I did not come to this realization on my own. I was catapulted
into this reality when I received an unsolicted notification
from AARP, announcing that I now qualified as a "senior citizen." I
was not upset about aging...I was tickled. With all my health problems,
I was amazed that I had lived this long. I was also pleasantly amused
that others did not realize that I still had a "seventeen" year old brain
working inside the "50" year old body. I had managed to retain all my
youthful mental exuberance. Now, I could add to this, the wisdom of my
life experiences.
It is an appropriate time for reflection on the past and charting a course for the future in the autumn of my life. I felt there must also be other "Boomers" out there, who are also reflecting, and that they might enjoy reminiscing with me.
Historic Events and Technology
Facts About This Decade
World War II dominated the forties. My dad served in New Guinea
as a Seabee. The Seabees were construction battalions--men who built
bases, airstrips, and roads--that served primarily in the Pacific
theater during WWII. Orginally called "Construction Battalions,"
their name was shortened to CB's or Seabees. More than 325,000
Seabees served during World War II. The organization enlistment age
was 18-50, but there were men over 60! They were started in 1942 to
build and repair everything from living quarters to roads for
soldiers. They also fought bravely in several battles with their
light fire arms. At Normandy, the men cleared beach obstacles during
the D-Day landing. My dad didn't talk much about the war. He only told
us kids that he had built runways. I am very proud of my dad for his
contribution during WWII.
War production pulled the country out of the Great Depression. I heard
more stories about the depression from my dad. I knew that his father
had died when he was 3 years old. This left his mother to raise four
children during those hard times. The kids begged for food and got
scraps out of garbage cans. My dad quit school and went to work in a
grocery store. He was paid in groceries. I felt he was always ashamed
of his lack of education. But he never gave up and received his GED
at age 52. What an accomplishment!
During WWII, for the first time, women left home to work outside the home.
They took over and performed all types of jobs to replace the men fighting
for our country. At first, only single women were employed but later even
married women were hired to fill these empty positions. This may have been
a contributing factor to the modern day women's movement because after women
got a taste of independence, it was hard to go backwards. My mother worked
outside the home most of the time when I was a child. But people still
felt a woman's place was "barefoot and pregnant." An education for a female
was considered a waste of time because after all, she was only going to be a
wife and mother.
Minimum wage in the 40's was $.43 an hour. The average yearly salary was
around $1,300 with teachers being paid about $1,441. The life expectancy
for men was 60.8 years and for females it was 68.2 years. Penecillin was
discovered and was first developed to help military personnel survive war
wounds. This discovery raised the survival rate for people having
surgeries.
People had to make it through the 40's with what they had. Many items were rationed.
There were scrap drives to collect steel, tin, paper and rubber. Auto
production stopped in 1942 due to the war.
In April of 1945, FDR died and Harry Truman celebrated V-E Day on May 8,
1945. Atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagaski. Internmentcamps had
been set up in the states for Japanese immigrants and their descendants.
After the war ended the Marshall Plan was set up by the US to help countries to
rebuild. Russia was not crazy about that idea and others the US had.
The Cold war began between the USSR and the US. People were afraid of Communism
and the House on UnAmerican Activities Committee began. Records were
kept on the KKK, American Nazies and members of the Hollywood Screen
Actor's Guild.
Civil Rights and Anti-War Activists were watched by this group in the
60's.
Anyway, after the war, suburbs with tract homes and uniformity, sprang up
to house these returning GI's and their families. The average home was a
one level Ranch House furnished with a collection of previously unaffordable
appliances. The homes had the conveniences but had minimal living space.
The GI Bill (Servicemen's Readjustment Act) entitled soldiers to a college
education and they were able to get college educations where before only the
rich could afford college.
Some remarkable things were developed during this time. In 1948, the year I was born,
Boeing developed the Sabre. The first operational jet fighter(F-86's).
In September of 1948, an F-86A Sabre set the 1st official world speed
record of 570 mph.
1950-1959
Here are some of the facts about this decade:
pamphlet You Can Survive, become widely available
The end of World War II brought thousands of young servicemen back
to America to pick up their lives and start new families in new homes
with new jobs. With an energy never before experienced, American
industry expanded to meet peacetime needs. Americans began buying
goods not available during the war, which created corporate expansion
and jobs. Growth everywhere. The baby boom was underway...And this
time was referred to as "The Fabulous Fifties!"
Historic Events and Technology
Important Historic and Cultural Events
1960-1969
Facts about this decade.
emergency living quarters are set up in dorm lounges, hotels
and trailer camps.
The sixties were the age of youth, as 70 million children from the
post-war baby boom became teenagers and young adults. The movement
away from the conservative fifties continued and eventually resulted
in revolutionary ways of thinking and real change in the cultural
fabric of American life. No longer content to be images of the
generation ahead of them, young people wanted change. The changes
affected education, values, lifestyles, laws, and entertainment.
Many of the revolutionary ideas which began in the sixties are
continuing to evolve today.
Architecture
Architecture in the sixties was undergoing a refinement of
Modernism and a move to an even more streamlined contemporary look.
Tall buildings or skyscrapers created a distinctly American structural
type. Architects such as Philip Johnson, and John Burgee, of
Johnson & Burgee (Kline Biological Tower), are some of the
architects who designed office buildings which helped create a
different look for the skylines of large cities. Architects used
light and space, for example the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library by I.M.
Pei , to create buildings which were adapted for the activities
which took place in them. The influence of space and futurisic
design was apparent in some public builidings like the NASA complex
at Houston, Texas . Eero Saarinen created the Memorial Arch in St.
Louis, Missouri in 1965. Walter Gropius designed the Pan Am
Building in 1963 with Pietro Belluschi and Emery Rothe & Sons.
Louis I. Kahn in his Kimbell Art Museum of Ft. Worth and other
buildings brought a feeling of austerity to American architecture.
Robert Venturi wrote Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
in 1966 and called for a change in the reductive simplicity of
Modernism, beginning a protest in the late 60's. Perhaps one of the
most well known and influential achitects whose career began to rise
in the sixties is I. M. Pei . Peter Eisenman and Frank O. Gehry
are architects who have become world famous for their distinctive
designs and who began making names for themselves during this time.
Historic Events and Technology
The Civil Rights movement made great changes in society in the 1960's.
The movement began peacefully, with Martin Luther King and Stokely
Carmichael leading sit-ins and peaceful protests, joined by whites
and Jews. Malcolm X preached black superiority, and by the end of
the decade the Black Panthers were advocating black separatism,
violence and anti-semitism. The term "blacks" became socially
acceptable, replacing "negroes." The number of Hispanic Americans
tripled during the decade and became recognized as an oppressed
minority. Cesar Chavez organized Hispanics in the United Farm
Workers Association. American Indians, facing unemployment rates
of 50% and a life expectancy only two-thirds that of whites, began
to assert themselves in the courts and in violent protests. The
Presidential Commission of the Status of Women (1963) presented
disturbing facts about women's place in our society. Betty Friedan
and Gloria Steinham(National Organization of Women) questioning
unequal treatment of women, giving birth to Women's Lib, and
discovered the "glass ceiling." The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was
amended to include gender. The birth control pill became widely
available and abortion for cause was legalized in Colorado in 1967.
In 1967, both abortion and artificial insemination became legal in
some states..
The Supreme Court decided in 1962 that prayer in the public schools
was unconstitutional. As the 1960's progressed, many young people
turned from mainstream Protestant religions to mystic eastern
religions such as Transcendental Meditation(Maharishi Mahesh Yogi)
or Zen Buddhism. Respect for authority declined among the youth,
and crime rates soared to nine times the rate of the 1950's.
Marijuana use soared. Respected figures such as Timothy Leary
encouraged the use of LSD as a mind-opening drug. The hippie
movement endorsed drugs, rock music, mystic religions and sexual
freedom. They opposed violence. The Woodstock Festival at which
400,000 young people gathered in a spirit of love and sharing,
represents the pinnacle of the hippie movement. Many hippies moved
to Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, East Village in New York City,
or lived in communes.
When Fidel Castro, soon after overtaking Cuba, declared that he was
a communist, the United States broke off diplomatic relations.
Castro seized American property. The CIA attacked Cuba in an
ill-fated mission at the Bay of Pigs. In 1962, a spy plane
identified long range missles in Cuba. President John F. Kennedy
readied troops to invade Cuba, and the Soviet Union prepared to fire
at US cities if we made a move.
John F. Kennedy was young and charismatic, and his brief reign as
president was known as Camelot. He was assassinated by Lee Harvey
Oswald in 1963. His Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson became
president, and was reelected the following year. To prevent
communist North Vietnam from overtaking South Vietnam, the United
States sent military advisors and then soldiers. It was largely a
secret war until 1965, when massive troop buildups were ordered to
put an end to the conflict. The draft was accelerated and anti-war
sentiment grew in the US. College students organized anti-war
protests, draft dodgers fled to Canada, and many soldiers reflected
the growing disrespect for authority, shooting their officers rather
than follow orders. Johnson, blamed by many for the war and the
racial unrest in the country, did not run for reelection in 1968.
John Kennedy's brother, Robert campaigned for the nomination for
President and he, too was killed. Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965
and Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968.
The Space Race, begun by the Soviets in 1957, was highlighted by Alan
Shepherd, the first American in space in 1961. In 1963, John Glenn
was the first American to orbit the earth. Neil Armstrong and Buzz
Aldrin, in Apollo XI, were the first men to walk on the moon in 1969.
The surgeon general determined that smoking was a health hazard, and
in 1965 required cigarette manufacturers to place warnings on all
packages and in all ads. The first clone of a vertibrate, a South
African tree frog, was produced in 1967. Dr. Denton Cooley implanted
the first artificial heart in a human, and it kept the patient alive
for three days until a human heart could be transplanted.
People became more concerned with their health and their environment.
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring awakened the environmental movement
and the Sierra Club gained a following. Ralph Nader's book, Unsafe
at any Speed, led to the consumer movement.
Important Historic and Cultural Events
1970-1979
Facts about this decade.
The floppy disc appeared in 1970, and the next year Intel introduced
the microprocesser, the "computer on a chip." Apollo 17, the last
manned craft to the moon, brought back 250 samples of rock and soil.
Unmanned space probes explored the moon, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn,
Uranus, and Venus. The U.S. Apollo 18 and the USSR's Soyuz 19
linked up in space to conduct joint experiments. Atari produced the
first low-priced integrated circuit tv games, and the videocassette
recorder (VCR) changed home entertainment forever. Jumbo jets
revolutionized commerical flight, doubling passenger capacity and
increasing flight range to 6,000 miles. The neutron bomb, which
destroys living beings but leaves buildings intact, was developed.
In medicine, ultrasound diagnostic techniques were developed. The
sites of DNA production on genes were discovered, and the fledging
research in genetic engineering was halted pending development of
safer techniques. The first test tube baby was born, developed from
an artificially inseminated egg implanted in the mother's womb.
Presidents: Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974),
Gerald Ford (1974-1977),
and Jimmy Carter (1977-1981).
Houston's U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan gained national
prominence with her eloquence during the Watergate investigation and
hearings which resulted in impeachment proceedings against Nixon.
Important Historic and Cultural Events
fire during anti-war demonstrations at Kent State University in Ohio.
Agnew pleads no contest to income tax evasion and resigns from office.
the new vice president.
Richard Nixon, facing impeachment charges, is forced to resign.
the Declaration of Independence with a spectacular bicentennial celebration.
toxic chemicals buried in the area.
mass suicide.
ower plant.
1980-1989
Facts about this decade.
The 1980s became the Me! Me! Me! generation of status seekers.
During the 1980s, hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts, and
mega-mergers spawned a new breed of billionaire. Donald Trump,
Leona Helmsley, and Ivan Boesky iconed the meteoric rise and fall of
the rich and famous. If you've got it, flaunt it and You can have
it all! were watchwords. Forbes' list of 400 richest people became
more important than its 500 largest companies. Binge buying and
credit became a way of life and 'Shop Til you Drop' was the watchword.
Labels were everything, even (or especially) for our children. Tom
Wolfe dubbed the baby-boomers as the 'splurge generation.' Video
games, aerobics, minivans, camcorders, and talk shows became part of
our lives. The decade began with double-digit inflation, Reagan
declared a war on drugs, Kermit didn't find it easy to be green,
hospital costs rose, we lost many, many of our finest talents to
AIDS which before the decade ended spread to black and Hispanic
women, and unemployment rose. On the bright side, the US
Constitution had its 200th birthday, Gone with the Wind turned 50,
ET phoned home, and in 1989 Americans gave $115,000,000,000 to
charity. And, Internationally, at the very end of the decade the
Berlin Wall was removed - making great changes for the decade to
come! At the turn of the decade, many were happy to leave the
spendthrift 80s for the 90s, although some thought the eighties
Tottally Awesome.
Events and Technology
President
1981 Ronald Reagan
1984 Ronald Reagan
1989 George Bush
Science and technology made terrific strides in the eighties. Large
numbers of Americans began using personal computers in their homes,
offices, and schools. Columbia, America's first reusable spacecraft
was launched in 1981. A sad day in our history was January 28, 1986,
when space shuttle Challenger exploded 74 seconds after liftoff at
Cape Canavaral, Florida killing all seven astronauts, including
school teacher Christa McAuliffe. Research money allowed for studies
and new treatments for heart, cancer, and other diseases. Major
advances in genetics research led to the 1988 funding of the Human
Genome Project. This project will locate the estimated 80,000 genes
contained in human DNA.
During this decade Wayne Williams was arrested in Atlanta for the
murders of 23 black children, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first
woman Supreme Court Justice, 52 hostages were released from their 444
days of captivity in Iran, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial inscribed
with 57,939 names of American soldiers killed or missing in Vietnam
was dedicated, income climbed more than 20 percent, Boesky and Drexel
made headlines with their insider trading scandals, Geraldine
Ferraro was the first woman presidential candidate, Jesse Jackson
was the first black candidate, the stock market tripled in 7 years
yet survived the 1987 crash, and televangelist Jim Bakker was
sentenced to 45 years for selling bogus lifetime vacations. The
sexual revolution encountered a major adversary when Rock Hudson died
of AIDS in 1985. Prisons overflowed and violent crime rates which,
in 1980, had tripled since 1960, continued to climb with the
appearance of crack in 1985. From 1985 to 1990 the use of cocain
addiction was up 35 percent, though the number of users had declined.
Nancy Reagan's Just Say No campaign had great influence. Toward the
end of the decade, President Bush called for a kinder, gentler nation
and volunteerism and contributions reached an all time high.
Families changed drastically during these years. The 80s continued
the trends of the 60s and 70s - more divorces, more unmarrieds living
together, more single parent families. The two-earner family was
even more common than in previous decades, more women earned college
and advanced degrees, married, and had fewer children.
1990-1999
Population: 270,000,000 (Aug 98)
Unemployment: 5.8 million, or 4.2% (Sept 99)
National Debt: $5,413.l Million (1997)
Average Salary: $13.37/hr (1999)
Teacher's Salary: $39,347 (1998)
Minimum Wage: $5.15/hr (1997)
Life Expectancy: Male 73.1 Female 79.1(1997)
Auto Deaths: 49,772 (1997)
The 1990s were truly the electronic age. We would not have been
able to publish our electronic decades web site if it weren't for
the Web.
The World Wide Web was born in 1992, changing the way we
communicate (email), spend our money (online gambling, stores),
and do business (e-commerce). By 1994, 3 million people were online.
By 1998, 100 million people were. It is estimated that by 2001,
some 1 billion people will be connected.Internet lingo like BTW
(by the way), GOK (God only knows), IMHO (in my humble opinion),
FAQS, SPAM, FTP, ISP, and phrases like "See you online" or
"The server's down" or "Bill Gates" became part of our everyday
vocabulary. We signed our mail with a :-) smile, a ;-) wink,
or a :-* kiss. And - everyone has a cell phone!
Historic Documents
The Americans With Disabilities Act, effective in July, 1990, began
the decade on a positive note by protecting the rights of all
Americans with physical or mental disabilities. Introduced first
as a policy for the military, a law passed by Congress in September,
1993, was written to protect the rights of gay men and lesbians
serving in the armed forces. Called " don't ask, don't tell," it
directed people to keep their sexuality hidden if they intended to
stay in military careers. An important gun control bill aimed at
protecting all Americans became law in 1994. The Brady Bill provides
a five day waiting period when purchasing a gun. In January, 1994,
the North American Free Trade Agreement was intended to eliminate
barriers to trade between neighboring countries, particularly Mexico
and Canada.
In 1994, Republicans won a majority in Congress for the first time
in forty years. Part of the reason for the party success was a ten
point plan called the Contract with America which outlined a
promise to reshape government by decentralizing federal authority
and giving states and local government more control over taxes,
social programs, and by improving the way government did business.
Welfare reform, begun in 1988 with the federal Family Support Act
which initiated changes by directing all states to phase in
comprehensive welfare-to-work programs by 1990, giving states more
control over welfare expenses, continued in 1996, when the
controversial Aid to Families with Dependent Children act was
abolished as part of the new block grant called Temporary Assistance
to Needy Families (TANF). An outgrowth of state control over
welfare spending, TANF converts state funding to a fixed level.
A prominent part of the 1996 law directs that minor parents of
dependent children can only receive TANF funds if they are living
at home or in another adult supervised setting. A limit of five
years of federal aid in a lifetime is set for families receiving
welfare.
In March, 1996, a bill was passed giving the president line item
veto authority. This bill allows the president to veto specific
parts of a spending bill while approving the rest, thus giving more
power to the office of the president.
On December 31, 1999, the United State returned
management and control of the Panama Canal and the Canal Zone to
Panama. This ends a remarkable period of 85 years in which the
United States' control over the waterway served as a powerful
reminder of the strength of the U.S. in the Western Hemisphere.
The turnover has not been without controversy.
People & Personalities
President and Mrs. George Bush ( 1986 - 1992)
President and Mrs. Bill Clinton (1992- ).
However, a development in the nineties which made politics more
interesting to the average person is the cross over from the business
world and the entertainment world to politics. Beginning with
President Ronald Reagan, the stage was set for performers like
Jesse Ventura, Warren Beatty and Jane Alexander to become more
publicly involved in government. Businessmen Ross Perot and Donald
Trump felt they have abilities which make them natural leaders and
viable candidates for public office. Politicians have always had
an audience, but during the nineties colorful personalities like
Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan, Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rush Limbaugh
have made politics a "born again" entertainment forum for the average
American.
Prominent in other government positions are Justice Clarence Thomas,
of the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, also on the
Supreme Court. Dr. Jocelyn Elders , a plain spoken and somewhat
controversial Surgeon General, made headlines with her position on
sex education for teens. Attorney General Janet Reno represented
the government position on many hotly debated legal issues.
Secretary of State, Madeline Albright provides an American presence
abroad. Military leader, Colin Powell was popular enough that he
was considered a strong candidate for the presidency, though he chose
not to run for office.
Women achieved firsts. Sally Ride and Shannon Lucid explored space.
Multiple births gave Bobbi McCaughey the title of mom to the first
set of surviving septuplets, and Nkem Chukwu a close second when she
gave birth to octuplets in Houston, of whom seven babies survived.
In the world of technology were Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
Successful women included Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart.
Michael Jordon and Tiger Wood were heroes for all young athletes.
Two important loses were Jackie Kennedy and later her son, John F.
Kennedy.
Events
In the 1990's the United States played the role of world policeman,
sometimes alone but more often in alliances. The decade began with
Sadam Husein's invasion into Kuwait and the resultant Gulf War. In
1993 the war was in the African country of Somali, as the television
images of starving children led to an attempt to oust the warlord,
General Adid. By September, 1994, the U.S. was once again sending
troops to a foreign country to overthrow a military dictatorship,
this time in Haiti. In 1996 about 20,0000 American troops were
deployed to Bosnia. as part of a NATO peacekeeping force. In late
March 1999 the U.S. joined NATO in air strikes against Yugoslavia
in an effort to halt the Yugoslavian government's policy of ethnic
cleansing in its province of Kosovo. The decade was to end much as
it began with U.S. forces deployed in many countries, and the U.S.
playing arbitrator, enforcer, and peace keeper throughout the world.
The 90s have been called the Merger Decade. On the domestic front big
issues were health care, social security reform, and gun control -
unresolved issues debated during the whole decade. Violence and sex
scandals dominated the media. This was a decade of scandals starting
with the Tailgate affair in which Navy and Marine Corps fliers were
accused of sexually abusing 26 women. President Clinton kept the
gossip flowing as several women accused him of sexual misconduct.
The ten years ended with a president who had narrowly survived a
trial to remove him from office for his sexual behavior. President
Clinton's escapades were proving to be a hindrance to his Vice
President Al Gore's campaign for the oval office and polls were
reporting that 70% of the American people were saying that they
were "tired of the Clintons".
Violence seemed a part of life. In 1992 South-Central Los Angeles
rioted after four white policemen were acquitted of video-taped
assault charges for beating a black motorist, Rodney King. 1993
brought terrorism to the American shores as a bomb was detonated in
the garage beneath the World Trade Center. That same month of
February saw four agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms killed during an unsuccessful raid on the Branch
Davidian cult compound in Waco, Texas led by David Koresh.
Americans were glued to their TV sets in 1995 as the football hero,
O.J. Simpson, was tried for the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole, and
her male friend, Ron Goldman. This trial pointed out the cotinued
racial division in the country as most blacks applauded the not
guilty verdict while most whites thought an obviously guilty man
had gotten away with murder. The shock of the bombing of the Alfred
P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 was
compounded by the revelation that the perpetrators were not foreign
terrorists but were U.S. citizens led by a U.S. Army veteran,
Timothy McVeigh. In the months between February 1996 and April
1999 there were at least fourteen incidents of school shootings
with the most lethal being on April 20, 1999 when 14 students and
1 teacher were killed and 23 wounded at Littleton High School in
Littleton, Colorado.
There was good news, too. The booming economy led to record low
unemployment. Minimum wage was increased to $5.15 an hour. The
stock market reached an all time high as individuals learned to buy
and trade via the internet. Americans enjoyed the country's
affluence by traveling more (up 40% since 1986), by reveling in
sporting events such as the Atlanta Summer Olympics, and by
"consuming" as never before. America faced the new millennium
with an open, diversified society, a functioning democracy, a
healthy economy, and the means and will, hopefully, to face and
overcome its problems.
I do not take credit for any of the writing here
except for my personal comments. I obtained this history information
at the Kingwood College Library Website. To visit them, click on the link
below.