1960s Fashion Minimalism

Fashion in London in the 1960s is often remembered as an exciting time of experimentation and bold choices, as well as the simple tailored lines of the mini skirt, A-line dress and trouser suit. Join Angela Finn (PhD Candidate) for a look at iconic designers from the 1960s in relation to the development of fashion ‘minimalism’. This lecture is part of the Material Culture: Illustrated Lecture Series run in tandem with The Valentino Exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia.

Relocating the American Dream : The America of the 1960s as Portrayed by the New Journalists Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe

The concept of the American Dream was subject to a strong re-evaluation process in the 1960s, as counterculture became a prominent force in American society. A massive generation of young people, moved by the Vietnam War, the hippie movement, and psychedelic experimentation, created substantial social turbulence in their efforts to break out of conventional patterns and to create a new kind of society. This thesis outlines and analyses the concept of the American Dream in popular imagination through three works of new journalism. My primary data consists of Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1967), Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream (1971), and Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History (1968). In defining the American Dream, I discuss the history of the concept as well as its manifestations in popular culture. Because of its elusive and amorphous nature, the concept of the American Dream can only be examined in cultural texts that portray the values, sentiments, and customs of a certain era. I have divided the analytical section of my thesis into three parts. In the first part I examine how the authors discuss the American society of their time in relation to ideology, capitalism, and the media. In the second part I focus on the Vietnam War and the controversy it creates in relation to the notions of freedom and patriotism. In the third part I discuss how the authors portray the countercultural visions of a better America that challenged the traditional interpretations of the American Dream. I also discuss the dark side of the new dream: the problems and disillusions that came with the effort to change the world. This thesis is an effort to trace the relocation of the American Dream in the context of the 1960s counterculture and new journalism. It hopes to provide a valuable addition to the cultural history of the sixties and to the effort of conceptualizing the American Dream.

Threats and Promises: The Promotion of Artificial Lighting to Women Consumers in the United States, 1880s – 1960s

This article examines the development of a specific gendered discourse in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century that united key beliefs about feminine beauty, identity, and the domestic interior with particular electric lighting technologies and effects. Largely driven by the electrical industry’s marketing rhetoric, American women were encouraged to adopt electric lighting as a beauty aid and ally in a host of domestic tasks. Drawing evidence from a number of primary texts, including women’s magazines, lighting and electrical industry trade journals, manufacturer-generated marketing materials, and popular home decoration and beauty advice literature, this study shifts the focus away from lighting as a basic utility, demonstrating the ways in which modern electric illumination was culturally constructed as a desirable personal and environmental beautifier as well as a means of harmonizing the domestic interior.

Theresienstaedter Tagebuch (Oberstdorf July-August 1945/1960s?) 1945 (January - July)

Detailed description of life in Theresienstadt during the last months of World War II and of liberation, based on the author's diary and post-war interviews and statistical material.

Steven M. Lowenstein Collection - Addenda. 1960s-2007

The Steven Lowenstein Collections documents professional activities of Steven Lowenstein, writer, researcher, historian, and teacher. Documents comprising the collection reflect his interests in a wide spectrum of topics related to Jews and Judaism, such as modernity and tradition and their influence on the religion and common folks; Berlin Jews of the upper strata; similarities and differences between agrarian/rural and urban Jews; popular and official Judaism; secular and religious Jews; and other Jewish related topics. However, there is a very small amount of materials related to his professional activities other than research and writing.

Library management systems in the UK: 1960s-1980s

Tedd, L.A. (2007). Library management systems in the UK: 1960s-1980s. Library History, 23(4),301-316 Originally published (as above) by Maney Publishing.

Through the lens of the hospital magazine - Downshire and Holywell psychiatric hospitals in the 1960s and 1970s

An exploration of the pages of two psychiatric hospital magazines, Speedwell from Holywell Hospital, Antrim, and The Sketch from Downshire Hospital, Downpatrick, reveals the activity filled lives of patients and staff during the 1960s and 1970s. This was a time of great change in mental health care. It was also a time of political turbulence in Northern Ireland. With large in-patient populations, both hospitals had a range of occupational and sporting activities available to patients and staff. The magazines formed part of the effort to promote the ethos of a therapeutic community. While hospital magazines may be viewed as one aspect of an institutional system that allowed people to cut themselves from the wider society, they also provided opportunities for budding writers to express their views on life in a hospital from the service user perspective. As such they offer some valuable insights into the lives of psychiatric patients.

Management and engineering education in the 1950s and 1960s

The career destiny of many graduate engineers is in industry. Quite how well prepared they were for that career became a matter of political importance in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the issue of Britain's relatively poor economic performance grew in salience. This article looks at this preparation with particular reference to management training. It examines the attitudes of those parties most interested in engineering education ‐ the government, industry, the engineering institutions and the educators themselves. All of these saw management training as being part of the formation of at least a portion of professional engineers at some stage in their career. But there was no general agreement between them about what this should consist of or when it should be provided. At the same time broader changes in engineering education were taking place which cut across and to some extent militated against attempts to enhance the role of management training. The result, it is argued, is that by the end of the 1960s little progress had been achieved.