Monday, July 11, 2016

*FEATURE* A 60s Summer - 1963

Cost of Living 1963


Average Cost of new house $12,650.00 
Average Income per year $5,807.00  
Gas per Gallon 29 cents 
Average Cost of a new car $3,233.00  
Loaf of bread 22 cents 
Bedroom Air Conditioner $149.95


1963 The biggest news from 1963 was the assassination of the US President Kennedy on November 22nd which thrust Lyndon Johnson into the role of president and the murder two days later of Lee Harvey Oswald by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. 

This was a difficult time to become president with the mounting troubles in Vietnam where the Viet Cong Guerrillas had now killed 80 American Advisers and the continued campaign for civil rights by the black community caused violent reactions from whites including Mississippi, Virginia and Alabama where the black civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr was arrested. 

Films included "The Birds" and "The Great Escape" and popular TV programmes "The Virginian" and "Lassie". 

Ladies fashion clothes and hairstyles included fur boots and towering hair do's for evening wear. In music the beginning of Beatlemania after they release "I Want To Hold Your Hand/I Saw Her Standing There" and "Meet the Beatles". 
 Ref: the People History

2 comments:

  1. I remember being in my bedroom putting my new 45 record on my portable record player and playing,"I Want to Hold Your Hand", over and over, while writing down the words to the song. By the time I wrote all the words down, I had memorized the song. I was happily surprised when I turned the record over and found,"I saw Her Standing There"! Once again,I played it over and over, writing down the words until I knew the whole song! Good times!

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  2. Don't forget Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons!

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