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NOTEWORTHY EVENTS FROM THE “ERA OF ACTIVISM” 1960 - 1975
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Publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring
the 1962 book that started the environmental movement. Carson begins Silent Spring with “A Fable for Tomorrow.” In the fable, she describes a lovely country town surrounded by farms and wilderness, by beauty and the sounds of wildlife. Carson's fable links two protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Both the environmental movement and the consumer movement demanded honesty and accountability from industry and government -
Publication of Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique
Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique caused a sensation in the suburbs of America. It addressed the women who had everything that society said they should want: husbands who were good providers, healthy children, a house in the suburbs—often even the time and money to furnish and refurnish the comfortable homes they ran for their families. But many of these women were not happy, and when they said so, they were often called “neurotic” or not normal. -
Publication of Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed
While a student at Princeton University in the early 1950s, Nader protested the spraying of campus trees with DDT. His interest in automobile safety began while he was attending Harvard Law School. In 1964, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then Assistant Secretary of Labor, hired Nader as a consultant on the issue of automobile safety regulations. The government report Nader wrote developed into a book, Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the American Automobile, published the next year. -
NOW is founded
In 1966, a group of 28 professional women, including Betty Friedan, established the National Organization for Women (NOW). These women were frustrated that existing women's groups were unwilling to pressure the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to take women's grievances more seriously. The goal of NOW was “to take action to bring American women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now.” -
UFW’s Nationwide Boycott of grapes picked on nonunion farms
The UFW's first target was the grape growers of California. Chávez, like Martin Luther King, Jr., believed in nonviolent action. In 1967, when growers refused to grant more pay, better working conditions, and union recognition, Chávez organized a successful nationwide consumer boycott of grapes picked on nonunion farms. Later boycotts of lettuce and other crops also won consumer support across the country -
Woodstock
The diverse strands of the counterculture all came together at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in August 1969. About 400,000 people gathered for several days in a large pasture in Bethel, New York, to listen to the major bands of the rock world. Despite brutal heat and rain, those who attended the Woodstock festival recalled the event with something of a sense of awe for the fellowship they experienced there. Police avoided confrontations with those attending by choosing not to enforce drug law -
Congress passes the Clean Air Act
Passed by Congress in 1970 in response to public concerns about air pollution, the Clean Air Act was designed to control the pollution caused by industries and car emissions. The EPA forged an agreement with car manufacturers to install catalytic converters (devices that convert tailpipe pollutants into less dangerous substances) in cars to reduce harmful emissions. -
First Earth Day celebration
In 1969, Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin announced plans to hold a national day of discussion and teaching about the environment. The following year, on April 22, 1970, Americans celebrated the first Earth Day. Organizers stressed the important role that Americans could play in improving awareness of environmental issues and in bringing an end to environmental damage. Earth Day would become a yearly observance. Its aim was to heighten concern for the environment, to increase awareness. -
The EPA is established
One of the EPA's early responsibilities was to enforce the Clean Air Act. Passed by Congress in 1970 in response to public concerns about air pollution, the Clean Air Act was designed to control the pollution caused by industries and car emissions. The EPA forged an agreement with car manufacturers to install catalytic converters (devices that convert tailpipe pollutants into less dangerous substances) in cars to reduce harmful emissions. -
Supreme Court rules to legalize abortion in the Roe v. Wade case
A landmark social and legal change came in 1973, when the Supreme Court legalized abortion in the controversial Roe v. Wade decision. The justices based their decision on the constitutional right to personal privacy, and struck down state regulation of abortion in the first three months of pregnancy. However, the ruling still allowed states to restrict abortions during the later stages of pregnancy. The case was, and remains, highly controversial, with radical thinkers on both sides of the argum -
Protesters from the AIM take over the reservation at Wounded Knee
An even more dramatic confrontation came in 1973 at the Oglala Sioux village of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. In 1890, the army's Seventh Cavalry had massacred more than 200 Sioux men, women, and children there. The Pine Ridge reservation around the village was one of the country's poorest, with half of its families living on welfare. In February 1973, AIM took over the village and refused to leave until the United States government agreed to investigate the treatment of Indians and the poor condi
