outline of context of 70~present

70's 

American Cultural History 

http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade70.html

-change of politics along with radical movement_The chaotic events of the 60's, including war and social change, seemed destined to continue in the 70's.  Major trends included a growing disillusionment of government, advances in civil rights, increased influence of the women's movement, a heightened concern for the environment, and increased space exploration.  Many of the "radical" ideas of the 60's gained wider acceptance in the new decade, and were mainstreamed into American life and culture.  Amid war, social realignment and presidential impeachment proceedings, American culture flourished.  Indeed, the events of the times were reflected in and became the inspiration for much of the music, literature, entertainment, and even fashion of the decade. Seventies art reflected a slowing and refinement of some of the avant-garde trends prominent in the sixties, and hippies culture/fashion was mainstream in Seventies.(see how it matches with costume in children books.)

-Social status of minority_People from Third World countries came to this country in search of economic betterment or to escape political repression.  Women, minorities, and  gays increasingly demanded full legal equality and privileges in society.  Women expanded their involvement in politics.  Affirmative action became a controversial policy as minorities and women asserted their rights to jobs and quality education.

-Edu_During this decade, the nation saw intense conflict over issues such as busing and affirmative action. It also saw the adoption of significant pieces of civil rights legislation covering women and people with disabilities in educational institutions. Concern over apparently dropping test scores and over the quality of American education began to grow.

*reference to Benjamin Spock's revolutionary message to mothers (A pediatrician, author, and social reformer whose permissive philosophy in his influential book, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, was blamed for a wide range of social problems in the 1970's.)

http://www.drspock.com/about/drbenjaminspock/0,1781,,00.html

http://salempress.com/store/samples/seventies_in_america/seventies_in_america_education_in_the_united_states.htm

Newbery Award Winners(Many of the books published in the 70's revolved around a general theme of man's alienation from his spiritual roots)

1970: Sounder by William H. Armstrong

1971: Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars 

1972: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien

1973: Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

1974: The Slave Dancer by Paula Fox

1975: M. C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton

1976: The Grey King by Susan Cooper

1977: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor 

1978: Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

1979: The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin  

Caldecott Award Winners

1970: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig

1971: A Story A Story, retold and illustrated by Gail E. Haley 

1972: One Fine Day, retold and illustrated by Nonny Hogrogian  

1973: The Funny Little Woman, illustrated by Blair Lent; text: retold by Arlene Mosel 

1974: Duffy and the Devil, illustrated by Margot Zemach; retold by Harve Zemach

1975: Arrow to the Sun by Gerald McDermott

1976: Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears, illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon; text: retold by Verna Aardema

1977: Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions, illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon; text: Margaret Musgrove

1978: Noah's Ark by Peter Spier

1979: The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses by Paul Goble  

1980’s

President Ronald Reagan (1981~1988) 

-Individual success(individualism) is major goal for the people_Me! Me! Me! generation of status seekers. If you've got it, flaunt it and you can 

have it all! people were more interested in status, power, and money than at any time during the past 15 years.  Richest people(business people) are main characters operating the world.

-shopping became a way of life_called "splurge generation"

-Technology developed in the eighties along with the increased users of computer.  

-Violent crime rates increased. 

-Families changed drastically during these years- more divorces, more unmarrieds living together, more single parent families. The two-earner family was even more common than in previous decades, more women earned college and advanced degrees, married, and had fewer children.(How this social issues influence on children? and how many children books deal with the lost of family or lack of love from parents?) 

-American was reading a lot. many copies of books came out.

-Efforts to censor books tripled in the eighties. 

-Kids were used to do after school activities like sport(especially), music, and dance.

 

Newbery Award Winner - Began in 1922 (most distinguished children's book of the previous year)
1980: A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal, 1830-1832 by Joan W. Blos
1981: Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson
1982: A Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travelers by Nancy Willard
1983: Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt
1984: Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
1985: The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
1986: Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
1987: The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman
1988: Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman
1989: Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman  

Caldecott Award Winner - Began in 1938 (most distinguished children's picture book of the previous year) 

1980: Ox-Cart Man, illustrated by Barbara Cooney; text: Donald Hall

1981: Fables by Arnold Lobel 

1982: Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg

1983: Shadow, translated and illustrated by Marcia Brown; original text in French: Blaise Cendrars

1984: The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot by Alice & Martin Provensen

1985: Saint George and the Dragon, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman; text: retold by Margaret Hodges

1986: The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

1987: Hey, Al, illustrated by Richard Egielski; text: Arthur Yorinks

1988: Owl Moon, illustrated by John Schoenherr; text: Jane Yolen 

1989: Song and Dance Man, illustrated by Stephen Gammell; text: Karen Ackerman  

90s

President George Bush(1988~1992)

President Bill Clinton(1992~2001)

-In 1994, Republicans won a majority in Congress for the first time in forty years for the promise to reshape government by decentralizing federal authority, giving states more control over taxes, and social programs like welfare system for family and children. 

-electronic age and the world wide web was born in 1992, changing the way we communicate, spend our money, and do business. The internet has had a huge influence on products with almost every design company having a presence on the web. The biggest trend in book selling during the 1990s included online bookstores and publishers like amazon.com. Mega-bookstores like Borders or Barnes and Noble drove the small specialized bookstores out of business.

Even reading entire books online became available through websites. 

Television  graced 98% of the households in the U.S. in 1998 with the average viewer spending seven hours a day watching 'the tube'.

-Gulf war broke out in 1993 by Sadam Husein. The decade was to end much as it began with U.S. forces deployed in many countries, and the U.S. playing arbitrator, enforcer, and peace keeper throughout the world. 

-corruption_Violence and sex scandals dominated the media(ex:President Bill Clinton's sexual misconduct) Many crimes and big events were committed in this decade. 

V

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dV-The Elementary and Secondary Education Act,(No Child Left Behind) provided assistance to disadvantaged students or pupils with limited proficiency in English.(how this educational politics are reflected on the children's book?)

Newbery Award Winners - Begun in 1922 (most distinguished children's book of the previous year)

1990: Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
1991: Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
1992: Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
1993: Missing May by Cynthia Rylant
1994: The Giver by Lois Lowry
1995: Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
1996: The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman
1997: The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
1998: Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
1999: Holes by Louis Sachar  

Caldecott Award Winners - Begun in 1938 (most distinguished children's picture book of the previous year)

1990:Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China by Ed Young
1991: Black and White by David Macaulay
1992: Tuesday by David Wiesner
1993: Mirette on the High Wire by Emily Arnold McCully
1994: Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say; text: edited by Walter Lorraine
1995: Smoky Night, illustrated by David Diaz; text: Eve Bunting
1996: Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann
1997: Golem by David Wisniewski
1998: Rapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky
1999: Snowflake Bentley, Illustrated by Mary Azarian; text by Jacqueline Briggs Martin  

 2000

President George W. Bush                                                                                            President Barack Obama

-The era of Globalization_unprecedented global economic and cultural integration

-Intellectual property is important_ The increasing popularity of digital formats for entertainment media such as movies and music, and the ease of copying and distributing it via the Internet and peer-to-peer networks, has raised concerns in the media industry about copyright infringement. (might not talk about it..)  

-I'll say this time is in panic because..

    -Digital technology gave plenty of information and entertainment, though concerns about stress and anti-sociality from the overuse of digital media like cell phones and internet remains controversial.

   -War and Terrorism_As the Cold War was over and terrorism said to be on the rise, the US allies turned their attention to the Middle East. US declared an Iraq war on terrorism.

    -There were natural disasters all over the world (ex:Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans on August 29, 2005).

    -disease like AIDS, tuberculosis, SARS, bird flu mutations, swine flu in Mexico is spread all over the world. 

    -divorce and abortion rate increased. people are irresponsible. 

    -economic crisis continues in America

-Parody of political figures_People are making satire joke about previous president Bush. Some people almost worship president Obama        

                                                                                                                                               -                                       -   

-Caldecott Medal Books in 2000~ 2009

2000:Joseph Had a little Overcoat, written and illustrated by Simms Taback          2001:So You Want to be President? illustrated by David Small                                             2002:The Three Pigs by David Wiesner                                                                    2003:My Friend Rabbit by Eric Rohmann                                                                 2004:The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein                        2005:Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes                                                                      2006:The Hello, Goodbye Window illustrated by Chris Raschka                                         2007:Flotsam by David Wiesner                                                                                             2008:The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick                                                          2009:House in the Night illustrated  by Beth Krommes

-There are many experimental children books published like touch and feel books, pop-up books, parody books of traditional story, and others with mixed medium. 

   *** I need to trim it in more organized style with more supporting texts. Now it seems like it has overwhelming amount of political background rather than its relation to the children literature.. time to clean things out~  

something about Caldecott picture books

We could mention about the Caldecott Medal and Honor books reflect the politics found in America society in certain decade,  and how this honor system has been intensionally or unintentionally controlled children's mind in certain educational purpose.

I actually found this outline of essay is interesting. It really makes sense to me.

http://oregonname.org/pdf/CaldecottDiversity_Gomez&McNerney.pdf

Since we have all these lists of Caldecott winner books, we could look through the stories and find out the biased elements like races of the characters, gender play, moral conduct, happy endings, images of characters etc.

Outline of major happenings of the 50s and 60s

1950s (The Fabulous Fifties) History & Important Points

• The end of WWII brought thousands of young servicemen back home to America to pick up their lives and start new families in new homes with new jobs.
• American industry expanded to meet peacetime needs.
• Americans began buying goods not available during the war, which created corporate expansion and jobs.
• Growth everywhere, in every sense.
• 1954 - Racial segregation is ruled unconstitutional in public schools by the U.S. Supreme Court
• A fresh artistic outlook after WWII was prominent. Abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, Clyfford Still, and Franz Kline received official recognition at the NY MOMA. These artists worked mostly experimentally. Mark Rothko also was on the rise, as well as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, who worked abstractly. African American artists such as John T. Biggers, Romare Bearden, and Henry Clay Anderson presented a different view of American life.
• Part of the 1950s boom in consumerism included housing, people could afford single-family dwellings and suburbia was born.
• America had just begun its recovery from World War II when the Korean Conflict developed. The USSR became a major enemy in the Cold War. Americans were feeling a sense of national anxiety. (Was America the greatest country in the world? Was life in America the best it had ever been?) As the decade passed, literature reflected the conflict of self-satisfaction with '50s Happy Days and cultural self-doubt about conformity and the true worth of American values.
• Until 1954, an official policy of “separate but equal” educational opportunities for blacks had been determined to be the correct method to insure that all children in America received an adequate and equal education in the public schools of the nation. In 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren and other members of the Supreme Court wrote in Brown vs. the Board f Education of Topeka, Kansas that separate facilities for blacks did not make those facilities equal according to the Constitution. Integration was begun across the nation.
• Another crisis in education was uncovered by critic Rudolph Flesch in his book Why Johnny Can’t Read, who claimed that the American educational system was not doing its job.

Children's Book Award winners of the fifties:

Newbery Award Winners

1950 - The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli
1951 - Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates
1952 - Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes
1953 - Secret of the Andes by Ann Nolan Clark
1954 - ...And Now Miguel by Joseph Krumgold
1955 - The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong
1956 - Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham
1957 - Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson
1958 - Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith
1959 - The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Caldecott Award Winners
1950: Song of the Swallows by Leo Politi
1951: The Egg Tree by Katherine Milhous
1952: Finders Keepers, illustrated by Nicolas, pseud. (Nicholas Mordvinoff); text: Will, pseud. (William Lipkind)
1953: The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward
1954: Madeline's Rescue by Ludwig Bemelmans
1955: Cinderella, or the Little Glass Slipper. ill. by Marcia Brown; text: translated from Charles Perrault by Marcia Brown
1956: Frog Went A-Courtin', illustrated by Feodor Rojankovsky; text: retold by John Langstaff)
1957: A Tree Is Nice, illustrated by Marc Simont; text: Janice Udry
1958: Time of Wonder by Robert McCloskey
1959: Chanticleer and the Fox, illustrated by Barbara Cooney; text: adapted from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales by Barbara Cooney

1960s (The Swingin’ Sixties) History & Important Points

As Jefferson Airplane co-founder Paul Kantner mentions:

"If you can remember anything about the sixties, then you weren't really there."

• The sixties were the age of youth, as 70 million children from the post-war baby boom became teenagers and young adults.
• The 1960s have become synonymous with all the new, exciting, radical, and subversive events and trends of the period, which continued to develop in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and beyond.
• In Africa the 1960s was a period of radical political change as 32 countries gained independence from their European colonial rulers.
• The movement away from the conservative fifties continued and eventually resulted in revolutionary ways of thinking and real change in the cultural fabric of American life.
• Young people wanted change when it came to education, values, lifestyles, laws, and entertainment. Many of the revolutionary ideas, which began in the sixties, are continuing to evolve today.
• Just like in the 50s, art in America of the 60s was influenced by the desire to move into the modern age or future, which the space age seemed to forecast. Major works by Alexander Calder (mobiles and sculpture) or Helen Frankenthaler showed a desire to escape from details to interpretation. Artists now wanted to inspire viewers to leap into the unknown and experience art in their own individual way. Andy Warhol also appeared in the 60s. Other popular forms of art in this decade included assemblage, op art, kinetic abstraction, environmental art, and pop art.
• Literature also reflected what was happening in the political arenas and social issues of America in the sixties.
• A book which described some of the turmoil of race relations as they affected people in America, Harper Lee’s Pulitzer prize winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about a small southern town and social distinctions between races. Writing about race and gender, women of color like Gwendolyn Brooks, Maya Angelou and Margaret Walker Alexander created new insights on feminism as it developed in America.
• The Rise of Feminism
• Sylvia Plath and Mary McCarthy spoke of women in roles outside those of the happy wife and mother of the fifties. Women like Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, and Gloria Steinem, led the way for many women.
• Disillusionment with the system was the theme of books like Catch 22 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
• People became more concerned with their health and their environment. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring awakened the environmental movement and the Sierra Club gained a following. Ralph Nader's book, Unsafe at any Speed, led to the consumer movement.
• Anti-war movement – The conflict in Vietnam would eventually lead to a commitment of over half a million American troops, resulting in over 55,000 American deaths and producing a large-scale antiwar movement in the United States. As late as the end of 1965, few Americans protested the American involvement in Vietnam, but as the war dragged on and the body count continued to climb, civil unrest escalated. Students became a powerful and disruptive force and university campuses sparked a national debate over the war. As the movement's ideals spread beyond college campuses, doubts about the war also began to appear within the administration itself. A mass movement began rising in opposition to the Vietnam War, ending in the massive Moratorium protests in 1969, as well as the movement of resistance to conscription ("the Draft") for the war
• In 1963 Maurice Sendak published Where the Wild Things Are. This controversial book with its illustrations won the Caldecott Medal in 1964 and has become a classic in children’s literature.
• 1963: Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a Dream” speech in Washington DC on August 28.
• 1963: President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22.
• 1964: Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. This landmark piece of legislation in the United States outlawed racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment.
• 1965: The surgeon general determined that smoking was a health hazard, and in 1965 required cigarette manufacturers to place warnings on all packages and in all ads.
• 1965: The assassination of Malcolm X on February 21.
• 1967: The birth control pill became widely available and abortion for cause was legalized in Colorado.
• 1967: Both abortion and artificial insemination became legal in some states.
• 1967: The first clone of a vertebrate, a South African tree frog, was produced in 1967. Dr. Denton Cooley implanted the first artificial heart in a human, and it kept the patient alive for three days until a human heart could be transplanted.
• 1968: The assignations of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, and Robert Kennedy on June 5.
• 1969: The hippie movement endorsed drugs, rock music, mystic religions and sexual freedom. They opposed violence. The Woodstock Festival, at which 400,000 young people gathered in a spirit of love and sharing, represents the pinnacle of the hippie movement.
• 1969: Apollo 11 – the first human spaceflight to land on the Moon. Launched on July 16, 1969, it carried Mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr. fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960s, which he had expressed during a speech given before a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

Children’s Book Award Winners of the 1960s

Newbery Award Winners of the 60s

1960: Onion John by Joseph Krumgold

1961: Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

1962: The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare

1963: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle Wojciechowska

1964: It's Like This, Cat by Emily Neville

1965: Shadow of a Bull by Maia

1966: I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino

1967: Up a Road Slowly by Irene Hunt

1968: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

1969: The High King by Lloyd Alexander

Caldecott Award Winners of the 60s

1960: Nine Days to Christmas, illustrated by Marie Hall Ets; text: Marie Hall Ets and Aurora Labastida

1961: Baboushka and the Three Kings, illustrated by Nicolas Sidjakov; text: Ruth Robbins

1962: Once a Mouse, retold and illustrated by Marcia Brown

1963: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

1964: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

1965: May I Bring a Friend? Illustrated by Beni Montresor; text: Beatrice Schenk de Regniers

1966: Always Room for One More, ill. by Nonny Hogrogian; text: Sorche Nic Leodhas, pseud. [Leclair Alger]

1967: Sam, Bangs & Moonshine by Evaline Ness

1968: Drummer Hoff, illustrated by Ed Emberley; text: adapted by Barbara Emberley

1969: The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, illustrated by Uri Shulevitz; text: retold by Arthur Ransome

Little Golden Books

I completely forgot about the Little Golden Books that came out in 1942.
A affordable and durable children's book series during a gray time after the Great Depression and during WWII when most children's books, selling for $2-3, were a bit of a luxury. The Little Golden Books sold for 25¢ each.

Dr. Seuss

Hey Alicia, I found a book in the library about Dr. Seuss I don't know if you've seen it yet. "The Seuss The Whole Seuss and Nothing But The Seuss" and I also found "Dr. Seuss: American Icon" by Philip Nel and "Dr. Suess's The Seven Lady Godivas" you should check out. I've checked it out if you want to take a look at it.

Babar - sexist and racist?

Some interesting tidbits on this list- http://www.listal.com/list/top-10-politically-incorrect-kids

An article about Babar and French Colonialism- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article602843.ece

"Despite some modernisation, Celesteville, Babar’s jungle realm, still has the feel of colonial-era French Africa.

The elephant remains the epitome of bourgeois, pre-feminist fatherhood, keeping a firm hand over his household of Queen Celeste, Pom, Flore and Alexandre. This political incorrectness has drawn fire, mainly from American academics who have called Babar a symbol of imperialist oppression.

In Should We Burn Babar?, published in a 1996, Herbert Kohl, a sociologist, dismissed the Babar kingdom as racist and sexist. Le Monde joked: “At 75, Babar is not just a charismatic, evergreen pachyderm. For those who know how to read between the lines, he also raises essential political and sociological questions.”"

Things like this would be interesting to discuss!

contextual sources

This link is about American Cultural History. There you can find some contextual information  

http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade70.html