resolved in that decade and that is just not true. Part of that could be due to lack of awareness. In Tucks work, he pointed out that ...civil rights protests had dropped off the media agenda by the 1970s.3 As Tuck later points out in his article, when the media was approached with stories

Tuck, S. (2008, October). We are taking up where the movement of the 1960s left off: the proliferation and power of African American protest during the 1970s. Journal of Contemporary History, 43(4), 638. Retrieved October 19, 2013, from

about racial injustice, many were not interested, it had lost its sexiness.4 There is a lack of awareness of the fight that continued on into the 1970s, and it goes all the way back to the 1970s. In actuality, the Civil Rights movement did not just disappear in the 1970s, in fact, the fight continued. In Tucks piece, he argues that in the past historians have referred to the Civil Rights movement as a long history, but it spans from the early to mid-1950s through the 1960s and just stops at the 1970s and that is simply not the case. In his piece, he points to a graph that shows a sharp decline in protests after 1965, but what Im more interested in is the fact that there were still protests in the 1970s. Figure 1 in Tucks piece showed what the New York Times had recorded about the number of protests from 1947 1993 and while is there is a decline in the number of protests,5 there are still protests, but why is that? Wasnt Civil Rights solved in the 1960s? According to Tuck and many other authors the answer is no. What Tuck tries to point out is that the traditional idea of what Civil Rights was, Dr. Martin Luther King, the sit-ins and push for equality, shifted in the 1970s to more of a grassroots effort, one that was fought at a more local level. What you see throughout this period are African Americans continuing the fight that was started in the late-1950s and early 1960s and trying to find their place in the 70s. Bruce Shulman also commented that the grassroots effort was not simply an action used by African Americans during this time, but rather that activists of all stripes embraced the

http://www.jstor.org.www2.lib.ku.edu:2048/stable/pdfplus/40543227.pdf?acceptTC=true&acceptTC=true &jpdConfirm=true 4 Tuck, S. (2008, October). We are taking up where the movement of the 1960s left off: the proliferation and power of African American protest during the 1970s. Journal of Contemporary History, 43(4), 638. Retrieved October 21, 2013 from http://www.jstor.org.ww.2.lib.ku.edu:2048/stable/pdfplus/40543227.pdf?acceptTC=true&acceptTC=truce &jpdConfirm=true 5 Tuck, S. (2008, October). We are taking up where the movement of the 1960s left off: the proliferation and power of African American protest during the 1970s. Journal of Contemporary History, 43(4), 637-654. Retrieved October 19, 2013, from http://www.jstor.org.www2.lib.ku.edu:2048/stable/pdfplus/40543227.pdf?acceptTC=true&acceptTC=true &jpdConfirm=true

tactics of the freedom structure and counterculture.6 The tactics and strategies that were used in the 1960s were pushed even further into the 1970s with the continuation for African American rights, to womens liberation and womens rights to later on into the late 1970s and early 80s for gay and lesbian rights. Schulman argues that the direct actions that these groups use in the 1970s stem from the actions used to achieve Civil Rights, but in the 1970s, there was a push for greater equality from more and more groups and individuals. Often times, I think that continuation from the two decades gets lost when it is taught to students. As mentioned earlier, a lot of students just assume that Civil Rights was achieved in the 1960s because theres not much talk about it after the 1960s. The 1970s saw not just the continuation of the fights from the 1960s, but rather a stronger, more broadened push by a lot of different groups fighting for what was not achieved in the 1960s. Struggle for Identity The Working Class African Americans were not the only people who were fighting to find their place in the 1970s, the silent majority, as they were referred to, were also trying to chart their way into this new decade. The silent majority were really the working class white, blue-collar workers who were typically males. Jefferson Cowies book, Stayin Alive: The 1970s and the End of the Working Class really chronicles and explains who the working class and why the 1970s was the period of their end. The working class was, as President Nixon coined it, the silent majority; men and women who grew up in the 1950s and 60s, typically white who felt like they

Schulman, B. J. (2008, October). Comment: The empire strikes back - conservative responses to progressive social movements in the 1970s. Journal of Contemporary History, 43(4), 696. Retrieved October 21, 2013, from http://www.jstor.org.www2.lib.ku.edu:2048/stable/pdfplus/40543231.pdf?acceptTC=true&acceptTC=true &jpdConfirm=true

were being lost in the shuffle.7 They werent protesting or rioting and nobody was fighting for them either. They just wanted to make it in life, be financially okay and live like their parents had before them. This is an important change because it is hard for students to really understand contemporary America. Students today havent lived in a time where dad could have a factory job and bring home enough income to support the entire family and mom stayed home and was a stay-at-home mother. That is something that students only read about, and from my experience, they thought it was just a 1950s thing. Well why did it end? How? These are all pivotal questions that deserve to be answered in order to give students a better understanding of the world that they are living in. What Cowie tries to show in his book are the reasons why the working class ended. One of the first things that he talks about in his book are the number of strikes that happened throughout the country and throughout different industries. There were coal strikes because health concerns were becoming an issue and it didnt look like their union was fighting for them, there were strikes by office workers, in particular women secretaries who were tired of not having the opportunity to really advance in the workplace because of their gender, there were strikes at car plants and grape fields.8 The point that Cowie tries to make is that people were no longer content with the old standard quo and there was a lot of confusion as to what their place in this new world was. No longer was it simply okay to graduate from high school and get a factory job, that amount of money wasnt going to be enough to provide for a family comfortably.

Schulman, B. J. (2001). The seventies: The great shift in American culture, society and politics (p. 35-42). Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. Cowie, J. (2010). Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the end of the working class. New York, NY: The New Press, 4957.

Cowie points to a number of economic issues and governmental policies that also impacted the period and focused a bit of time of events like the creation of OPEC, the oil crisis and oil shortage and events that arose in the Middle East. In my own experience, this information was covered and taught to the students in class, so while I dont think this information should change, I do believe that students should be provided with a better understand of the time and place that the United States was in when these events occurred. For instance, its very hard for students to really understand why the oil crisis was so shocking because many of my students have grown up with gas prices at $3 or higher; they have grown up being dependent on oil and knowing it, they have grown up with talk and conversation about finding an alternative fuel source and renewable energy so it is hard for many of them to put themselves in the place of life during the 1970s. If students are painted a more whole picture about the working class, the strikes and protests that occurred during this time, they would have a better understanding and, quite frankly a more complete understanding of this period and why it was so significant. Where Do the Youth Fit In? Women One of the other things that really struck me while doing my research was an article I came across by Judy Kutulas (2010.) At first blush this article did not really seem appropriate for high school students, after all it deals with topics like love and sex, but after thinking about what Dewey and Clandinin have discussed, this piece actually seems perfect for high school students. What Kutulas piece talks about are young men and women who are desperately trying to find their place in the world. There was a great shift in the 1970s and many of the middleclass baby boomers decided they didnt want to replicate the families in which they were

raised.9 Young men and women in particular werent looking to fill the same gender roles as their parents, but just because they didnt want to follow in their parents footsteps didnt mean that they knew what they wanted so they looked to music and musicians to help them find their way. Kutulas points to a number of different shifts in this period, for instance, she mentions that prior to the 70s, couples had lived together without being married, but often times that was in secret and by 1974 about half of all college students saw nothing wrong with couples living together without being married.10 This is a profound shift in thinking and in social behavior, one that in todays culture, many students may not find all that odd, in fact they might find themselves agreeing with those half of college students. The point is, students today would not be living in a time where that kind of social behavior was acceptable if it was not for the youth of the 1970s breaking free from their social norms and forging brand new ones; trying to find their identity in this new world. Kutulas mentions in her article that the songs by Carly Simon, Carole King and Joni Mitchell were becoming a part of the culture and touched a virtually brand new demographic the single, college-educated working womenboth unprepared for independent living and culturally conditioned to insecurity.11 She also goes on to talk about the new man during this time, no longer is it the macho guys guy, but it was men like James Taylor and Alan Alda, the sensitive male counterpart to the new demographic of women. Compare this music to the rock n roll of the 1960s and the difference or shift is very clear. As Bradford Martin put it, the path from 1960s rock to the 1970s singer/songwriter movement reflected a larger narrative of transformation from the search for the beloved community to the search for
9

Kutulas, J. (2010, December). "That's the way I've always heard it should be": baby boomers, 1970s singersongwriters, and romantic relationships. Journal of American History, 683. 10 Kutulas, J. (2010, December). "That's the way I've always heard it should be": baby boomers, 1970s singersongwriters, and romantic relationships. Journal of American History, 692. 11 Kutulas, J. (2010, December). "That's the way I've always heard it should be": baby boomers, 1970s singersongwriters, and romantic relationships. Journal of American History, 693.

self, from concern with social justice and global peace to the quest for inner peace, from fighting to liberate the oppressed to the triumph of personal liberation.12 While other decades were a fight and a struggle for external issues economic, communism, African American rights, etc. the 1970s was a struggle for internal issues who am I? Whats my place in society? My role as a woman? My role as a man? Men Just like women, men were trying to find themselves as well. Since women were no longer financially dependent on men and putting off when they were getting married, or if they even wanted to, men were left trying to find their new place in this society. Going back to Cowies book, there was a one particular protest in Lordstown, OH at a car plant. A lot of the workers were males under the age of 25 who wanted some sort of meaning in their work and meaning in their life.13 No longer were they content to just go to a job and do work for a paycheck; they wanted their work and their time spent on the work to have some meaning. Compare this to the 1950s, or even 1940s and 1930s where many people were just grateful to have a job. They werent concerned with having meaning in their work per say, they were just content and happy to have a job that provided them steady income and benefits. Transfer This to High School So how would all of this information look at the high school level? I realize that not all of this information can be covered in a high school classroom, not just because of the amount of information but also because of the complexity of the information. As I previously stated, there has been a lot of new information and research that has come out recently about the 1970s and

12

Martin, B. (2008). Cultural politics and the singer/songwriter of the 1970s. In B. J. Schulman & J. E. Zelizer (Eds.), Rightward bound: Making America conservative in the 1970s (pgs. 128-129). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 13 Cowie, J. (2010). Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the end of the working class. New York, NY: The New Press, 4249.

with that comes a lot of in-depth, specific and at times dry information. Quite simply, some of this information would just go completely over some students heads. The question that was posed at the beginning of the paper was how to define this previously undefinable decade, the 30s is the Great Depression, the 40s is WII, the 50s is the red scare and baby boomers, the 60s is hippies and Vietnam and the 70s iscontinuing the fight and struggling to find a new identity. I would have students look at more everyday issues as well as the big events like Watergate and the creation of OPEC. What I really discovered while reading was how widespread the impact of this decade was. Everyone, from white working class people, to women, to African Americans to young men and women suddenly found themselves in a world unknown to them and they were all forced to chart their own paths. There was no plan, there were directions of what to do and what not to do, those rules were thrown away and people were left with crafting their new rules, from African Americans continuing their fight, to women trying to determine their role in society and what they wanted for their lives. One of the first ways to introduce students to this information would be to show a clip of something from the time period. One of the first things that I used was a clip from Saturday Night Live, the 1976 presidential debate between President Ford and Jimmy Carter. The clip is only a few minutes long, but it is a glimpse into the time period; it mentions womens issues, economic problems and also gives the students a feel for the presidential nominees at the time.14 While SNL is an exaggeration of what people are like and events, it is still a primary source and gives students an introduction to that decade, even if it is in a satirical way.

14

Chase, C. (Actor). (September 18, 1976). Saturday Night Live 1976 Presidential debate [Online video]. Retrieved October 30, 2013, from http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/best-of-snl-presidential-debate-parodiesthrough-the-years-20121002

One of the biggest things that needs to be addressed before going any further would be for the teacher to work with the students to develop and understand the vocabulary that is going to be used during this time period. For example, one cant talk about the 1970s without talking about the working class, but what or who exactly are the working class? What is feminism? Students may have preconceived notions or some may have no idea what either of those words mean. By listening to the language that students use in their everyday life, it will give the teacher a better idea of how to express this new vocabulary to their students. This may require the teacher to focus on speaking differently to their students. I know when I was student teaching, one of the things my lead teacher told me to work on was lowering my vocabulary because it was lost on most of the non-AP students. It really forced me to think out how to explain events or other vocabulary terms for students. One of the other things that I worked on with my students was asking them to repeat back to me what they heard me say. This may seem a little frivolous, but sometimes what you say and what students hear are two different things. If you as the teacher ask for students to repeat back to you what you say you can not only see if they truly heard what you said or if they misunderstood, but also it can instantaneously show the teacher the language that the students uses. This technique can also be used by the teacher when addressing questions from students. Sometimes, students may ask a question and the teacher may hear it differently. For example, with the 1970s, if a student asked something like Why did the feminists protest? They could actually be asking Why did the feminists feel the need to protest? or they could be asking, Why did the feminists choose to protest as opposed to some other form of a demonstration? By repeating the question back to the student, the way you the teacher heard it, it can immediately

clear up any confusion and allow both the teacher and the student to move forward with learning the information. One of the things that is great about the 1970s was that a lot of what came out of this period (i.e. the womens movement and issues of abortion and the pill, to further strides to racial and gender equality, to the change in expectations that youth had in regards to their working climate or relationships, etc.) is something that students can directly see in their own lives. One thing that the teacher can do to achieve that contextualization is to design activities around students community norms. For example, if a teacher teaches in an area where students are expected to go to college, many of them could relate to the idea of pursuing a career that they love, instead of just doing something for a paycheck. That concept came out of the 1970s! That is something that students in that environment could relate to and make further connections to. Conversely, a teacher that teaches in a racially diverse school and/or a high poverty school, students could relate much more to the fight that the working class did in regards to more economic opportunities for minorities and women, or the outcry for better working and living conditions for minorities. They may still see some of the effects of the policies and actions taken during this decade in regard to their own lives. What struck me the most while reading was the fact that the 1970s was really the decade and great shift that made the US what it is today; if it werent for the 1970s and the push for womans liberation, you wouldnt have the greater strides in the 1980s and 90s and even today, if it wasnt for the economic issues and end of the working class, our society would look quite different than it does today; if it wasnt for the 1970s, we as an American culture and society would look very different than we do today. To quote Judith Stein, it was a pivotal decade, indeed.

Bibliography Chase, C. (Actor). (September 18, 1976). Saturday Night Live 1976 Presidential debate [Online video]. Retrieved October 30, 2013, from http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/best-of-snlpresidential-debate-parodies-through-the-years-20121002 Cowie, J. (2010). Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the end of the working class. New York, NY: The New Press. (pgs. 1-369). Echols, A. (2010). Hot stuff: Disco and the remaking of American culture (p. xv-239). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. Kutulas, J. (2010, December). "That's the way I've always heard it should be": baby boomers, 1970s singer-songwriters, and romantic relationships. Journal of American History, 682-702. Martin, B. (2008). Cultural politics and the singer/songwriter of the 1970s. In B. J. Schulman & J. E. Zelizer (Eds.), Rightward bound: Making America conservative in the 1970s (pgs. 128147). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schulman, B. J. (2008, October). Comment: The empire strikes back - conservative responses to progressive social movements in the 1970s. Journal of Contemporary History, 43(4), 695-700. Retrieved October 21, 2013, from http://www.jstor.org.www2.lib.ku.edu:2048/stable/pdfplus/40543231.pdf?acceptTC=true&accep tTC=true&jpdConfirm=true Schulman, B. J. (2001). The seventies: The great shift in American culture, society and politics (pgs. 23-52). Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. Stein, J. (2010). Pivotal decade: How the United States traded factories for finance in the 1970s. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (pgs. 1-300). Tuck, S. (2008, October). We are taking up where the movement of the 1960s left off: the proliferation and power of African American protest during the 1970s. Journal of Contemporary History, 43(4), 637-654. Retrieved October 19, 2013, from http://www.jstor.org.www2.lib.ku.edu:2048/stable/pdfplus/40543227.pdf?acceptTC=true&accep tTC=true&jpdConfirm=true