1960s fashion was bi-polar in just about every way. The early sixties were more reminiscent of the 1950s — conservative and restrained; certainly more classic in style and design.
The late 1960s were the exact opposite. Bright, swirling colors. Psychedelic, tie-dye shirts and long hair and beards were commonplace. Woman wore unbelievably short skirts and men wore tunics and capes. The foray into fantasy would not have been believed by people just a decade earlier.
At the beginning of the 1960s, many Americans believed they were standing at the dawn of a golden age. On January 20, 1961, themcharismatic John F. Kennedy became president of the United States. His confidence that, as one historian put it, “the government possessed big answers to big problems” seemed to set the tone for the rest of the decade. However, that golden age never materialized. On the contrary, by the end of the 1960s it seemed that the nation was falling apart.
During the 1960s the United States experienced its longest uninterrupted period of economic expansion in history. In the 1960s housing and computer industry overpowered automobiles, chemicals, and electrically powered consumer durables, which were the leading sectors in the 1950s. Big business dominated the domestic economy during this time. In 1962 the five largest industrial corporations accounted for over 12 percent of all assets in manufacturing. By 1965 General Motors, standard old of New Jersey and ford had larger incomes than all the farms in the United States. America’s overseas investment increased to $49.2 billion in 1965