The 1960s

The 1960s

Current Events & Pop Culture

Available to teachers only as part of the Teaching the 1960s Teacher Pass


Teaching the 1960s Teacher Pass includes:

  • Assignments & Activities
  • Reading Quizzes
  • Current Events & Pop Culture articles
  • Discussion & Essay Questions
  • Challenges & Opportunities
  • Related Readings in Literature & History

Sample of Current Events & Pop Culture


"Mad Men" and Sixties History

This NPR interview talks to Matthew Weiner, creator of the television series "Mad Men," which is set in the early 1960s (season 3, set in 1963, showed the Kennedy assassination) and covers the transitions in American society.


Excerpt

I think when I looked at 1960, it was a watershed year. It was the height of the '50s. There was a lot of counter-culture, a lot of subversion as the election revealed, subversion in the sense that people were not taking the American dream for granted. There was so much prosperity that people started thinking about other needs in their lives and you heard people talking about intolerance, inventing the bomb and, you know, the election was that close.

So that, in addition to the fact that the pill came out then, a lot of women flocked to New York just to be in the secretarial pool but, certainly, there was an influx of women into the workforce even at a low level. Also, I think that a big change really was happening and I don't know how to describe what made it take place, but there is definitely a before and after 1960.