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Social Movements Of The 1960's And 1970

Decent Essays

Social movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s have been interpreted and written about in varying ways. While contemporary scholarship disagrees with past analyses and offer fresh perspectives, past research can also provide a pathway for defining important questions for future research on social movements in America. Many past historians have interpreted social movements of the twentieth century in a skewed way according to contemporary historians. In Adam Rome’s article entitled Give Earth a Chance: The Environmental Movement and the Sixties, he discusses past interpretations of the environmental movement as originating from the “New Left.” Rome goes on to note that works do not even focus on the movement for the most part until 1969. Andrew Hunt’s work, When Did the Sixties Happen? Searching for New Directions, explains that past historians focused primarily on histories of the Students for a Democratic Society. The American Gay Rights Movement and Patriotic Protest by Simon Hall explains that the flexibility of Americanism enables it to be used for many movements. Lastly, Timothy Miller explains that past research has led to the belief that, “The origins of the communes concluded that they were products of the decay of urban hippie life …show more content…

Rome discusses the previously unmentioned role of women in the environmental movement by women’s historians. He notes that because this demographic did not challenge their place within society, their role in the movement was not as prominent. Andrew Hunt’s work uses a recent idea that movements had become more grassroots than previously thought, putting to rest the idea that “the movement” was over by the 1970’s. Considering that “The great majority of antiwar students…did not formally affiliate with any organization,” may have contributed to the feeling that the period of major protest was

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