In the 60's, Bob Dylan sang the famous song, 'The times they are a-changing'. There was a feeling of optimism, a sense that life could be changed for the better. For many people, the 1960's was a decade of fun. It was a time for young people and the chance to be different. Britain led the world in fashion, design and pop music, and everyone had new ideas of how things should look. After the hard years of the 40's and 50's, it was a much happier decade. The country was prosperous and many families had more money to spend and more leisure time than ever before. There were jobs for all, and every year there were more consumer goods than families could hope to buy. People often call the sixties the 'swinging sixties', hence the title of this website. Many Commonwealth immigrants settled in London, the Midlands and other parts of the UK. They brought with them new sorts of food, clothes, music and religion. However the decade was also a time of bitter social conflicts and brutal warfare.
Society was full of young people in the 1960's. A high birth rate in the late 1940's and early 1950's meant that schools and universities were expanding. With more money, young people had more independence and many rejected the hard-working, conservative way in which their parents had lived. They wanted more fun.
In the mid-1960's, the Hippie movement grew up in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco. Hippies wanted to create an ideal world based on peace and love, in which there would be no money and no work. Few people tried to live a full Hippie lifestyle, but many were influenced by their 'flower power' attitudes.
Some young people, especially students, became involved in political protest. Many students felt that the older generations had ruined the world with wars, racism, pollution and a joyless lifestyle. Some decided that the answer was a revolution in the way society was run. In 1968, France was brought to a standstill by a student uprising, and there was major disruption also in Germany, Italy and the USA.
The 1960's was a decade of liberalization. Capital punishment was abolished in Britain in 1967 and put on hold in the USA. Censorship was relaxed. Abortion and homosexuality were legalised. People had different views as to whether these measures were a sign of progress. But certainly, 'times were a-changing'.
In the late 50's and early 60's, thousands of immigrants came to Britain. 136,000 arrived in 1961 alone. In some areas of the country, the immigrants were well received. In many other parts of the country, there was a great deal of racism. The immigrants were often paid lower wages than the white people, and a lot of resentment occurred between the immigrants and the locals. The 1968 Race Relations Act made it illegal to discriminate against anyone on the grounds of race or colour.
Science and Technology in the 1960's