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 • Endangered Species Act = 1973 Push for alternate Energy Source • Nuclear Power • Hydroelectric Power • Clean burning fossil fuels. • Three Mile Island (March 28, 1979) • Suffered a partial core meltdown. • It sits on an island in the Susquehanna River • The accident unfolded over the course of five tense days, as a number of agencies at the federal, state, and local level attempted to diagnose the problem. The take off of environmental thought rose parallel to the increased usage of nuclear power over fossil fuels. However, with the increasing expenses of nuclear power the opposition likewise grew.

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 • Inflationhad 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 co-conspirator”

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.

1970’s American Popular Culture