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Betty
Betty Friedan's 1963 book The Feminine Mystique critiques the myth that a woman's identity is linked to childrearing and the accomplishments of their husbands. -
prohibition in main
1851 main legislature made it illegal to consume and manufacture alcohol -
Thousands died from drinking tainted liquor.
Enterprising bootleggers produced millions of gallons of “bathtub gin” and rotgut moonshine during Prohibition. -
WW1 made people favor prohibition
the barley in beer could be used to make bread for Americans -
it wasn't illegal to drink during prohibition
in 1920 if someone had a stash they were able to keep and enjoy them -
Drug stores continued selling alcohol as “medicine.”
With a physician’s prescription, “patients” could legally buy a pint of hard liquor every ten days. -
Winemakers and brewers found creative ways to stay afloat.
Yuengling and Anheuser Busch both refitted their breweries to make ice cream, -
Few “Okies” were actually from Oklahoma.
While farm families migrating to California during the 1930s, like the fictitious Joad family, were often derided as “Okies,” only one-fifth of them were actually from Oklahoma -
some states refused to enforce prohibition
Maryland in 1923 stopped enforcing prohibition -
One monster dust storm reached the Atlantic Ocean.
While “black blizzards” constantly menaced Plains states in the 1930s, a massive dust storm 2 miles high traveled 2,000 miles before hitting the East Coast on May 11, 1934. For five hours, a fog of prairie dirt enshrouded landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty and the U.S. Capitol, inside which lawmakers were debating a soil conservation bill. -
The Dust Bowl was both a manmade and natural disaster.
When the drought and Great Depression hit in the early 1930s, the wheat market collapsed -
A newspaper reporter gave the Dust Bowl its name.
Associated Press reporter Robert Geiger opened his April 15, 1935, dispatch with this line: “Three little words achingly familiar on a Western farmer’s tongue, rule life in the dust bowl of the continent—if it rains.” “Dust bowl” was probably a throwaway line for Geiger, since two days later he referred to the disaster zone as the “dust belt.” Nevertheless, within weeks the term had entered the national lexicon. -
Dust storms crackled with powerful static electricity.
So much static electricity built up between the ground and airborne dust that blue flames leapt from barbed wire fences and well-wishers shaking hands could generate a spark so powerful it could knock them to the ground. -
The swirling dust proved deadly.
Those who inhaled the airborne prairie dust suffered coughing spasms, shortness of breath, asthma, bronchitis and influenza. -
The Great Depression helped fuel calls for a repeal
By the late 1920s, Americans were spending more money than ever on black market booze -
The federal government paid farmers to plow under fields and butcher livestock.
As part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, the federal government purchased starving livestock for at least $1 a head. Livestock healthy enough to be butchered could fetch as much as $16 a head, with the meat used to feed homeless people living in Hoovervilles -
Most farm families did not flee the Dust Bowl.
John Steinbeck’s story of migrating tenant farmers in his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1939 novel, “The Grapes of Wrath,” tends to obscure the fact that upwards of three-quarters of farmers in the Dust Bowl stayed put -
The ecosystem disruption unleashed plagues of jackrabbits and grasshoppers.
To combat the hundreds of thousands of jackrabbits that overran the Dust Bowl states in 1935, some towns staged “rabbit drives” in which townsmen corralled the jackrabbits in pens and smashed them to death with clubs and baseball bats. -
Proposed solutions were truly out-of-the-box.
There were few things desperate Dust Bowl residents didn’t try to make it rain. Some followed the old folklore of killing snakes and hanging them belly-up on fences -
July 15, 1960
n July 15, 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy accepts the Democratic nomination for president at Memorial Colliseum, Los Angeles -
1960
After 13 years, NBC cancels Howdy Doody. The last episode airs September 24, 1960. -
Harper lee
Harper Lee's 1961 book To Kill A Mockingbird is a bestseller. -
october 1 1962
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1964
The Beatles make their U.S. debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, on February 9, 1964. -
1965
The 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade arrive in Vietnam on March 8, 1965. -
It continues in some parts of the country to this day.
Kansas and Oklahoma remained dry until 1948 and 1959, respectively, and Mississippi remained alcohol free until 1966—a full 33 years after the passage of the 21st Amendment. To this day, 10 states still contain counties where alcohol sales are prohibited outright. -
1967
Apollo astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee die during a simulated launch exercise on January 27, 1967. -
1967
Western movie hero John Wayne wins the 1969 Best Actor Oscar for his role in the movie True Grit beating now legendary actors Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, Dustin Hoffman, and Jon Voight. -
NY
The August 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair draws more than 450,000 people to Bethel, NY. -
Drinking decreased during Prohibition.
According to a study conducted by M.I.T. and Boston University economists in the early 1990s, alcohol consumption actually fell by as much as 70 percent during the early years of the “noble experiment.”