T. Diffendal's Era of Activism

Era of Activism

Period: Jan 1, 1960 to Dec 31, 1975

Publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring

Sep 27, 1962

Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on 27 September 1962. The book is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement.

Publication of Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique

Feb 19, 1963

The Feminine Mystique begins with an introduction describing what Friedan called "the problem that has no name"—the widespread unhappiness of women in the 1950s and early 1960s. It discusses the lives of several housewives from around the United States who were unhappy despite living in material comfort and being happily married with fine children.

Publication of Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed

Nov 30, 1965

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

Jun 30, 1966

NOW was established on June 30, 1966 in Washington, D.C., by people attending the Third National Conference of the Commission on the Status of Women. Among NOW's 28 founders was its first president, Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique (1963).

UFW’s Nationwide Boycott of grapes picked on nonunion farms

Aug 22, 1966

Is a labor union created from the merging of two groups, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by Filipino organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) led by César Chávez. This union changed from a workers' rights organization that helped workers get unemployment insurance to that of a union of farmworkers almost overnight.

Woodstock

Sep 18, 1969

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 confrontation with those attending by choosing not to enforce drug law.

First Earth Day Celebration

Apr 22, 1970

Gaylord Nelson, a United States Senator from Wisconsin, called for an environmental teach-in, or Earth Day, to be held on April 22, 1970. Senator Nelson, an environmental activist, took a leading role in organizing the celebration, hoping to demonstrate popular political support for an environmental agenda. He modeled it on the highly effective Vietnam War teach-ins of the time.

The EPA is established

Dec 2, 1970

is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress.[2] The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 3, 1970, after Nixon submitted a reorganization plan to Congress and it was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.The agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Co

Supreme Court rules to legalize abortion in the Roe v. Wade case

Jan 22, 1973

was a landmark, controversial decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. The Court decided that a right to privacy under the due process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution extends to a woman's decision to have an abortion, but that right must be balanced against the state's two legitimate interests for regulating abortions.

Protesters from the AIM take over the reservation at Wounded Knee

Feb 2, 1973

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 conditions.

Congress passes the Clean Air Act

Dec 17, 1973

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.