Category Archives: Week 8: Youth and Anti-War Movement

Throughout history and popular culture there has often been a division manufactured between what are known as the “elite doves” and the “hardhats”. In part this is due to protests and counterprotests that were taking place during this time-period. However, if you talked to the so called “hardhats” it was found that they often agreedContinue reading “Baseball Caps and Pigeons”

In the words of historian Penny Lewis, “we have misremembered the working class as particularly hawkish during Vietnam.” As opposed to wealthy, college-educated, suburban-living White Americans, White members of the working class were often portrayed in popular media as bigoted, simple-minded red-necks. As Lewis illustrates, although these images of the White working class were notContinue reading “Political Realignment in the Wake of Vietnam”

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, a so-called “silent majority” was gaining a lot of attention in media and politics. These were people who were perhaps against the war but also were against the anti-war protests (Lewis 164). Despite being more varied and more diverse in terms of class makeup, political views, etc., theContinue reading “Misrepresentation of the Silent Majority”

The Vietnam War era is often remembered as a time of deep social and political divisions in the United States. One of the most persistent narratives of the late 1960s and early 1970s is that the anti-war movement was led by privileged, college-educated “elite doves,” while the “reactionary hardhats” of the White working class stoodContinue reading “The Myth of the Vietnam Divide”

George Wallace and Richard Nixon used the idea of “elite doves” versus “reactionary hardhats” to gain support from white working-class Americans. They painted a picture where anti-war protesters were seen as rich, spoiled, and disconnected from regular people. Wallace, during his 1968 presidential campaign, talked a lot about “the average man on the street.” HeContinue reading “Politics Back Home”

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the American working class became more diverse as more people of color and women joined the workforce. With the influx of new groups, labor unions and the Democratic Party struggled to retain power as a consensus was near impossible—further exacerbated by the various ideological direction workers were nowContinue reading “The Silent Majority”

While it is easy to say the split over Vietnam in the late 60s and early 70s was between elite doves and reactionary hardhats, the real split came from class divisions. George Wallace and Richard Nixon tapped into this stereotype to push working-class Americans further to the right of the political scale. Working-class Americans wereContinue reading “Hardhats vs Doves”

 I think that he argues for the split over Vietnam in the late 1960s and early 1970s because of the people in the country and how they believed that war was winding down but instead, it was continuing to go on. It also has the impact of the anti-war protests on college campuses and peopleContinue reading “Penny Lewis argues split over Vietnam in the late 1960s and early 1970s.”