Welcome to the 60's: Life as it was From the Eyes of Dalia

Welcome to the 60's! I know when I first think of the 60’s my initial thought is that this decade was lived by hippies and it was an era where everyone did drugs. However, not every life was lived how many of the movies today illustrate it. Every story is different, and the story I am following is the story of Dalia, who said, "We were [in the 60's] very laid back, we weren't so concerned with the worries of the world" (Pucci). I am studying the 1960's, life was different for everyone, yet similar to many, I am researching to find the story of a typical life.

Fig. 1 Advertisment for
Woodstock

Stereotyping the 1960's

The peace sign is major symbol of the 1960's. This was the age of peace and love, where many people, referred to as hippies used the term "Make Love Not War". Because, at this time, the Vietnam War was taking place. "Unfortunately when you think of hippies you think of the drug era too, and not all people who were into ‘love, peace, and no war’ were druggies. I think I was that kind of a hippie yes but I wasn’t of the drug culture and not a lot of people were necessarily" (Pucci). In the sense of wanting peace, but no war, there were probably many more people in the 1960's to be considered one of them, however, they would not be considered as much of hippies because the typical hippie participated in taking "psychedelic drugs" such as; LSD, marijuana, heroin, and amphetamines ("Hippies in the 1960's"). Woodstock was a large event that many people think back to when they think of the 1960's. What was originally meant to only be a two day event, turned to a three day event of peace and music festival where nearly 500,000 people came together and celebrated to have three days of peace, three days where "the world stood still" (Woodstock). Dalia, at the time Woodstock took place, was too young to attend the event. Had she been older, like her older sister at the time, she would have liked to have gone, however, she says, "I was not about to go to a mud-field and get dirty" (Pucci).

Growing Up

Fig. 2 Dalia Pucci, age 8, 1960.

Born in 1952, Dalia Pucci was only eight years old when the 1960's came around (Fig 2 on left). She grew up and spent her some of her elementary and high school years during the 1960's. At a young age, she spent a lot of time at home and with her sisters. She described her first few years into the 60's as "very ordinary, nothing exciting, until 1963" (Pucci). Similar to the tragedy of 9/11, the assassination of President Kennedy was announced in schools. What was very similar between both Dalia and many of the children who had been in school during 9/11 was that not many understood what had happened, when it was told in schools. Many of them were not affected until they returned home and saw the twin towers burning and black smoke covering the skies of New York and many of their family members filled with fear, sorrow, and distraught at the sight presented to the on the television. When she returned home that day from school she remembers, for the entire weekend, watching the retakes of the assassination and the funeral proceedings o President Kennedy. "That was kind of a dark time. I think it sobered everyone up, even as a young child, just like 9/11 happening today" (Pucci).

Fig. 3 Dalia Pucci, 1974.

There was no diversity in her high school so the only way she was associated with any racial issues was from what she saw on television, with the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King. She did not see difference in skin colors. Though there had been no diversity in her schools or neighborhoods, there were at Beach Pond Summer Camp, in Exeter, Rhode Island, where she spent many summers working (Pucci). She worked along side with black and white camp councilors and also had a variety of children attend the camp. told the story of a time she went to visit one of her only black friends from a summer camp she worked at. Her friend, Debbie, lived in New York so Dalia went to a spend the weekend with her "she [Debbie] was very brave for having a white person come and stay with her" (Pucci). Dalia, not seeing nor even thinking anything different of the color of skin, did not see a problem. She could feel the racial tension as she entered the dorm. Later on that night they decided to go out, "and she [Debbie] said, 'well if we go down this street I can't go, and if we go down that street you can't go'" (Pucci). That very moment was when she was able to actually witness the racial issues that had been occurring, other than watching it on television. She was not use to that environment and it was a real eye opener to see that other people actually lived that way. She went further to say, "Debbie was pretty much ostracized after that" (Pucci).

Hairspray

Styles in the 1960's, obviously were different from what people today dress and look like. In the musical and film Hairspray it is able to see the similarities with the hairstyle at the time. In the figure below you see a capture photo from the movie.

Fig. 4 Scene from Hairspray, 2007.

The style from this movie can be seen throughout the 1960's. The big hair and the "hairspray" were important to the style. Below is a picture taken from Dalia's high school yearbook. You can see the same hairstyle being portrayed in the center girl (Figure 4) as well as the bottom center girl (Figure 5)

Fig. 5 Page from Cranston High School yearbook, 1969

Both of these women wearing the same hairstyle shows that this musical/film is very up-to-date and true in the style it shows throughout the story. In Dalia's high school, she said there were two groups of 
people, "we had what people would be calling ‘mondos’ where their hair was all slicked back. The girls had the big hair, tight clothing, and the guys wore the leather jackets. They were ‘mondos’, and then there were ‘colligents’, we were the preppy ones, but in between that or before that we were kind of hippy-ish" (Pucci). She also recalls watching American Bandstand, a show similar to the one portrayed in Hairspray, where live music would perform and the cast on the show would dance. Styles were definitely different back in the 1960's as can be seen to the left (Fig. 5), from Dalia's high school yearbook. A final interesting fact was that in her high school, at the time she attended, girls were required to wear either a skirt or dress, no pants.

Comparing and Concluding

Technology was a major difference and it really made a difference. What is a "can't live without", source in modern times, people in the 1960s were forced to live without. There were no cell phones, so there was no texting your friends. The lack of computers, which assists the current 'face generation', was not created so there was no email, social networking, etc. All of their communication was either done by writing a letter, in person, or by telephone from their own house. If Dalia needed to go somewhere she did not have the luxury of owning her own car in high school, "we walked everywhere, it's no lie. We walked to school, home from school, took a bus, or we bicycled" (Pucci). There were not as many cars on the roads back then, so walking everywhere was safer. With one television per house, many people in those years would do more active things, or actually read a book, where now every room in people's homes have a television in it and children sit in front if it and it is all they do. 

In schools it was expected of the all of the students to be respectful in schools. If a student got in trouble, got detention, etc., the student would be more afraid of their parents then anything. "Today as I'm teaching in schools.. and they [students] are not respectful and their parents aren't respectful to teachers. It has very much flip-flopped, a complete one-eighty" (Pucci). College life was also different. Where today, a large majority of college students go to college and mainly focus on the party scene, going to huge parties, getting wasted, drugs, bad decisions, etc., college life, for Dalia, was different. The drinking age was 18, so when she first arrived to college, even prior to, she and her friends were able to drink. They would walk off campus, go to the bars, and have a great time. She mentioned how they would not abuse the drinking because it was not necessary, their goal was not to go out and get 'trashed', but to go out on the weekends with her friends and enjoy themselves. Schooling was very important and it was what came first, which is how it should be.

The 60's were a time of change and it was considered a turn around. With all the protesting, drug use, freedom, etc., it was not always seen as a good era by everyone. "There are limitations to freedom of speech which people don't recognize. Too much freedom, everyone has rights, but if everyone has rights there is no responsibility because not everyone can have the world revolving around them" (Pucci). Compared to the 70's, 80's, 90's, and now, Dalia believed that many negative things came out of the 60's (Pucci).

Works Cited
Pucci, Dalia. Personal Interview. 24 April 2011


"Hippies in the 1960's | Socyberty." Socyberty | Society on the Web. N.p., 16 October 2008. Web. <http://socyberty.com/history/hippies-in-the-1960s/>


"Woodstock Music Festival 1969." Squidoo : Welcome to Squidoo. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 May 2011. <http://www.squidoo.com/woodstock