Transcript 1970*s American Popular Culture

1970’s American Popular Culture
The development of Modern America
Social Movements
Environmentalism
– Moon landing images portrayed earth as
vibrant and life sustaining.
• April 22, 1970 -1st Earth Day
Federal Legislation:
• EPA = 1970.
• Clean Water Act = 1972
Three Mile Island (March 28, 1979)
• Endangered Species Act = 1973
•Suffered a partial core meltdown.
Push
for alternate
Energy Source
The take
off of environmental
thought rose
parallel
the in
increased
•It sits
on an to
island
the
•usage
Nuclear
Power
of nuclear power over fossil fuels.Susquehanna River
• Hydroelectric Power
•Theof
accident
over the
However, with the increasing expenses
nuclearunfolded
power the
course of five tense days, as a number
•opposition
Clean burning
fossil
fuels.
likewise
grew.
of agencies at the federal, state, and
local level attempted to diagnose the
problem.
Earth Day
The Ecology – Marvin Gaye
Feminism
• Women asserted themselves in American
society.
• A clerk in Sacramento County, California
created a public outrage when he rejected
voter registrations that bore the title "Ms."
instead of "Miss" or "Mrs."
Gloria Steinem
1971 Steinem was one of the founders of the
National Women's Political Caucus, and
founded the Women's Action Alliance.
1972 she founded the feminist magazine Ms.
and wrote for the magazine until it was
sold in 1987.
Stole Your Love – KISS
Oil Crisis
October 17, 1973
• Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),
announced that they would no longer ship petroleum to nations that had
supported Israel in its conflict with Syria and Egypt — that is, to the United
States and its allies in Western Europe.
• Effect: Price of oil quadrupled: $42 /barrel!
• Gas Prices in the USA: 38.5 cents in May 1973 to 55.1 cents in June 1974
• Gas was rationed at stations all across the country!
Government Response:
• Nationwide speed limit: 55 mph (traffic fatalities drop by 23 % between 1973
and 1974)
• Nixon created a cabinet level position of energy czar!
Free Ride – Edgar Winter
Economic Decline
Rust Belt: Area across the mid-west of the USA.
• During the 1970s, the U.S. steel industry suffered a sudden collapse
that threw thousands out of work.
• U.S. Steel and other American steel companies that still depended
upon large numbers of older, inefficient plants failed to withstand the
combination of a decline in demand and the rise of international
competition.
• The sudden decline of American steel stunned the employees of
mills across the country.
• Plants in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Youngstown, all
laid off workers.
• Pink Slips delivered across the nation on “Black Friday” in 1977.
My Sharona – The Knack
Weirton Steel, Weirton, WV
Decade following Vietnam War
• Country becomes enveloped in one crisis after another.
• President Nixon must resign in 1974 because of the
Watergate scandal.
• President Ford is ill - equipped to handle America’s
problems.
• Nation turns to small town America for it’s next
President… Jimmy Carter.
• Energy Crisis, Hostage Crisis, unemployment, chemical
disasters and nuclear accidents grip the country.
Richard Nixon, 1972
Superstition – Stevie Wonder
Richard M. Nixon
• 37th President of the United States.
• Elected in 1968 on a promise to end the
Vietnam War.
• A Shy, remote man, he had struggled
through a 20 year political career with
mixed success.
• Nixon chose a secretive and closed
style for his administration.
• He filled his staff up with people that he
trusted and wanted to keep within the
circle.
Problems for the Nixon White House
• Inflation had doubled in the United States largely because of
the cost of the Vietnam War.
– Nixon began to consider deficit spending as a way to counter the
effects the inflation had on the country.
• OPEC - they announced in 1973 that they were raising oil prices
by 50% per barrel on oil shipped to the USA.
– Gas prices go from 25 cents per gallon to 65 cents per gallon
– Cost of other goods goes up as well, bread, meat, etc.,…
• Violence - Nixon had campaigned with promise to stop
violence in America.
– Gave speeches in which he called demonstrators “bums”
– He discouraged any and all protests against the United States.
• Vice President - resigned because of a scandal in which he was
convicted of tax evasion and coercion.
China Grove – Doobie Brothers
Watergate
• June 17, 1972 - Five men who broke into the Democratic National
Headquarters.
• Their arrest eventually uncovered a White House-sponsored plan of
espionage against political opponents
• Attorney General John Mitchell, White House Counsel John Dean,
White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, White House Special
Assistant on Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman, and President Nixon
himself all resigned because of the scandal
The “Burglars”
Won’t get fooled again – The Who
Watergate - a disaster
•April 30, 1973, Nixon accepted the resignation of
Haldeman and Ehrlichman and announced the dismissal
of Dean.
•U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resigned as
well.
•The new attorney general, Elliot Richardson, appointed
a special prosecutor, Harvard Law School professor
Archibald Cox, to conduct a full-scale investigation of the
Watergate break-in.
•May 1973, the Senate Select Committee on
Presidential Activities opened hearings, with Senator
Sam Ervin of North Carolina as chairman.
Watergate Hearings
• Dean testified that Mitchell had ordered the break-in
and that a major attempt was under way to hide White
House involvement.
– He claimed that the president had authorized payments to
the burglars to keep them quiet.
• The Nixon White House denied the accusations.
– Testimony before Congress revealed the existence of Tapes
made in the Oval Office which recorded all of the
conversations that Nixon had while President.
– Congress immediately subpoenaed the Tapes and Nixon
refused to release them claiming “National Security”.
• Nixon responds by dismissing the special
prosecutor and trying to shield the tapes from release.
What’s on the tapes?
• Nixon tried to appeal the
release of the tapes, but
eventually gave them to a
Federal Judge.
• Most of the conversations that
were needed were missing
from the tapes and there was
a mysterious 18 1/2 minute gap
in one of them.
• March 1974 - Erhlichman,
Haldeman Mitchell and others
were indicted and Nixon was
name as an “un-indicted coconspirator”
The Impact of Watergate
• April 1974 - Nixon releases edited transcripts, but
Congress says that it does not comply with the request!
– 64 separate Presidential conversations were subpoenaed.
• July 1974 - Supreme Court rules that Nixon must release
the tapes!
– Congress authorizes three articles of Impeachment against
Nixon
Nixon and
H. R. Haldeman
(chief of staff)
in the Oval
Office, 1972
Senate Watergate Committee
hearings, May 8, 1973
Presidential Resignation
• August 9, 1974 - Nixon resigns
the Presidency.
– First President to ever do
so!
• Gerald R. Ford becomes the
President of the United States.
– He had replaced Spiro
Agnew in in 1972.
– He is the only President to
hold Office as VP and
President without being
elected to the office.