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Youth Culture

Terms in this set (10)

Affuence
The post-war improvements in medical care, welfare, food and housing meant most young people were healthier than ever before.
New domestic labour-saving devices meant that parents were less inclined to require their children to help with chores in their spare time. There were many job opportunities to supplement their pocket money. Unskilled and semi-skilled labour was in demand with hourly rated increasing faster for young workers than those for adults.
Previously handed over their earnings, the rising affluence changed attitudes. Young wage-earners continued to live at home and enjoy life with no financial commitments. No longer had National Service after November 1960.
Middle-class youngsters stayed at school until 16 and increasing numbers continued their education at universities or in other further education institutions. Between 1961 and 1969, the number of students in full-time further education rose from 200,000 to 390,000
Mark Abrams' research showed Young people had around £830 million to spend. This amounted to £8 a week. Teenagers spend just under half their income on entertainment. They were responsible for 40% of the record and record player market. 1/3 of all bikes and motorbikes and 1/3 of all cosmetics.
Youth culture and assertiveness
A gap between the 1960s youth and their parents was marked by a development in their values and styles and ways of behaviour among young people.
The new youth culture was spread by the media. Newspapers included articles on pop music and teen fashions, published chart lists and interviewed "celebrities". New female magaziones included "Honey" (1960), "Jackie" and "Fabulous" (1964)
Money gave young people a greater degree of independence, and a means of asserting themselves and, in turn, a greater degree of confidence in challenging the world around them.
Teenage boys showed their rebellious tendencies by growing their hair rong (no National Service meant no need for a military crew cut), while girls horrified their mothers by wearing mini skirts.
Religious teachings and "unwritten" rules, such as sex before marriage was wrong, were being questioned. With earlier sexual maturation due to healthier living and better methods of contraception meant a more liberal sexual relations. Cannabis was popularied by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. According to a survey in 1969, young people spent more time listening to music that at youth clubs or rock festivals. Michel Schofield's study in 1965 found that most were still virgins at 19.
Fashion
By 1967, 50% of women's clothes manufactured in Britain were sold to people in the 15-19 years age group. The fashion trends often began with celebrities, models and pop stars and new styles were disseminated at a speed previously unknown. By the mid-1960s 30,000 people were employed in the fashion industry and there was 2000 boutiques in London alone. Fashion of the 1960s was literally "up to the minute"; to be enjoyed then disposed of.
Traditional rules were abandoned. It became acceptable to wear the same outfit for work and for evening. Women might equally well appear in trousers, as a skirt. Changing fashions helped override some of the old social divisions, both between sexes and between classes.
Reasons for youth culture/changing fashion
The development of the affluent society
The growth of a consumer culture
The increasing assertiveness of teenagers
The changing role of women
The growing frankness about sex and sexual inhibition
The development of technology and science
Designers
The first generation of 1960s fashion, led by Quant, created the "minimalist" look - clothes that were childlike and easy to wear, yet daring, rebellious and provocative. Modelled by Twiggy with pale faces, big staring eyes, suggesting childish innocence.
Fashion and science were entwined with the use of white plastic for boots and brightly coloured PVC for raincoats and skirts. Strong geometric shaped were popular, and this included the Mary Quant "bob".
The second wave of designers included John Bates, Ossie Clark of Quaorum, Barbra Hulanicki of Biba and Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin who founded a studio on Carnaby Street. They created bright, fun dresses, skirts and tops, and were among the first to experiment with making women's trousers into flattering, sexy garments.
John Stephen was the "King of Carnaby Street". He designed cheap but flamboyant clothes for men, and was famous for his cravats, tight red corduroy trousers and fitted black shirts.
Music
Popular music was another means in which the young forged a separate identity. Recently developed transistor radios offered cheap and portable means of keeping up to date with the latest releases. Young people could enjoy almost continuous "pop" by tuninginto once of the offshore radio stations or, from 1967, BBC Radio One. Television programmes (Ready Steady Go!, Top of the Pops) helped spread the latest trends in music, dance, jargon, attitide and dress. Cheap plastic record players, records, and record shops, and, for some, discotheques, live concerts and festivals, made music available to all.
Elvis Presley heralded the arrival of a new type of youth music in the mid-50s. With is tight trousers and gyrating pelvis, the link he established between music, fashion and sex.
Skiffle groups began exploring this new rock style and from these emerged the British pop groups of the 1960s.
The development in 1960s pop was also dependant on technological change, including improvements in the production of singles which lowered prices and the advent of cheap record players and radio. Televisions, films and magazines also played a part of and they turned pop into a cult.
CND - Middle class support
• Popular writers such as J. B. Priestly and the philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote of the need to ban such weapons
Middle class were attracted because:
• Popularised with celebrity involvement - The middle-class became aware of the movement through celebrities
• Popular culture - The movement attracted 50,000 to 150,000 supporters. The CND Movement had become a social gathering for the middle-class youth.
• Affluence they possessed - Working class people had different priorities. They were preoccupied with earning a living and were more prepared to accept the Nuclear weapons as necessary for protection. Their affluence also meant the youth were able to afford to travel to the protests and marches. The youth also had time in which to spend at the protests and marches as they did not spend large amounts of time at work, unlike the working class youths.
• Academic argument - This allowed the movement to become more widely accepted because they were no longer seen as a mob figure. The middle-class youth were more prone to go to university, where they were more likely to become aware of the debate because the academics such as A. J. P. Taylor and Bertrand Russell would affect their views.
• Idealistic ideas - The people involved in the movement felt it was a moral crusade against the Blue Streak Bomb
• The reliance on America - the youth wanted the United Kingdom to be independent, and not reliant on America and its missiles
Anti-War Protest
The leaders of the CND Movement took a key role in the planning of the anti-Vietnam War demonstration in 1965. CND was completely eclipsed by the Vietname Solidarity Campaign (VSC), which gained considerable support among university students. In the summer of 1965, there were teach-ins on Vietnam at Oxford and the London School of Economics (LSE).
The LSE became a centre of radical activity. The decision to appoint Dr Adams, formerly Principal of University College, Rhodesia sparked a series of sit-ins and a "Daffodil March" through London in March 1967.
In Britain, student radicalism never reached the heights it did elsewhere in Europe, The British university population was small and many of the specific issues over which the students protested over were of little significance to the general public. Students tended to be rearded unfavourably as a pampered elite who were wasting taxpayers' money.
Student discontent
The anti-war protest coincided with, and encouraged, the first stirrings of wider student unrest in the universities. Other countries such as France and Italy were connected with matters immediately affecting interests such as demand for more student control over the curriculum, teaching methods and organisation. There were complaints about lack of amenities (Essex University) and cramped facilities (LSE). The Radical Students' Alliance was founded in 1966 to campaign on both student and anti-war issues. However, until 1968, its activities remained limited and its membership small.
Mnay of the complaints were more specific to British University life. The most cramped (LSE) or isolated (Essex) sites is where the most extreme activity occurred. The expansion of of higher education and the education and the activities of students abroad must have played a part. Rebellious student activity has been linked to a spread of new freedoms, the dominant youth culture and the "generation gap", soft drugs and provocative pop music.
Actions of Demonstrations
The VSC harnessed ill-feeling in an outburst of radical activity including demonstrations in 1967 and again in 1968. On 17th March, 1968 there were violent scenes at an antI-Vietnam demonstration in London, near the American Embassy in Grosevenor Square. The same month, CND held a peaceful anti-war demonstration and six demonstrators were allowed to hand in a petition at the door of no. 10. A third protest took place, and still more violent, became known as the Battle for Grosvenor Square. The final demonstration in October 1968 in which 30,00 took part, was relatively peaceful
At Sussex, a speaker on the Vietnam War, was covered in red paint, while at Essex, 2 conservative MPs were physically attacked. Patrick Gordon-Walker, the Labour Secretary of State for Education and Science, was shouted down in Manchester and Dennis Healey, the Labour Defence Secretary, almost had his car overturned by Cambridge students.
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