American Similarity with the Mod Movement

                In the 1950s the Mod Movement emerged and thrived mostly in the 1960s. The Mod Movement evolved into different subcultures. It eventually separated into the Hard Mods. Examples of a Hard Mod group were skinheads. Skinheads, and other subcultured groups that originated from mods, may have expressed opposition to government. They also dressed differently, had different ideals, and a different style altogether. In the States there was a similar subculture to that of the mods. These were the hippies. Now there were fairly significant differences in the looks and style but fundamentally they were very similar. Hippies were “… those who do not fit into the mainstream.” In America, where Communism was a big scare in the 1950s, everyone wanted to be the same. Men had crew cuts, went to college, and wanted to get married. Hippies were extremely different from the rest of society. Their way of life was not in accordance to that of the average person. They thought if anything felt good, without harming others, then they should do it. They preached love and peace at a time when the United States was at war in Vietnam and at war with Civil Rights.

                Education in the UK was a changing the youth and culture of students. Universities such as Sussex, Essex, Kent, East Anglia, York, and Warwick were “developing a ‘new map of learning’, in new buildings with entirely new staff and no inherited traditions or fixed institutional value systems.” This idea helped establish the development of the youth subculture in London in the 1960s. Eventually students began to protest against nuclear weapons and war in Vietnam, much like their American counterparts.  In America many people were protesting the war. “College newspaper editors and student body presidents at 100 universities sent a letter to LBJ informing him that their colleagues were deeply troubled about a war…”

                There were many songs that were about the subject on the war in Vietnam and about the society of young adults in the 60s. The Who’s hit song “My Generation” was an anthem for the youth trying to find a place in society, and Bob Dylan’s “Blowin In The Wind”, though not directly associated with the mods, voiced the student’s concerns about the war - a result of what was going on during that time period.

Anderson, T.H., 2011. The Sixties. Upper Saddle River, NJ, Charlyce Jones Owen

Grunenburg, C., Harris, J., 2005. Summer of Love: Psychedelic Art, Social Crisis and Counterculture in the 1960s. Liverpool, England. Liverpool University Press.