Curated OER
1960's Protest Songs
By learning about 1960's protest songs, and the politics of the era, students can broaden their understanding of music and history.
Curated OER
Woody Guthrie: Life and Art
Woody Guthrie will capture the imagination of even your most reluctant learners. Using his work, your class will develop their skills in non-fiction reading comprehension, interpreting primary source material, and use of multiple forms...
Curated OER
Teaching Economics and Rock and Roll: Unemployment
Students explore the consequences of unemployment. In this macroeconomics lesson, students listen to the songs “Johnny 99” and “Worried Man.” Students discuss the socioeconomic costs of unemployment as they analyze the songs.
Curated OER
Exploring Media Messages
This lesson uses discussion and activity to help students explore how advertising and the media affect self-image. Students will learn how to recognize how advertising exploits young people.
Curated OER
Wyclef Jean for VH1 Storytellers
Students use different folk songs to learn chords and other musical elements.
Curated OER
Modern Counterculture Movements
Young scholars prepare a presentation examining anti-establishment activity by groups in society today. They prepare a presentation, on poster board or presentation software, about one contemporary protest group.
Curated OER
Vocational: Fashion History
Students research and present reports on 20th century fashions and their influences. After watching a video about fashion, they complete worksheets based on the film. In another activity, students make doll-sized clothing items using...
Curated OER
Sing a Shaker Song
Second graders study the Shakers of the 19th century and practice a traditional Shaker song, complete with dance motions.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Us History: 1945 1980: Popular Culture and Mass Media in the 1950s
In the 1950s, financial prosperity allowed young Americans to participate in a shared culture of rock and roll music, movies, and television.
SparkNotes
Spark Notes: Social Trends of the 1950s
Spark Notes gives a brief overview of the 1950s from consumerism and conformity to poverty to youthful rebellion. A good review of this important decade in American history.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: The Drifters
Considered one of the greatest vocal groups of the 1950s and 1960s, The Drifters were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1988 and have three songs on the list of the top 500 most influential songs.
OpenStax
Open Stax: Prosperity and Cold War Fears 1945 60: Popular Culture and Mass Media
Examines the impact that rock and roll music, movies and the invention of television had on America in the 1950s.
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: Voices Against Conformity
The decade of the 1950s was kown for conformity. There was an undercurrent of rebellion, especially among younger Americans. Read about the Beat Generation, alternative literature, rebellion in art, and treatment of those who were not...
Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica: Beat Movement
This encyclopedia entry surveys the Beat movement in American literature and culture during the 1950s and early 1960s, which was personified by such writers as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs.
Other
Amistad Digital Resource: Pop Culture
General overview of African American pop-culture in the mid 20th-century highlighting music, art, theater, and sports.
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: Rock 'N' Roll: Beginnings to Woodstock
The resources in this set highlight the artists and sounds that were central to the rock 'n' roll musical genre that contributed to social and cultural change in America beginning in the 1950s.
Other
Kingwood Library: American Cultural History: 1960 1969
An historical record worth delving into to understand the true culture of the 60s. Covers art, architecture, literature, education, fashion, historic events, music, and other aspects of the era.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Elvis Presley
Provides a biography on Elvis Presley and a detailed timeline of important events in his life and career.
Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica: Clyde Mc Phatter
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Clyde McPhatter, an American rhythm-and-blues singer popular in the 1950s whose emotional style anticipated soul music.
TES Global
Tes: West Side Story (1961) Film Guide
[Free Registration/Login Required] This is a film guide for the film West Side Story (1961), the musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which is set in 1950s New York and incorporates themes around street crime,...
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Buddy Holly
Brief information about Buddy Holly. Even though he only played for a short time, 1950s rocker Buddy Holly was a great influence on many other groups such as the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and the Hollies. He died in a plane crash at the...
Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica: Horace Silver
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Horace Silver, an American jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader, exemplary performer of what came to be called the hard bop style of the 1950s and '60s. The style was an extension of...