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- Unit 1: Progressive Era and WWI
- Unit 2: The Roaring Twenties
- Unit 3: The Great Depression
- Unit 4: World War II
- Unit 5: Cold War and the 50s
- Unit 6: Kennedy, Johnson and Vietnam War
- Unit 7: An Era of Protest
- Unit 8: Policies of the 70s and 80s
- Unit 9: 1990s
- Unit 10: Contemporary Issues
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Unit Essential Question
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How did social and economic changes
after World War II affect Americans?
Section 2: The Baby Boom
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As
far back as 1927, readers of Time
Magazine annually see an article in January which features a person
bestowed by the editors who greatly influenced our lives throughout a given
year. The person throughout history varies and may or may not be liked by
fellow Americans. Browsing the covers over the years one could see the
portraits of Charles Lindbergh, Joseph Stalin, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mikhail
Gorbachev and most recently Mark Zuckerberg. However, the January 6, 1967 issue
of Time Magazine featured an
inimitable cover story on their selection for the 1966 “Man of the Year”. The
opening passage reads as follows:
The Man of the Year ran the mile in 3:51.3, and died under mortar fire at An Lao. He got a B-minus in Physics I, earned a Fulbright Scholarship, filmed a documentary in a Manhattan ghetto, and guided Gemini rendezvous in space. He earns $76 a week with Operation Head Start in Philadelphia, picks up $10, 800 a year as a metallurgical engineer at Ford, and farms 600 acres of Dakota wheat land. He has a lightning fast left-jab, a rifting right arm, and reads medieval metaphysicians. He campaigned for Reagan, booed George Wallace, and fought for racial integration. He can dance all night, and if he hasn’t smoked pot himself, he knows someone who has. He tucks a copy of Playboy into his concerto score as he records with the Boston Philharmonic. He is disenchanted with Lyndon Johnson, is just getting over his infatuation with Jack Kennedy – and will someday be President himself.[1]
This description provides quite a resume for the Man of the Year, and anyone who may have skipped over the cover’s feature story truly may have been confused. The article continues to praise their unique actions, personality, and the “sense of control over his own destiny”.[2] Drawing the story to an end, the author further describes the adventures which await the 1966 Man of the Year. This man, actually consisting of men and women ranging in age from birth to twenty-five rather than a single human being, would be what we know today as the Baby Boomer generation.
[1]"Man of the Year: The Inheritor," TIME Magazine, January 6, 1967, accessed August 1, 2011, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843150,00.html.
[2] "The Inheritor.”
The Man of the Year ran the mile in 3:51.3, and died under mortar fire at An Lao. He got a B-minus in Physics I, earned a Fulbright Scholarship, filmed a documentary in a Manhattan ghetto, and guided Gemini rendezvous in space. He earns $76 a week with Operation Head Start in Philadelphia, picks up $10, 800 a year as a metallurgical engineer at Ford, and farms 600 acres of Dakota wheat land. He has a lightning fast left-jab, a rifting right arm, and reads medieval metaphysicians. He campaigned for Reagan, booed George Wallace, and fought for racial integration. He can dance all night, and if he hasn’t smoked pot himself, he knows someone who has. He tucks a copy of Playboy into his concerto score as he records with the Boston Philharmonic. He is disenchanted with Lyndon Johnson, is just getting over his infatuation with Jack Kennedy – and will someday be President himself.[1]
This description provides quite a resume for the Man of the Year, and anyone who may have skipped over the cover’s feature story truly may have been confused. The article continues to praise their unique actions, personality, and the “sense of control over his own destiny”.[2] Drawing the story to an end, the author further describes the adventures which await the 1966 Man of the Year. This man, actually consisting of men and women ranging in age from birth to twenty-five rather than a single human being, would be what we know today as the Baby Boomer generation.
[1]"Man of the Year: The Inheritor," TIME Magazine, January 6, 1967, accessed August 1, 2011, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843150,00.html.
[2] "The Inheritor.”