Lifestyle

A look back at the 1960s

Joe Kernan
Posted 10/9/14

Just as we begin to brace ourselves for the media blitz that has come to mark an election year in this state, the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s office offers a glimpse of elections as they were …

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Lifestyle

A look back at the 1960s

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Just as we begin to brace ourselves for the media blitz that has come to mark an election year in this state, the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s office offers a glimpse of elections as they were conducted 50 years ago.

The amount of bionic soil enhancer (abbreviated “BS”) may not have been any less those many years ago, but the means of exposing the public to it stopped well short of the 24-hours-a-day-seven-days-a-week exposure brought to us by the Information Age.

So, it is with mixed feelings that we view this glimpse of 1964. It was the year after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, an event that may have helped usher in the anarchic years that ended the 1960s with Woodstock and Vietnam. It’s hard to admit that the artifacts surrounding an election year 50 years ago can actually make a modern viewer feel nostalgic.

According to their promotion of the exhibit, Our World Fifty Years Ago - 1964, provides “a snapshot of life in Rhode Island a half century ago.” The exhibit features “an array of original manuscripts, photographs and materials relating to the election of 1964, all from the holdings of the Rhode Island State Archives.”

Photographs include a Shoup voting machine and ballot; individual votes of the Electoral College; as well as records of the first authorized open Constitutional Convention convened in the state since 1842.

There are also pictures of health care clinics, President Johnson’s visit to Brown University, the construction of Interstate 95 “as well as resolutions, correspondence, and remembrances upon the death of President John F. Kennedy.”

“This exhibit is not only interesting, but timely, since we have a general election in November,” said Secretary of State Ralph Mollis. “It’s fascinating to compare the tools and resources voters have access to today, with voting machines and ballots from the election of 1964.”

Equally fascinating is a list of events in Rhode Island that year that came with the press release, presented as if they were headlines. Some examples, trimmed for size:

Jan. 13:

BLIZZARD HITS…11 INCHES…10 FATALITIES.

Jan. 27:

…TRANSIT COMPANY EMPLOYEES GO ON STRIKE…30,000 COMMUTERS STRANDED…

Jan. 28:

SNOW STORM LEADS TO…WORST TRAFFIC JAMS…

Feb. 8:

…STATE WORKERS VOTE TO STAGE WORK SLOW DOWN…

Mar. 6:

RED MAPLE DESIGNATED…STATE TREE

March 25

…OUTBREAK OF GERMAN MEASLES…

July 2:

ELEVENTH ANNUAL NEWPORT JAZZ FESTIVAL…

July 25:

ACCIDENT AT UNITED NUCLEAR…VICTIM DIES 5 DAYS LATER

Aug. 25

SENATOR JOHN O. PASTORE DELIVERS KEYNOTE…NATIONAL CONVENTION.

Sept. 2

200 ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF BROWN…

Sept. 21

“CONSTELLATION” DEFEATS BRITISH CHALLENGER… FOR THE AMERICA’S CUP…

Sept. 23:

GOVERNOR ANNOUNCES…FEASABILITY OF A NEW BRIDGE LINKING NEWPORT & JAMESTOWN

Oct. 8:

81 ACRE KNIGHT FARM IN WARWICK…DONATED FOR JUNIOR COLLEGE

Oct. 9:

GOVERNOR CHAFFEE OPENS ROUTE 95…FROM THURBERS AVENUE TO ELMWOOD AVENUE. HUGE RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC JAM [First day]…

Does anyone remember a proposed subway for Providence? There is a picture in the exhibit of a subway car and a group of people around Gov. John Chaffee when an exhibit for the proposal was installed at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York. According to local writer Jef Nickerson on www.gcpvd.org in 2011, a subway was originally proposed around the time the East Side Tunnel for the trolley opened in 1914 and again in the 1920s but never got anywhere because the car became ubiquitous in the city. Nickerson doesn’t mention a revised proposal in the 1960s and a Google search turned up nothing. Ironically, if you want to know more about the fictive Providence subway, you’ll have to go to the State Archives and see what they have on the subject.

But forget an imaginary future from Rhode Island’s past, just look back at the outrageous cost of living - until you were 70.2 years old (life expectancy), by the way.

Here are some of the highlights:

Minimum wage was $1.25; Average new home was $20,500;

A new car cost $2,250; a gallon of gas was 30 cents.

When the blizzard came, a gallon of milk was 95 cents; a loaf of bread was 22 cents; a first-class stamp cost 22 cents.

The unemployment rate in the United States was 5.2 percent; average weekly wage in Rhode Island was $84.82.

Federal spending was $118.53 billion; U.S. debt was $316.1 billion.

Red Sox finished eighth in the American League with 72 wins and 90 losses.

Lyndon B. Johnson beat Barry Goldwater by a vote of 43,126,218 to 27,174,898.

For the Senate, John O. Pastore swamped Republican Ronald R. Lagueux 319,607 to 66,715.

For the First Congressional District; Ferdinand J. St. Germain, 168,374; Roland H. Blancette, 38,601.

For Governor: Edward P. Gallogly, 152,165; John H. Chafee, 239,501.

There are more results for other offices but we’re limiting this to names that people born since 1964 would recognize. But, if the sample of photos we got from state archivist Gwenn Stearn indicates the scope of the exhibit, we can think of no better way to spend an afternoon than strolling through Rhode Island’s past.

The exhibit is free and open to the public at State Archives, located at 337 Westminster Street in Providence, weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., through Dec. 31. Validated two-hour parking is available adjacent to the building at In-Town Parking.

The exhibit is also viewable and on display on the Secretary of State’s online virtual exhibits at sos.ri.gov/virtualarchives. http://www.ri.gov/press/view/23009

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  • Justanidiot

    First class stamps were 5 cents. What ever happened to fact checking?

    Tuesday, October 14, 2014 Report this