Growing up when I did and spending much of my adult life in the military, I admit that I had a predjudice against long haired men.
In my early 40’s I took a flight from Seattle to Oakland to spend the weekend w/ a ladyfriend. When I boarded I was given a seat in the last row of the smoking section. My seatmates were two guys in their 20’s, both w/ long hair, who expressed some disappointment in my cigarette habit. I took umbrage at their attitude as well as their hair.
When I took out my Zippo to light up, one of the guys commented that it reminded him of his father. Attitudes cooled and we began to chat. I mentioned the hair issue and it sparked a debate. I suggested that we get an independant opinion from a flight attendant, a comely woman who appeared to be closer to my age. Of course I expected her to side w/ me. I put the comparison to her and asked what she thought. She looked at one of the young men and said that she thought she might like to run her fingers through his hair. We all got a big laugh out of it, including the stew.
Turned out these were guys working on Alaskan fishing boats and had a buddy who played for one of the successful rock bands (I’ve forgotten which) and they were going to attend a concert. I offered them a ride to their hotel, courtesy of my lady friend, and they accepted. They had shipped several boxes of king crab legs, packed in dry ice, and gave us one, about 10lbs. as thanks.
What could have been an unpleasant flight, turned out very nicely.
Sorry, further looking he says he was born in April, 1956. http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:kKOTOckQzvQJ:www.aarpmagazine.org/books/qa_with_leonard_steinhorn.html+"leonard+steinhorn"+"american+university"+born&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4&ie=UTF-8
Does that qualify him to be a baby boomer?
Since he’s born slap bang in the middle of the 1946-1964 period that’d make him an archetypal baby boomer.
I grew a beard over winter break '64-65. When I walked through my wife’s hometown (a town in NJ 4o miles southwest of Philadelphia, pop. 7000) people were so astonished that it nearly caused traffic accidents. But police paid me no attention and certainly never questioned me.
I had an aunt who went trhough college right after the war and we rarely saw her wearing anything but jeans. I don’t think there was anything unusual about that. Cops did get more uptight after the war protests began, but by that time I was living in Canada (I was too old to be draft bait, though).
I’m not old enough to give personal testimony (I’m about the same age as Steinhorn, and thus far too young to remember anything from the 1950s save the vaguest of images.)
But my mom has talked at length about what she and her friends wore back then. In general they wore some type of skirt or dress at school and when out with friends. But there were also pants that were worn from time to time, and she described the much like some of the pants that were shown in a link in this thread.
The beard thing isn’t necessarily true in my opinion. I think it depends on who you were and how you were wearing the beard.
If you were a young man with a shaggy beard, I’d figure you’d be thought of as a drifter or a subversive. But I have pictures of my great-grandfather back then and he had a beard, and in one family photo his brother had a fairly unkempt, Santa Clausesque white beard. Neither of them were considered subversives but were considered eccentrics.
I see this more as an example of these cops beating down protesters, those they viewed as soon-to-be protesters, or those they viewed as planning to take pictures of their subsequent beatings of protesters.
Or, to take a slightly less cynical approach, as an example that these cops were alot more likely to react/overreact to minor infractions during a protest compared to how they behave during the Thanksgiving parade.
In either case, not so much of a long hair thing.
Though it could be argued that had your friend worn his hair in a buzz cut he might not have been perceived to have been a protester/sympathetic to protesters and thus,thelong hair could be taken as a factor.
Do you have cites for this? Lists of ‘strange but true’ laws are often urban legend vectors.
That was pretty much the gist of the cop’s remarks, at the time. There was no law against standing on the pedastal, but the cop expressed displeasure at some “longhair” standing on it with a camera.
Whether the author of that article (who is too young to have known the situation firsthand) can actually find some woman somewhere who at sometime was stopped and questioned while wearing pants — it was by no means the norm. Pants as casual wear for women were common in the 1950s.
Cross-dressing in public is (or used to be) against the law in most places. It would not surprise me if women wearing obviously male clothing would have been stopped and questioned, even in the 1950’s. Of course, cross-dressing men were stopped much more often, as they are sometimes a lot more obvious.
In NYC, and probably in other municipalities as well, Halloween is the only day it is legally permissible to cross-dress in public. That’s why there’s a big gay parade through Greenwich Village on Halloween and there is large cross-dressing ball called Black’s Ball then also.
Can I ask for a citation of the municipal code for this?
My mother was suspended from High School in the late 1950s for wearing jeans. That was Forest Hills High School in Queens, NY. No law against it, just against the school rules. She was such a rebel. Wouldn’t surprise me if she’d gotten into trouble for smoking on school grounds either.
And, BTW, a search on Lexis of the NYC Municipal Code, Charter and Rules shows no prohibition against cross-dressing in NYC.
Although it doesn’t answer the OP either, women at my high school from ca. 1957-1962 were not permitted to wear anything other than a dress or skirt unless the winter temperature dipped below some (rarely reached) low number. Even culottes would result in being sent home.
The exceptions are interesting. This rule applied only to normal school hours, for girls coming in on the weekend or after school frequently wore slacks or shorts (in season), and of course attendance at sporting events wasn’t held to the rule.
Another exception – our cheerleaders were the only ones whose standard uniform, any season, was slacks, never skirts or shorts!
My school had exactly the same policy around 1970 or 1971, and the weather exceptions were implement that same year. Before then, women had to wear skirts no matter the weather.
It’s hard to describe to someone in their twenties the emotions that long hair and facial hair could generate in the '60’s and early '70’s. It was actually considered a Big Issue. I never had shoulder length hair, but my hat’s off to anyone who could put up with the crap that came with long hair in the '60’s.
That’s…
There’s something really striking about that line.
I like it.
I can’t explain it.
-FrL-