I.

II.

Thesis
a. The 1970s was a period of scandal, national pride, cultural emergence,
and minority triumph.
Politics
a. Very depressing, people were beginning to question the government
after its pulling out of Vietnam that extremely disorganized and meant
little to nothing.
b. Presidents
i. Richard Nixon
1. Began his term in 1968, got reelected in 1972 and
resigned in 1974.
2. Created the Urban Affairs Council in 1969 and the
Environment Protection Agency in 1970
a. UAC for advising president on domestic affairs in
city
b. EPA for protecting the environment
3. Domestic Policy
a. Presented himself as a man of reason; he saw a
country where the people were so divided over a
single topic (Vietnam) that many were dying over
their personal beliefs.
b. Ended the draft by law in 1971
c. Proposed a wide array of environment legislation
d. Had a high standard for national parks
i. 642 new national parks
e. High success in civil rights
i. By 1972 90% of schools were desegregated
ii. Instead of making the south the victim of
hatred, he made the topic about education
and achieved more success as he avoided
the topic of racial hate as a whole.
f. Attempted to expand on welfare, but flopped
4. Scandals
a. Pentagon Papers
i. Daniel Ellsberg leaked this 7000 page
document revealing that the government
had planned to enter Vietnam before Johnson
warranted it and that Johnson had no intent
to stop war until North Vietnam pulled out.
b. Watergate
i. June 17th, 1972
1. National Democratic Committee
headquarters in the Watergate office
was burglarized
a. Stole documentation
ii. Began in 1971 when it became a very
possible venture that Nixon could lose the
reelection as anti-war demonstrations
became prevalent

iii. Charles W. Colson, member of special council

to Nixon constructed a list of people that
were dangerous to the Nixon administration,
not limiting itself to political adversaries
1. Recruited special agents to watch
these people
iv. In response to the Pentagon Papers leak,
more special agents were recruited, code
name plumbers to stop more leaks
v. Operations continued through 1972, often
breaking and entering obscure places to
photograph records for blackmail purposes
vi. CRP raised funds in 1972 for White House
officials like Liddy, high ranking Plumber, to
grab from
1. Early 1972 CRP held a meeting and
discussed bugging and information
smuggling of Democratic National
Committee headquarters and
Democratic presidential nominee
vii. Watergate held an office a special interest
political opponent Lawrence R. O'Brien
viii. May 27th, 1972
1. Liddy and his Plumbers
a. Tapped doors leading to
democrat headquarters
b. Tapped phones
c. Smuggled documents out
ix. Plumbers returned on June 17th because they
misplaced a tap, but got caught by Frank
Wills, a security guard on duty at the time,
and jailed.
x. E. Howard Hunts White House line was
discovered on one of the Plumbers,
indicating White House involvement
xi. A cover-up ensued in attempt to keep
Nixons name off the book, but Nixon ended
up resigning in 1974.
ii. Gerald Ford
1. The first president to be designated as a result of Nixons
resignation
2. Was not reelected in 1976, after the public saw him as a
puppet of Nixon and Watergate
3. Domestic policy
a. Ford was faced with a country that was becoming
increasingly angry with the government, many
beginning to publically protest for wanted policies.
b. Contributed to minority rights

i. Signed an executive order establishing a

National Commission on the Observance of
International Women's Year in 1975
ii. Supported Equal Rights Amendment
(womens rights movement)
iii. Attended the Congressional Black Caucus to
hear black opinion on his policy, but never
partaking fully
c. Pardoned Nixon, never fully regained trust
d. Amnesty program for those who fled the country to
avoid the draft or deserted while in the service
i. Swear an oath of allegiance to the United
States and perform two years of public
service
e. Ford was faced with rising energy prices as the
middle east emerged as the central location to buy
oil, so prices increased as usage did
i. Tried to curve this by #DD9264
f. As Ford left office, he was seen as an extension of
Nixon, and many thought he did little to nothing to
help the state of the country.
iii. James Jimmy Carter
1. Working off the failures of Nixon and Ford, Carter was able
to be elected in 1976 as a scapegoat vote against
Watergate; he acted disillusioned with the scandal and
appeared to be a Washington outsider, was reelected in
1980.
2. Carter came into office claiming he would shrink the
amount of federal agencies to a bare minimum to save
tax dollars, but did not reach anywhere near the 1700 he
promised to cut.
3. Carter created the Energy cabinet department and the
Education cabinet department in attempt to mix together
policy in their respective categories into one big category.
4. Domestic Policy
a. Appointed James Schlesinger to be his energy
advisor
i. Created an energy bill in time of oil shortage
1. Tax on gas that was supposed to rise
in demand
2. Tax on vehicles consuming exuberant
amounts of gas
3. Tax credits for energy saving buildings
b. Carter appointed several African Americans to high
level federal jobs.
i. Patricia Harris was appointed the head of the
Department of Housing and Urban
Development

ii. Eleanor Holmes Norton was appointed the

chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission.
iii. Andrew Young became an ambassador to the
UN
c. Legislation and Court Cases
i. 26th Amendment
1. Lowered the voter registration age from 21 to 18.
ii. Environment
1. Clean Air Act
2. Oil Spill Act
3. Noise Control Act
4. Clean Water Act
5. Ocean Dumping Act
iii. Federal Elections Campaign Act 1975
1. Limited contribution amount to campaigns and limited
campaign spending
iv. Privacy Act of 1974
1. Limited governments ability to survey its citizens to a
minimum
v. Ford administration passed the Energy Policy and Conservation
Act in attempt to deter rising energy prices, but was later
replaced by Carters energy policy.
vi. 1978 Civil Service Reform Act
1. Evaluation process for not appointed federal employees to
maintain consistency.
a. Evaluation process
b. Linked performance and pay
c. Extended protection of whistle blowers
vii. Independent Counsel Act 1978
1. Created a need for a prosecutor independent of handlings
to investigate public officials.
d. Foreign Affairs
i. Nixon Administration
1. Vietnamization
a. Nixons policy to pull out troops from Vietnam but
train the South Vietnamese to fight back and give
the South Vietnamese greater control over the war
conducting.
2. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
a. Granted Johnson all the military power in Vietnam
involved with war without a declaration of war,
resulted after a sign of aggression with the
Maddox off the Vietnamese coast
3. War Powers Resolution
a. The attempt to establish congressional decision
over whether or not troops can be deployed, no
matter the Presidents direction as the commander
in chief.

III.

4. Dtente
a. Policy of shaping down on cold war stress
ii. Ford Administration
1. Continued on Nixons effort for disarmament and peace.
a. Mayaguez Incident
i. A merchant ship off the coast of Cambodia
was captured in claim that it was in territorial
waters and Cambodia thus had the right to
seize the ship and its contents. The gunboats
that were involved in the seizing were
destroyed and the Cambodian mainland was
bombed to prevent intervention, with a
rescue mission being launched on a nearby
island that was suspected of holding the
crew, succeeding in all 39 crewmembers
being rescued, sacrificing 41 American lives.
b. Helsinki Agreement
i. Ford met with Soviet leaders in Helsinki,
Finland. Traded the Soviet Unions
observation of international human rights
principles in exchange for the Eastern Europe
bloc being accepted as legitimate.
c. Shuttle diplomacy
i. Ford relied on Kissinger to organized most of
his meetings with foreign officials, and often
moved to them, known as shuttle diplomacy
iii. Carter Administration
1. Sought peace in Middle-East nations and Soviet Union
while at the same time stopped aid to countries he found
to have human rights issues
a. Camp David Accords
i. On September 17, 1978, Prime Minister
Menachem and President Anwar Sadat
signed it, ended a 31-year long war between
Egypt and Israel and gave Egyptian land
captured by Israel back to Egypt. Carter
negotiated as he considered this agreement
essential to the stability of the oil in the area.
Cultural Events
a. Fashion
i. Slogan do your own thing
ii. Pants werent controversial anymore for women and well-worn,
with several styles available.
iii. Women wore flowy evening pants, miniskirts, or longish peasant
skirts along with sandals, Frye boots, or espadrille
iv. What was important was the ability to choose your own style as
a woman.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

v. Sportswear popularized for men, including jackets and jogging

suits.
Social class, gender separation
i. African Americans were less discriminated against, and social
class became less apparent with the rising interest in liberal
ideology, such as big government and redistribution of wealth
Music
i. Disco music branched off of pop, with hits like the The Hustle,
and characterized club activity.
ii. Funk music came out of the African American community. Cross
between jazz and blues.
iii. Latin Hustle became popular at the height of disco.
iv. KISS became popular, a rock and roll group with weird costumes
and makeup.
v. Led Zeppelin became popular for his combination of blues and
rock and roll.
vi. Punk music became popular with the Sex Pistols, a group
intended to challenge authority and edged on anarchism.
Entertainment
i. It started to appear like Americans were starting to become
unentertainable with the appearance that pop art and novels
had peaked, TV had lost audiences, and music from the 1960s
lost their ears.
ii. The civil rights movement birthed a new age of minority artists,
with genres like funk.
iii. Blaxploitation films created by African Americans as low-budget
films
1. Considered to be degrading and demeaning
iv. Literature saw African American women such as Alice Walker
and Toni Morrison (Nobel Prize).
v. Movies popularize with titles such as The Godfather, released in
1972, Jaws, released in 1975, and Star Wars, released in 1977.
American idealism
i. Minorities?
1. With the rise of liberal ideology, the American society
became more accepting of minorities, specifically African
Americans, and indulged in their culture more frequently.
2. Feminism became more rampant, demanding more rights
for women in the workplace and beyond
ii. What was important?
1. 1973 Roe v. Wade
a. First pro-choice case
i. Women have the right to abort during the
first trimester
Movements or cultural revolution
i. Population shift to the Sun Belt states
1. More families started settling in the west and southwest.

IV.

ii. Lifestyles of hippies was adopted as part of life, and drugs are
consumed at the understanding theyre no more dangerous than
cigarettes or alcohol.
iii. Americans are less sure that the United States will shape the
world.
Economy
a. Summation of how the economy was
i. Nixon Administration
1. Faced inflation and rising prices, stood firm on the fact
that free-market should be controlled if needed
ii. Ford Administration
1. Whip Inflation Now policy
a. Limit the federal budget and raise taxes
b. When prices go up, consumers income remains so
that they dont keep rising
c. Gimmicky at best, failed
iii. Carter Administration
1. As a result of the Vietnam War, there was an increase in
federal deficits and social spending as a result of inflation.
2. Uncertain raw material access
3. OPEC raised their crude oil prices by 500%, making the
US have 5 times less fuel, energy prices went up and
inflation occurred
4. Manufacturing threatened by outsourcing and other
countries productivity
5. Stagflation
a. Combination of inflation and economic stagnation
b. Unemployment rate
4.9
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980

V.

5.9
5.6
4.9
5.6
8.5
7.7
7.1
6.1
5.8
7.1

c. Shortages
i. Oil shortage
d. Tax rate
i. The 1970s saw high marginal taxes as a result of the tax
legislation passed and the rapid inflation occurring.
Innovation and Technology

a. Important inventions
i. DRAM 1970, Intel
ii. Floppy Disk 1971, IBM
iii. Pocket Calculator 1971, Busicom
iv. Microprocessor 1971, Intel
v. Word Processor 1972, Micropro International
vi. Pong 1972, Nolan Bushnell
vii. Disposable Lighters 1972
viii. First GUI computer 1973, Xerox
ix. STEM Cells Technology 1973, Boyer and Cohen
x. Post-It Notes 1974, Arthur Fry
xi. Digital Camera 1975, Kodak
xii. Laser Printer 1975, Xerox
xiii. Ink-jet Printer 1976, Siemens
xiv. Cell Phones 1977, Bell Labs
xv. Spreadsheets 1978, Bricklin
xvi. Artificial Heart 1978, Jarvik
xvii. Walkman 1979, Sony
xviii. Rollerblades 1979, Olson
xix. Supercomputer 1979, Cray
b. Inventions impact on American life
i. The booming computer business added a new level of
automation that Americans had never seen anymore, making
many tasks either autonomous or more quickly done. A slight
boost in the health technology field also resulted in artificial
organs being a thought and STEM Cells envisioned, manifesting
the idea within the American people that extending your life
isnt as farfetched as previously thought.