Accuracy of the 60s portrayal

Black women would not have been lynched on site in the sixties. Dianne Carol had a hit tv show in the sixties. People were getting over their syphillis insanity thanks to antibiotics in previous decades and people were become sane and rational. Then the sexual revolution came along and everything went to hell again.

Getting high was pretty much relegated to only certain pockets of the country until the mid- late sixties. Alcohol was used just as heavily by the business class as it was the working class, only the business class preferred liquor to beer.

I also believe that if you unclothed everyone down to their underwear, you'd discover 21st Centrury briefs, boxers, socks, stockings and bras.

Betchya that beer they served to Jake, Frank Dunning and everyone was brewed in 2015 too!

As an extra in Dallas (You see me on the grassy knoll next to the Babushka Lady smoking a cigarette and taking pictures as Jake/Sadie run to Dealey Plaza. and I will tell you those are not filtered. They were fake cigs made of Marshmallow and rose bud. :)

The man that lived in the house he rented at one point was rolling his own tobacco.

Living in the Southern Baptist bible belt in 'Dixie-crat' Kentucky we always felt 10 years behind the the rest of the country.

I must be older than all of you here--I actually remember the 60's and lived in various areas of the country so I can tell you that "normal" varied throughout the country, within the expected divisions (north vs. south, liberal vs. conservative).

Gloves were worn by "ladies" in the 1960s--just look at photos of Mrs. Kennedy!! though they were a hold over from the '50s. Gloves were also worn longer into the decade in the south than in the north. I can definitely see a status conscious, or a woman pretending to a higher social class wearing gloves in the 60's. You will also see "church ladies" wearing gloves in photos of the civil rights movement in the 1960s as well as models in fashion shoots of the time. It wouldn't be surprising to see gloves on a conservative woman who was striving to be taken "seriously" and as a "Lady" (with a capital "L").

Hairstyles were all over the place in that era with buzz cuts, long hair on men (hippies) and everything in between. Again, "brylcreem" was more of a southern thing, but also more a holdover from the 50's, and not common at all in the later 60's. Wearing that kind of product was a hold over and considered old-fashioned. You might see it in the more conservative classes and maybe in the very early 60s by some. Personally I didn't know anyone that used it no matter where I lived. Hairstyles in the south were far more conservative in the south; you could get beat up for longish hair (marked you as a liberal, pro-civil rights).

Natural hair was the coming thing for whites and blacks; blacks would wear oil in their hair for some hair styles to keep their hair from breaking, but again that was far more common in the early 1960s. Wearing your hair natural was a statement against "the man"; especially by blacks. And yes, natural hair could earn you a beating in the south as well. It WAS a statement.

Yes, we often had a "DJ" though I don't remember if that is what we actually called them, playing records at school functions far more often than a real band due to the cost of hiring even students to play. As far as the kind of music--"black music" was adopted by whites early on though frequently covered by white musicians for white consumption. It was a huge controversy of the era. Rock and roll, soul, etc. all started in the black communities but the kids(well not just kids) of all races loved it. I'm not sure how much of the rant against this kind of music was racist but the backlash--such as shown in Hairspray, was very real and not just a 50's thing. The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964 but American teenagers already knew their music. The Beatles were greeted by "thousands of American fans at JFK, mirroring the scene they had left behind at Heathrow" when they landed in the U.S. for their American television debut.

I also remember learning dances that were a hold over from the 50s and we did dance that way in the early 1960s. Most of us didn't get past an awkward two-step for slow dances. Other dance "crazes" were the Madison, "The Swim", the "Mashed Potato", "The Twist", "The Frug" (pronounced 'froog'), "The Watusi", "The Shake" and "The Hitchhike". Following the Foxtrot, '60s dance crazes had animal names, including "The Pony", "The Dog" and of course we started mixing them together until all of the rules went out the window. You can check on this by watching re-runs of 1960 dance and variety shows. I admit I did have to look up the names of those dances after all these years. :)

Drug use did become more common the 60s but it's certainly not true that "everyone" did drugs, with pot being the most common choice anyway. And as far as "Free Love" being the downfall of civilization? It wasn't as much of an orgy as you think. It's true that the number of marriages dropped and divorce increased in the '60s but that had as much to do with the growing women's rights movement and the "pill" as anything else. For the first time women were asking for and getting real opportunities--and were not simply being content as secretaries or stewardesses. Given the growing work opportunities AND control over having children, they didn't feel forced to marry or to stay married. However, most people were part of a couple, in a continuing "trend" popularly dubbed as "serial monogamy" which didn't (doesn't) necessarily include marriage. Hardly the downfall of civilization.

The 1950s saw the beginning of the civil rights and women's movements, but they were still going strong in the 1960s. The 60s were a hugely dynamic era that saw huge changes but people were still being lynched in the south; inter-racial marriage wasn't even legal in every state until 1967! Changing in the law doesn't necessarily lead to a change in attitude among the die-hard bigots; inter-racial couples continue to experience harassment, and an unofficial segregation continues to this day, especially (though not exclusively) in the south.

I think you are getting the 50s and 60s confused--with many of the changes that started in the 50's continuing long into the 60s. To be fair, there is considerable overlap, especially in the early 60's. Many of the legal changes that resulted from these movements didn't get enacted until late in the 1960s or even into the 1970s, but the law always lags behind social change. And it's important to remember that just because the calendar showed a new era that doesn't mean that change happened over night--whether fashion, music or anything else. You also have to remember that television was just beginning to really catch on; a large number of families didn't even have one at that time. My own family didn't have television until the end of the 1960s (I felt privileged to be able to watch the moon landing) and we were considered middle class.

The more conservative the area, and inclusively the more southern, the slower changes would take place. By definition "conservatives" don't like or welcome change. That's not a value judgement: (adjective) "holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion". It follows that an area of conservatives is going to be slower to adapt new trends. I'd say the show has it pretty accurate.

I love all the 1950's and early 1960's cars used in this series, but I didn't see anything other than American cars, almost exclusively Ford, Chrysler and GM cars with a Studebaker or two for good measure. And granted that in the small towns depicted, such as Lisbon, Maine, and Holden, Kentucky this would have been the case,but, surely in big cities like Dallas and Fort Worth, there would have been at least a few foreign cars, certainly not Japanese, but at least the occasional VW Beetle, which were very popular in the US by the early 60's.