What year changed everything?

[panthera]

Interesting discussion going on about the 'start' of our modern era - a sure sign that we are, once again, at the end of a technical revolution and not yet into the next one.

Sounds reasonable to me, what do you think? After all, 1959 is a period well loved by many of us here - is it because the taste of the new was balanced by a still existing sense of quality and a meaning to life apart from faster and cheaper?

Why I wrote a book about 1959.

I have a new book out called 1959: The Year Everything Changed, which I suppose puts me in the ranks of authors lampooned in a story in the June 16...

www.slate.com

 

[butch-innj]

Hmmmm...........

I like to divide my life into 3 parts.
Before 20 yrs old.......old fashioned
After 20 yrs old to 40 yrs old......transitional modern
After 40 to present......modern

The reason I do this is because I equate technology with the happiness of the people.

Before 20 when I had few responsibilies, going to school with money in my pocket not only was I happy but everyone I saw out shopping was happy too. People smiled and chatted with strangers more. Life was good.

After 20 up to 40 - more responsibilites and more modern technology appeared on the scene that was supposed to make people's lives easier giving them more "free" time to do what they wanted. People started spending money they didn't have thanks to buying things on credit and now there were more monthly bills to worry about. People were getting less happy and not smiling as much.

After 40 to the present - tons of responsibilities, more bills, less money, more credit bills, people losing jobs left and right, homes lost, government leaders that couldn't lead a Boy Scout Troup thru the trees and yet with everything modern that we have, I see very few people happy at all.

Walk thru any store, WalMart, K-mart, Target or just walk thru the main isle of a mall and look at the people. Most look mad and you see very few smiling. Talk to a stranger? HA !
People are afraid of everyone today.

I hear kids screaming in every store "Gimme Gimme Gimme...I want that" (when I was a kid we knew better than to act like that)
I've heard parents say to the check out clerk...."I just don't know what to do with him/her".
And I'm standing there thinking to myself "Give me that kid for a week".

Anyway....I think for me that the world started changing later than 1959. Or maybe I just didn't notice it because of the small town I've always lived in....it took longer for things to get here and actually change things.
I think its really where you live (New York City, Chicago, etc. change happens quicker) small towns out in the sticks are slower to change - but it does happen - eventually.

Just my opinion.

 

[jeffg]

You can take any list of events for any year, and make a compelling case that it was "the" year.

It's like horoscopes: cut them out of newspapers and remove the sign headings, and every one will seem as strangely insightful and appropriate to you as the next.

I'd like to see the same book written about 1960.

 

[whirlaway]

Change is not always Good

It started changing here in the Hampton Roads area around 1967.Been going downhill ever since.The Simpsons show really started the bad taste trend and in your face mess.No Class

 

[dogboy44]

The 70's were pretty great

I remember the complexion of thing changing as the fax machine came into everybody’s lives around 86-87
Word processing came on the scene right before that (did you have a Wang in your office and people looked at it like it came off the Enterprise?)
It was the dawning of, not Aquarius but, the NOW NOW NOW mentality, email became more mainstream in the mid 90's followed by the cell phone which became more perfected for the masses around 2000.
I look back fondly on the times when there was none of this. Everybody got their work done (remember smoking at your desk?)
Everybody had tons of fun in a more innocent time much more geared for living in the moment than now and everyone with their electronic tether.
When you were somewhere, you were focused on it, not pecking at a tiny keyboard splitting yourself into 20 things at once.
Yes of course there are a million advantages offered by the technology of today, I am not poo pooing it at all.
But is was a freer mentality back then. When you went on vacation, you were on vacation, you didn’t worry about if your phone could get a signal overseas and email and call the office the whole time you were gone.
And yesterday on Conan O’Brien, they share Twitters of the day, Reese Witherspoon tweeted that “being a mom is really hard” OH F**K!
Do we need to hear this? We should tweet back, “try it on a modest budget with no staff you pampered moron” or “but is seems like being a shallow celeb is a breeze?”

 

[laundromat]

pride

I remember when I began working,you weren't tested on your computor knowledge but your appearance,attitude,and vocabulary were the three most important issues. Product knowledge could always be tought in a limited amount but your experience as well as product knowledge was a real breaking point.When I went to Florida,I worked for a gay couple who were tyhe "Queens from Hell" They were into underaged boys who were plentiful there and I was discusted by their practices in taking advantage of those boys. I heard about a new store called Incredible Universe and went there to see what it was like and if they carried any appliances. I was impressed and went to KMart and purchased some Windex and some paper towels. I went into IU and began shining up all the appliances. John, my future boss,aproached me and asked me what was up. I told him how much I adored appliances and that I wanted to shine them up so people could do the "OOs and Ahs" once they saw them.He tested me verbaly for about 30 minutes and was astonished on how quickly I answered his questions regarding different machines and was even more surprised when I began spitting out different model numbers of different,current machines.I even turned a Maytag Performa on its front expozing the belts and a Magic Chef to show their similarities.He imediately hired me and I stayed there,leaving the two weirdos I was housekeeping for and got a home in Hollywood right on the beach.Unfortuneately,they went out of business and I went to Orlando to work for Sprint Telephone. I stayed there two years and got a job working for Direct Maytag. Again,my knowledge of the product got the owner to hire me on the spot. I lived three blocks away.Never was I tested on my computor skills. They just taught me what buttons to press and how to delete.Now, if your are not very knowledgeable about different computor programs, you're sunk.I realy don't think it's fair because,even today,not everybody has their own computor and haven't been taught anything about how to use them.I can chat,read my email and do the ebay stuff but as far as programs like word perfect, I am totaly lost. Too much data for me to absorb.

 

[panthera]

maybe because

"“but is seems like being a shallow celeb is a breeze?” "
dogboy

Good point. Maybe because that air keeps getting stirred up between their ears?

Truly, I don't recall when the opinions of "stars" and Class D celebrities became essential to the news. Watching TV - here or in the US - I am to the conclusion come, being blond, bodacious or muscle-bound and hung is all the qualification needed to pronounce informed judgment on everything from the situation in Iran to the depression.

I don't really know whether 1959 was "the" year when the "modern" era began. I do know that microprocessors led to the form of computing we all are currently enjoying - from the displays on down to the way code is written. I suspect in 50 years or so we will look back at this era as quaint, too.

 

[beadsobleach]

1965

For me that was the turning point. As someone who remembers the pre-hippy days. long hair on men, Vietnam was heating up, rioting in the cities, beginnings of free love. By the way, the first Trans-Atlantic jet passenger flights were in 1958. typical internet accuracy...

 

[everythingold]

I was a history major, and from that perspective, I believe that no other society has experienced such profound and radical change in such a short period of time. People seem distant and confused. Everybody is on some drug (and TV is a drug). So I guess we'll see what happens. Labor saving technology has a funny way of becoming a lot of work.

 

[jakeseacrest]

How about 1969 with the Manson murders? This year is the 40th anniversary.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Puberty.
Leaving home at 19.
Birth of first niece. (Ages you instantly).
09/11/2001.
Bush out. Obama in.

 

[sudsmaster]

The more things change,

The more they stay the same.

I would venture to guess,

The only real change came with the Big Bang.

 

[alr2903]

Delores Clairborne:" Real hell ain't somethin that comes on your overnight, it comes on slow and steady, like a long line of winter sheets, before you know it those sheets have stretched out 20 years". ( pretty close to what she say's).

 

[whirlcool]

I'll say there were several years.

1968 - I think this is when the 60's began to fade and everyone was rampin' up for the 70's. Also the year that Detroit started going nuts with anti-smog devices, making it much more difficult for somebody to work on their own car. And who could forget the Democratic National Convention of that year?

1981 - The introduction of the IBM PC. This is when PC's started getting serious about doing real work rather than being glorified game machines.

2001 - The year of the 9/11 experience and the start of a new era of government meddling with the general population and finger pointing. Tons of companies failing due to their own failure to manage themselves well, but blaming it on 9/11. A lot of them were on the brink already, and 9/11 just pushed them over the edge.

2009 - The Bush legacy is over and hopefully, we will never hear from Cheney again!

 

[westie2]

1966-1967

Eloped and got married at 17 right after my brithday in May that made it legal without parents signing in 1966 starting work at the brick plkant as a stacker. Working,going to senior year os highschool. 1967 March 16 first child born and my wife and I graduating and both starting college and working.

 

[abcomatic]

President Kennedy's death 1963

I was a freshmen in high school when this happaned; the world has never seemed the same since or as safe. I live in a small town in Illinois (850 people)and things seem to be ok here. We have had people move down from a major city in Illinois and it just doesn't work for them. I have heard them tell me, "Its so quiet here." "Everyone knows who you are and will speak to you." " I feel like we are being watched." ha ha, they are and not in a good way! lol
That is what it was like in the 50's, even in Chicago to some extent.
Our world is too fast in my opinion. You see kids of all ages running around checking their cell phones whilst out walkling. I agree with Butch, in large stores etc. people don't look happy.
I have never felt the same since Pres. kennedy's death. After that it seemed like the 60's just went to hell in a hand basket. Vietnam, riots of all kinds, shootings of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
No more mom and pop anything: stores, even grocery chains like A&P, National T, have vanished to the huge mega stores that I refuse to go to. For those of you that were not around in the 1950's, I think you all missed something of America that was good, peaceful and honest; I don't see that anymore. Ok enough of my rantings. Where is Howdy, Beaver and Timmy when you need them? Gary

 

[douglasdc6]

I would have to say 1960 - Out with the old & in with the new.

People were fed up with the old - They were ready & looking forward to the modern & jet age.

Refrigerators & other appliances for instance no longer had rounded corners - Cars were even starting to look boxy & sadly no more of that knotty pine paneling .

In 1969 or 70 sony changed the way we saw color tv after introducing there award wining new trinitron color tv line up & boy were those nice tv sets - Took me for what seemed forever to save up to buy mine - Still have her.

 

[jamman_98]

Where to begin

It seems to me that there are life changing moments that effect us directly or indirectly. Here are a few moments in my brief 47 years of living.

November 22, 1963 - JFK Assassination
January 30, 1968 TET Offensive Viet Nam (My father was there)
April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King Assassination
June 5, 1968 RFK Assassination
July 20, 1969 Moon Landing
August 9, 1974 Nixon Resigns
November 4, 1979 Hostage Crisis in Iran
January 20, 1981 Reagan Inauguration
August 12, 1981 The IBM Personal Computer introduced
January 28, 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster
November 9, 1989 Berlin Wall falls
1990's Internet, World Wide Web
September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack on the World Trade Center
January 20, 2009 Barack Obama Inaugurated

What's next?

Joe
jamman_98

 

[mixergal]

The beginning of the modern era

Technically "modernism" began in the 1920's. The artists at the time were labeled "modernists", everything was streamlined (art deco), women began to fight for rights and shuck their restraining corsets, the industrial revolution was in full swing, the world got smaller and our sense of national pride got bigger.
The next big landmark was WWII. Europe was still the center of the Western world up to that point - culturally and intellectually (with few exceptions). The great thinkers like Einstein and the great artists like Matisse and Kandinsky - all from Europe. These same big thinkers were threatened by fascism, and fled to America's shores (or were exiled). It is during this time that the next wave of great thinkers and artists were taught - not in long-established French or German (or English, et. al) institutions - but here in America. It is then that the tides turned and the US became the center of Western culture. The European countries had been depleted of talent and were war-torn. America was relatively unscathed, and had a tremendous capability to produce. Pair that with the pool of talent on-hand, and you have the wonderful wave of creativity you still see evident today.

At least, that's how I learned it, and teach it to my students

-Sherri