1960s (U.S. history)

Port Huron at Fifty: The New Left and Labor: An Interview with Kim Moody

by Christopher Phelps

Published in Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, Volume 9, Issue 2 (summer 2012): 25-46.

This interview with Kim Moody, who was present at the Port Huron convention of 1962 as a twenty-two-year-old Johns... more This interview with Kim Moody, who was present at the Port Huron convention of 1962 as a twenty-two-year-old Johns Hopkins University student, illuminates the early history of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), especially the neglected labor-related portions of The Port Huron Statement, one of the most influential manifestos of the sixties radicalization. In a wide-ranging discussion on labor and the New Left, Moody explains the different views of labor represented at Port Huron, appraises individual thinkers such as Tom Hayden and C. Wright Mills, and explores topics such as the meaning of participatory democracy, the politics of labor in the 1960s, class relations in the civil rights movement, the SDS economic and research action projects, and the general relationship between organized labor and the New Left.

Der parallaktische Blick: Der militarische Ursprung der Holographie

by Sean Johnston

Chapter in Das holographische Wissen, edited by Stefan Rieger and Jens Schroter

The title of this chapter is meant to evoke at least three sources. The first – and perhaps the only obvious one –... more The title of this chapter is meant to evoke at least three sources. The first – and perhaps the only obvious one – concerns the ability of holograms to display parallax, a shifting of visual viewpoint that allows a three-dimensional image to reveal background objects behind those in the foreground. This parallax view is a unique feature of holograms as visual media. A second allusion is to the American film The Parallax View (1974, director A. J. Pakula), a rather paranoid thriller focusing on conspiracy theories concerning government and corporations. To a casual observer, the bare details of the military origins of holography suggest just such cynical and centrally-directed development, although I hope to dispel such simplistic ideas here. And a third passing reference is to the book The Parallax View (2006) by Slavoj Zizek, a wide-ranging and deep exploration of duality in political views, ontological interpretations and scientific methods, among other topics.
Zizek’s theme, as well as Pakula’s, is relevant to my approach, which focuses on a parallax of both practice and intent. During the first successful decade of holography, conflicting viewpoints developed between distinct communities: the militarily-guided engineers who invented practical holography, and the later imaging scientists and artisans who stressed three-dimensionality and other attributes instead of the original goal of optical image processing. I argue that distinct groups of users had different perceptions of what holography is and what it is for.

The Changing Shades of Terror: How Music Reflected the Nuclear Scare (1962-1979)

by Matteo Ceschi

in L. Portis e J. Zitomersky (a cura di), Terror and Its Representation. Studies in Social History and Cultural Expression in the United States and Beyond, Presses Universitaires de la Mediterranée, Montpellier 2008.

If interested in the full version contact the author

“'Where Do I Go?': The Commercial Renewal of the American Musical”

by Laura MacDonald

New England Theatre Journal, Vol. 21, (2010), pp.71-97.

This article considers three musicals which engaged intensely with American history,
politics and social change,... more This article considers three musicals which engaged intensely with American history,
politics and social change, and found enormous box office success. Cabaret (1966),
Hair (1968) and 1776 (1969) enjoyed long runs on Broadway while they responded to
issues facing contemporary American society. How did their creators and producers
prepare and sustain them on a commercial market? Together, what do they reveal about
shifting audience demographics and popular taste?

From white elephant to Nobel Prize: Dennis Gabor's wavefront reconstruction

by Sean Johnston

Dennis Gabor devised a new concept for optical imaging in 1947 that went by a variety of names over the following... more Dennis Gabor devised a new concept for optical imaging in 1947 that went by a variety of names over the following decade: holoscopy, wavefront reconstruction, interference microscopy, diffraction microscopy and Gaboroscopy. A well-connected and creative research engineer, Gabor worked actively to publicize and exploit his concept, but the scheme failed to capture the interest of many researchers. Gabor’s theory was repeatedly deemed unintuitive and baffling; the technique was appraised by his contemporaries to be of dubious practicality and, at best, constrained to a narrow branch of science. By the late 1950s, Gabor’s subject had been assessed by its handful of practitioners to be a white elephant. Nevertheless, the concept was later rehabilitated by the research of Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks at the University of Michigan, and Yury Denisyuk at the Vavilov Institute in Leningrad. What had been judged a failure was recast as a success: evaluations of Gabor’s work were transformed during the 1960s, when it was represented as the foundation on which to construct the new and distinctly different subject of holography, a re-evaluation that gained the Nobel Prize for Physics for Gabor alone in 1971. This paper focuses on the difficulties experienced in constructing a meaningful subject, a practical application and a viable technical community from Gabor’s ideas during the decade 1947-1957.

Implanting a Discipline: The Academic Trajectory of Nuclear Engineering in the USA and UK

by Sean Johnston

The nuclear engineer emerged as a new form of recognised technical professional between 1940 and the early 1960s as... more The nuclear engineer emerged as a new form of recognised technical professional between 1940 and the early 1960s as nuclear fission, the chain reaction and their applications were explored. The institutionalization of nuclear engineering channelled into new national laboratories and corporate design offices during the decade after the war, and hurried into academic venues thereafter proved unusually dependent on government definition and support. This paper contrasts the distinct histories of the new discipline in the USA and UK (and, more briefly, Canada). In the segregated and influential environments of institutional laboratories and factories, historical actors such as physicist Walter Zinn in the USA and industrial chemist Christopher Hinton in the UK proved influential in shaping the roles and perceptions of nuclear specialists. More broadly, I argue that the State-managed implantation of the new subject within further and higher education curricula was shaped strongly by distinct political and economic contexts in which secrecy, postwar prestige and differing industrial cultures were decisive factors.

Security and the shaping of identity for nuclear specialists

by Sean Johnston

Atomic energy developed from 1940 as a subject shrouded in secrecy. Identified successively as a crucial element in... more Atomic energy developed from 1940 as a subject shrouded in secrecy. Identified successively as a crucial element in military strategy, national status and export aspirations, the research and development of atomic piles (nuclear chain-reactors) were nurtured at isolated installations. Like monastic orders, new national laboratories managed their specialist workers in occupational environments that were simultaneously cosseted and constrained, defining regional variants of a new state-managed discipline: reactor technology. This paper discusses the significance of security in defining the new subject in the USA, UK and Canada – wartime allies with similar political traditions but distinct trajectories in this field during the Cold War. The intellectual borders and content of the subject developed differently in each country, shaped under the umbrella of secrecy by disparate clusters of expertise, industrial traditions, and national goals. The nascent cadre was contained until the mid 1950s by classified publications and state-sponsored specialist courses. The early context of high security filtered its members and capped enduringly both their professional aspirations and public engagement.

Explosion with a slow-burning fuse: origins of holography in Ann Arbor, Michigan

by Sean Johnston

The subject today known as holography emerged from research in three diverse locations and having distinct origins,... more The subject today known as holography emerged from research in three diverse locations and having distinct origins, aims and methods: at a commercial electrical laboratory in Rugby, England, from the late 1940s until the mid 1950s; at the Vavilov State Optical Institute in Leningrad from the late 1950s and again from the mid 1960s; and, from a classified research laboratory operated by the University of Michigan beginning in the mid 1950s and accelerating from the early 1960s. The scientists, engineers, artisans, entrepreneurs and companies in that third location dominated the subject through the 1960s, making Ann Arbor, for a time, the ‘holography capital of the world’. Based on extensive unpublished documents, artifacts and interviews with some two-dozen participants (much of it as yet unavailable in publicly accessible archives), this paper focuses on the origins of the subject in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It also explores how the initial explosion of interest was transmitted to other research groups, firms, artists and the wider public.

Reconstructing the history of holography

by Sean Johnston

This paper discusses large-scale but gradual changes in the subject of holography that have only recently become... more This paper discusses large-scale but gradual changes in the subject of holography that have only recently become readily observable. Presenting an analysis of publications in holography over the past half century, the paper illustrates and discusses the evolving shape of the subject. Over 40,000 international information sources have been recorded, including some 20,000 papers, 10,000 conference presentations, 7,000 patents, 1,000 books, nearly as many theses and at least 500 exhibitions. This statistical and sociological approach is combined with the identification of specific factors – notably the role of individuals, conferences, proof-of-concept demonstrations and exhibitions – to suggest that the development of holography has been unusually contingent on a variety of intellectual and social influences. The paper situates these observations about holography and holographers in the context of a wider discussion about the styles, purposes and difficulties of historical writing on technological subjects. It further suggests that this ongoing process of both recording and reconstructing technological history can be aided by identification of sources sometimes overlooked or undervalued by practitioners: unpublished archival materials such as private file collections; business records; accounts of unsuccessful activities; and, by no means least, anecdotal accounts inter-linked between participants.

Holography: From science to subcultures

by Sean Johnston

Holography has time and again been reconceived and retargeted by an unusually diverse succession of users with... more Holography has time and again been reconceived and retargeted by an unusually diverse succession of users with divergent perceptions, methods and goals. Two of the earliest and most dissimilar communities had origins in classified research and the counterculture movement.

Telling tales: George Stroke and the historiography of holography

by Sean Johnston

The history of holography, the technology of three-dimensional imaging that grew rapidly during the 1960s, has been... more The history of holography, the technology of three-dimensional imaging that grew rapidly during the 1960s, has been written primarily by its historical actors and, like many new inventions, its concepts and activities became surrounded by myths and myth-making. The first historical account was disseminated by the central character of this paper, George W. Stroke, while a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His claims embroiled several workers active in the field of holography and information processing during the 1960s, but transcended personality conflicts: they influenced the early historiography of holography and the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Physics to Dennis Gabor in 1971. An extended discussion of these episodes, based on archival research, publications analysis and interviews with participants, reveals the importance and extraordinary allure of intellectual priority for practicing scientists, and how its history and explanations are woven from multiple accounts and contemporary interpretations.

The Decline of the Black Panther Party

by Scott Midgley

This paper is an examination of the effect that the New Haven Trials had on the rapid decline of the Black Panther Party This paper is an examination of the effect that the New Haven Trials had on the rapid decline of the Black Panther Party

The Road to Democracy: The Political Legacy of 1968

by Marianne Maeckelbergh

International Review of Social History (2011), 56: 301-332

Over the past forty years, the social struggles of the “long 1960s” have been continuously reinterpreted, each... more Over the past forty years, the social struggles of the “long 1960s” have been continuously reinterpreted, each interpretation allocating a new mix of relevance and irrelevance to the brief global uprising. This article is a contribution to one such interpretation: the small but growing body of literature on the central importance of experiments with democracy within movements of the 1960s. Rather than examining the transformative effect of 1960s movements on institutional politics or popular culture, this article examines the lasting transformation 1960s movements had on social-movement praxis. Based on seven years of ethnography within contemporary global movement networks, I argue that when viewed from within social-movement networks, we see that the political legacy of the 1960s lies in the lasting significance of movement experiments with democracy as part of a prefigurative strategy for social change that is still relevant today because it is still in practice today.

Martin Luther King Jr. Memphis, 4. April 1968

by Michael Sommer

Michael Sommer (Hg.): Politische Morde. Vom Altertum bis zur Gegenwart, Darmstadt 2005, 216-222.

Black Panthers, Red Guards, and Chinamen: Constructing Asian American Identity through Performing Blackness, 1969-1972

by Daryl Maeda

Winner of the Constance M. Rourke prize from the American Studies Association as the best article published in... more Winner of the Constance M. Rourke prize from the American Studies Association as the best article published in American Quarterly in 2005.

" AIN'T GONNA LET NOBODY TURN ME ROUND:" THE SOUTHWEST GEORGIA FREEDOM MOVEMENT AND THE POLITICS OF EMPOWERMENT

by Alisa Harrison

Once You Go Black: Choice, Desire, and the Black American Intellectual

by Laura Mattoon D'Amore

Wicca, Witchcraft and the Goddess Revival: an examination of the growth of Wicca in post-war America

by Caroline Ball

Unpublished undergraduate these, Keele University, 2003

This dissertation is aimed at filling in the gaps left between the studies of ARIS
and ‘The Pagan Census’. Both... more This dissertation is aimed at filling in the gaps left between the studies of ARIS
and ‘The Pagan Census’. Both of these, whilst valuable, do not deliver the
whole picture. This dissertation attempts to demonstrate that Wicca’s
exceptional growth is owed largely to the circumstances in which it found itself
upon its inception in the United States: in other words, the ‘counterculture’.
This period in history proved to be fertile ground for the emerging religion, and
it is likely that Wicca would not have grown in the way it did had it been
introduced at any other time. As a result of its inherent philosophy Wicca
struck a chord with several of the most important threads in American societal
thought, particularly the environmental and feminist movements. These
movements have since become absorbed into mainstream American thought,
and Wicca, because of its close links with both, has thus flourished.

Of course, it is not solely the environmental and feminist movements that
share common themes with Wicca – many aspects of the countercultures can
be found echoed within Wiccan philosophy: holistic healing, sexual freedom,
eastern mysticism, anti-authoritarianism. Due to the constraints of space it is
not possible to discuss these within this dissertation, although there can be
little doubt that just as there is much overlap between Wicca and
environmentalism and feminism, there is a great deal of resonance between
Wicca and these other aspects of the counterculture.

In addition to investigating why Wicca is proving attractive to so many
individuals, this dissertation also intends to look at how the major monotheistic
religions, Christianity in particular, are failing to adjust to society’s political
concerns, and why this is prompting many to turn away from the Christian
church towards a more esoteric outlook.

“Defending Freedom in Vietnam: A Conservative Dilemma”

by Seth Offenbach

,” in The Right Side of the Sixties: Reexamining Conservatism’s Decade of Transformation, Palgrave Macmillan, Laura Jane Gifford & Daniel K. Williams, Eds., 2012.

Psychedelics and the Advertising Man: The 1960s "Countercultural Creative" on Madison Avenue

by Cynthia B. Meyers

Columbia Journal of American Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2000, 114-127.

1960s ad men needed to tap into contemporary culture for advertising ideas. Taking psychedelics was one way to do that. 1960s ad men needed to tap into contemporary culture for advertising ideas. Taking psychedelics was one way to do that.