US History: Resources by Decade: 1970s

Discusses four major events during the 1970s: Watergate and Nixon's resignation, the beginning of the environmental movement, the blockbuster movies of Spielberg and Lucas, and the popularity of punk and disco music.

In this book, Judy Kutulas complicates the common view that the 1970s were a time of counterrevolution against the radical activities and attitudes of the previous decade. Instead, Kutulas argues that the experiences and attitudes that were radical in the 1960s were becoming part of mainstream culture in the 1970s, as sexual freedom, gender equality, and more complex notions of identity, work, and family were normalized through popular culture--television, movies, music, political causes, and the emergence of new communities. Seemingly mundane things like watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show, listening to Carole King songs, donning Birkenstock sandals, or reading Roots were actually critical in shaping Americans' perceptions of themselves, their families, and their relation to authority. Even as these cultural shifts eventually gave way to a backlash of political and economic conservatism, Kutulas shows that what critics perceive as the narcissism of the 1970s was actually the next logical step in a longer process of assimilating 1960s values like individuality and diversity into everyday life. Exploring such issues as feminism, sexuality, and race, Kutulas demonstrates how popular culture helped many Americans make sense of key transformations in U.S. economics, society, politics, and culture in the late twentieth century.

A smug glance at the seventies--he so-called "Me Decade"--unveils a kaleidoscope of big hair, blaring music, and broken politics--all easy targets for satire, cynicism, and ultimately even nostalgia. American Cinema of the 1970s, however, looks beyond the strobe lights to reveal how profoundly the seventies have influenced American life and how the films of that decade represent a peak moment in cinema history. Far from a placid era, the seventies was a decade of social upheavals. Events such as the killing of students at Kent State and Jackson State universities, the Watergate investigations, the legalization of abortion, and the end of the American involvement in Vietnam are only a few among the many landmark occurrences that challenged the foundations of American culture. The director-driven movies of this era reflect this turmoil, experimenting with narrative structures, offering a gallery of scruffy antiheroes, and revising traditional genre conventions. Bringing together ten original essays, American Cinema of the 1970s examines the range of films that marked the decade, including Jaws, Rocky, Love Story, Shaft, Dirty Harry, The Godfather, Deliverance, The Exorcist, Shampoo, Taxi Driver, Star Wars, Saturday Night Fever, Kramer vs. Kramer, and Apocalypse Now .

While the anti-establishment rebels of 1969's Easy Rider were morphing inot the nostalgic yuppies of 1983's The Big Chill, 70's movies brought us everything from killer sharks and teen comedies to haunting views of a divided America at war. As Lev argues, the films of the 1970s constitute a kind of conversation about what American society is and should be - open, diverse, and egalitarian or stubbornly resistant to change. Lev examines forty films thematically, arranged under broad titles such as: hippies, cops, disasters and conspiracies, end of the sixties, art, sex and Hollywood, teens, war, African-Americans, feminisms and future visions. This title is aimed at the ordinary film-goer as well as film scholars.

Winner of the Northern California Book Award for General Nonfiction New York Times bestselling author David Talbot and New Yorker journalist Margaret Talbot illuminate "America's second revolutionary generation" in this gripping history of one of the most dynamic eras of the twentieth century--brought to life through seven defining radical moments that offer vibrant parallels and lessons for today. The political landscape of the 1960s and 1970s was perhaps one of the most tumultuous in this country's history, shaped by the fight for civil rights, women's liberation, Black power, and the end to the Vietnam War. In many ways, this second American revolution was a belated fulfillment of the betrayed promises of the first, striving to extend the full protections of the Bill of Rights to non-white, non-male, non-elite Americans excluded by the nation's founders. Based on exclusive interviews, original documents, and archival research, By the Light of Burning Dreams explores critical moments in the lives of a diverse cast of iconoclastic leaders of the twentieth century radical movement: Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers; Heather Booth and the Jane Collective, the first underground feminist abortion clinic; Vietnam War peace activists Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda; Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers; Craig Rodwell and the Gay Pride movement; Dennis Banks, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Russell Means and the warriors of Wounded Knee; and John Lennon and Yoko Ono's politics of stardom. Margaret and David Talbot reveal the epiphanies that galvanized these modern revolutionaries and created unexpected connections and alliances between individual movements and across race, class, and gender divides.   America is still absorbing--and reacting against--the revolutionary forces of this tumultuous period. The change these leaders enacted demanded much of American society and the human imagination. By the Light of Burning Dreams is an immersive and compelling chronicle of seven lighting rods of change and the generation that engraved itself in American narrative--and set the stage for those today, fighting to bend forward the arc of history.  By the Light of Burning Dreams includes a 16-page black-and-white photo insert.

The politics and policies that led to America's expansion of the penal system and reduction of welfare programs In 1970s America, politicians began "getting tough" on drugs, crime, and welfare. These campaigns helped expand the nation's penal system, discredit welfare programs, and cast blame for the era's social upheaval on racialized deviants that the state was not accountable to serve or represent. Getting Tough sheds light on how this unprecedented growth of the penal system and the evisceration of the nation's welfare programs developed hand in hand. Julilly Kohler-Hausmann shows that these historical events were animated by struggles over how to interpret and respond to the inequality and disorder that crested during this period. When social movements and the slowing economy destabilized the U.S. welfare state, politicians reacted by repudiating the commitment to individual rehabilitation that had governed penal and social programs for decades. In its place, they championed strategies of punishment, surveillance, and containment. The architects of these tough strategies insisted they were necessary, given the failure of liberal social programs and the supposed pathological culture within poor African American and Latino communities. Kohler-Hausmann rejects this explanation and describes how the spectacle of enacting punitive policies convinced many Americans that social investment was counterproductive and the "underclass" could be managed only through coercion and force. Getting Tough illuminates this narrative through three legislative cases: New York's adoption of the 1973 Rockefeller drug laws, Illinois's and California's attempts to reform welfare through criminalization and work mandates, and California's passing of a 1976 sentencing law that abandoned rehabilitation as an aim of incarceration. Spanning diverse institutions and weaving together the perspectives of opponents, supporters, and targets of punitive policies, Getting Tough offers new interpretations of dramatic transformations in the modern American state.

The 1970s were difficult years for the United States, a time when long-held convictions were challenged and the nation experienced a collective identity crisis. Women and minorities called into question the belief that freedom and equality are the birthright of all Americans. The civil rights movements of the 1970s argued that American history is full of racism and violence against women and people of color. Watergate and related scandals of the Nixon administration damaged the country's faith in politicians and the political system. The Arab oil boycott, the energy crisis, the environmental movement, and years of stagflation raised doubts about the future of the nation's economy, and in the jungles of Vietnam, many Americans began to doubt their ability to protect the world from Communism. An encyclopedic overview of the era, this book includes entries on the prominent people and significant events, issues and controversies of the decade, and entries on the film, music, and culture of the period. A chronology provides a time line for the events of the 1970s.

A sweeping view of the decade's impact on the U.S. and Canada Watergate, the Vietnam War, the environmental movement, the energy crisis, the women's movement, disco...The Seventies in America brings this controversial decade to life by examining these topics and many more. The Seventies in America is also a much-needed source of reliable information for today's students, all of whom were born after the decade ended. CONTENTS This illustrated three-volume encyclopedia is a companion set to The Sixties in America and The Fifties in America. It covers events, movements, people and trends in popular culture, literature, art, sports, science, technology, economics and politics in the United States and Canada. The Seventies in America features both longer overviews and shorter entries discussing people, books, films, television series, musical groups and other important topics. Every entry focuses on that topic or person during the 1970's in order to explore what made the decade unique. Topics that span several decades may provide some background and aftermath information to help place the 1970's in perspective. Written with the needs of students and general readers in mind, The Seventies in America essays present clear discussions of their topics, explaining terms and references that may be unfamiliar. Entries fall into the following categories: arts and literature, business and economics, crime and punishment, disasters, education, entertainment, environmental issues, health and medical issues, international relations, journalism, military and war, music, politics and government, popular culture, religion and spirituality, science and technology, sexuality, social issues, sports and transportation. The Seventies in America contains approximately 300 photographs of the decade's people and events and numerous graphs, charts and sidebars highlighting interesting facts and trends from the era. FORMAT Every essay begins with a concise title followed by a brief description of the person, organization, work, concept or event covered. Further headings attribute authorship, establish a date for the subject and assign a place or location. Every essay features an ""Impact"" section, which examines the subject's broader importance. Longer overviews include a section called ""Subsequent Events"" that sums up later developments. Cross-references at the end of each essay direct readers to additional entries in the encyclopedia on related subjects. Every entry, offers bibliographical notes and annotations are provided in essays of 1,000 words or more. Every essay includes an author byline.