Fun To Watch 1960s Teenage Baby Boomers Who DIDN'T Rebel

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you were looking at 16 year old teenagers in 1966 from webster groves missouri [Music] i'm david hoffman documentary filmmaker and i worked on that documentary back then and i'm going to show you clips from it now because this is a subject that so many of you my subscribers are talking about the 1960s growing up in the 1950s i want to go back to the 1950s the 1960s destroyed america well webster groves the documentary that you just saw pisa and you're going to see all the clips from is really a way to look at those baby boomers who didn't participate in the 1960s at least not in 1966 so this is another view of that era of the baby boomers not the baby boomers who rebelled the 30-some percent but the baby boomers who didn't webster groves is a town of about thirty thousand people way rich right smack in the middle of the country picked by a brilliant filmmaker arthur barron so the issue that arthur barron wants to look at is conformity is the traditional ways that 1960s baby boomers were being raised and cbs says okay do a test do a trial do a survey we asked all the 16 year olds at webster high to answer a 36 page questionnaire designed by university of chicago sociologists that gave us exact knowledge about our subject and a scientific basis on which to plan the filming so what you're about to see are the results of that survey and remember this is traditional america this is a place where most everybody wants to conform where conformity is really important so here we go here's the results of the survey 90 percent of the 16 year olds in webster groves wanted to live in webster groves until they died and they wanted to live like their parents did well i i'm satisfied with the conditions that i'm living in now and uh well we it's it's really hard to say i i'm content i live in a nice house and i'm doing all right see i'm very very happy i don't i don't have much that i can complain about i'm perfectly happy the way i am and until i become unhappy with my present situation i feel is the way it all stay 75 of the teenagers the 16 year olds in webster groves wanted money and a good job they felt that was extremely important well i think that my main goal is to become financially a success and by this i mean that so i can support my family handsomely and have two cars have a whole two-story house and have sort of a high status with my friends i don't want to be uh you know just dig a ditch for the rest of my life i want to be successful uh a lot of people say they just be successful doing anything well that's true but i i'd kind of like to make some money in my life i mean being quite honest the kind of husband i want he has to be able to support me because i've already picked out the house that i want to live in it's right it's right across the street from where i live now and i just love it it's four bedrooms and it's a split level when the survey asked 16 year olds in webster groves what scared you what worried you most what would you think well it was grades to get a good job they feel they must go to college to reach college they feel they must pass every test to pass every test a majority affirms they will do anything too many people have pressures of of school and from their parents to get these grades the grades become all important they have to get it it's a drive it's it's not so much that they understand what the drive is it's just that they've been told this is what to do and to many people the pressure is just too much they have to cheat they feel to to get the good grades to stay up with with whoever is ahead of them 54 admit they have cheated in order to pass a test for the last five years at least the whole thing everything that i've done has been geared to being accepted into a college because son if you don't go to college you're not going to be anything in life i'm sure each parent the parents of each individual child are going to be proud if the student makes uh eight pluses all the way through and gets accepted to uh some fantastic university they're going to be proud and on the other hand they're going to be also be disappointed if he doesn't how did students maintain these grades tons of homework practically every school in the country will say that you should spend an absolute minimum of two hours studying for every one hour of the cheering class i say three from my own personal experience from having watched several students go through college 48 hours of study a week then that you're going to have to do compared to the 13 that you're doing right now outside of school you have to add to this 16 if you're in class and at least another six possibly even 10 for laboratory work and other work outside at 74 hours a week most communities in america in the suburbs had kind of elites they were usually the athletes the good-looking ones not the academics but the want popular ones and webster grove had an elites and the elites had a special dance for the elites final maid from webster dismiss sue weber escorted by larry knisely [Applause] to be queen of the friendship dance is the height of social ambition at webster groves high only those in the leading crowd need apply to be in the leading crowd it is not essential to be a good student to get high grades 83 percent of the 16 year olds say so here's what they say is more important to have a nice personality to be a leader in activities to be good looking to have money and a nice car and to come from the right family the queen from webster groves is ms sue weber the student leaders the football captains and the cheerleaders and the dance queens are known in webster groves as sushis but if you're not a sochi chances are you're a normie and you feel left out you may go to dances but you don't help plan them or you may belong to the fringe the wild ones the weirdos the intellectuals it is one student said to us like everybody's wearing a tag around his neck but it is an article of faith at webster groves high that the sochis will inherit the earth everybody has substantial income and every man comes home from his work about five o'clock comes home two kids maybe two cars maybe maybe some house pets he'll come in this house and say hello to all his kids this is this is all the same almost throughout all webster everybody comes out in step and they're all dressed the same they all have the same ideas and they teach each other that what to think what not to think and and how to dress and just what to do and how to accept everything that's one two one two and everybody comes out like that nobody comes out two seven or sixteen four or anything else just one two one two in case you're curious i wasn't an elite i wasn't then outcast either i became president of my school but i didn't fit that elites group of a good-looking athlete types parents also rewarded those people the schools rewarded those people but i found out later when i did my television series on the 1960s that when i interviewed people although the elites looked like they were having it all together in fact inside they like most teenagers at that time felt insecure uncertain uncomfortable not what they're showing now how did you become perfect as an elite well part of it was you had to learn to dance the waltz is the foundation of all good dancing if you can dance a good waltz you can dance any dance so remember that get your partner's voice mrs condons dancing school when they were younger those of webster grove 16 year olds who are most carefully instead and their parents too for that matter submitted to the polite formality of mrs condons mrs condons is a lofty institution in webster groves not every child who aspires to her classes is permitted entrance but the youngsters of the privileged come here once a week because their parents want to assure that they become social successes this mrs condon herself says is one of the last outposts of civilized society that's primarily what this work is for to train them i would say for formality and conventionality they take that with them wherever they go where they go when they are grown is to the exclusive monday club gowned and tuxedoed the beat may sound faster but it is still one two one two [Music] now let's look at looks appearance teenagers have always cared about their looks right and they certainly cared about it in webster groves but when they asked teenagers in this survey what did you care most about was it looks nope it was your car oh well it's uh pretty important to have a car so you can go out and park and make out and all it ensues with that without that you can't do anything because i'm sure the parents wouldn't want you to do that especially with them and besides you know it's not proper manners to sit in the back seat and neck when they're driving you wherever you want to go my car is just like a girlfriend to me because i spend my money on my car instead of going out and spending on girls the most popular class in high school in webster groves was driver's ed driver's education is the best-liked class at webster groves high that's right always watch out for the driver who turns from the wrong lane martha brown well it's just going to take a little more work on your part son i've accumulated two points too many points it's not a case of any dangerous action on your part but in other words all your driving needs just a little bit more work on it obviously these teenagers were going to college college was a part of how you achieved success in society 15 of the students were not planning to go to college and we used to know them as the shop kids or the home ec girls and in my world that was about 50 percent of us were not going to college but in this world it was 15 i wouldn't say it's all and there's a few in the school you look down and the kids would take for instance shaft they look at it as if this kid can't keep up with the rest of the kids he's stupid he doesn't have the ability to take a math or a foreign language and he's resorts to picking up a real easy credit he says well there's a way to pick up an easy credit going on in a room and play around with a bunch of metal for an hour so it's a lot different than that you go down in the room and you don't play around with a bunch of metal you come down here and you work mr schrader sees that too i mean it's not as easy as it sounds as a shop course i get an accomplishment looking at something i built i take pride in something i built in the news every day in 1966 nationally were civil rights demonstrations and other the beginnings of student protests well that didn't go in webster groves listen to these parents talking suppose to express their individuality one of your children took part in a civil rights demonstration uh downtown in st louis so what would be your reaction to them i don't know i don't think i like it sometime before they'd sit down i'll tell you that but i can't see an excuse for it what business is a diverse it's 16 years old they don't have any firm convictions of anything i don't think any sixteen-year-old child should be burdened with the problems of the world and all any normal child has to do is look at the demonstrators at jefferson bank this was so what a year ago i suppose and a bunch of picnic white black green yellow everything and most of them filthy it looks like they pull them out of some out of some wine jug or something and put them out there to demonstrate at 16 or 17 or 18 throw themselves into concepts of racial prejudice or the haves and the have-nots i think this is ridiculous if you listen to the parents at that time they are about control they don't think much of the teenagers don't think they have a mind they shouldn't be out of control they should be controlled in fact the only person who reacts and says control ain't so good in webster groves is interestingly enough their cop these people have been regimented so much that they they just don't know what self-reliance is for the most part there's so many must in the family today where youngsters are concerned uh youngsters must go to a certain dance or be invited to a certain party or belong to a sorority of fraternity this is a must they must wear the proper clothing they're told where to go and when to go so often and so much is done for them that as i see it a lot of these youngsters they're just not learning self-reliance at all i'm sure you're asking yourself the question what did these kids think about sex these teens well 75 percent did not believe in necking they say and 95 don't believe in sex before marriage all the studies show that isn't what happened kids did do sexual activities maybe not as much as today but more than they ever said for sure if it's someone i really like i think on the first date i would let him kiss me good night but if it starts getting very serious all of a sudden it's just it doesn't work i just say forget it and here's an interesting part of the survey 55 of these teens said they believed a nuclear war would happen in america in their lifetime now how did that affect them this documentary doesn't look at that so the documentary runs on national television in the prime time and the people of webster groves sit around their homes and filmmakers film them as they're watching it what did they think people gathered in groups to watch all over town the school board brought in television sets and watched in a body other sets were rented by the masonic temple people with color sets held viewing parties and webster groves watching itself on national television reacted in the most remarkable way some people literally laughed some literally cried and some became very angry only the message that i got was that this was a community of a bunch of spoiled brats and that the parents were were even worse and i don't believe it's true this is not a true picture of webster a gross exaggeration i think this was typical of all over i mean everybody's got cars and money and jobs on their mind i mean it's not just webster actually i'm not worried about what we think of ourselves now after this tv show i'm just worried about what the rest of the country thinks about us and i hope they don't get the impression that we're uh too much snobbish i mean we may be snomish a little bit but heck we haven't known that much else they were made to appear much too materialistic kids 16 years old can't express themselves i can't express myself if you said you know what am i working for what am i living for what do i want out of life i couldn't tell you i don't think i came out looking very good and matter of fact i figure i am now the special guest villain on cbs's answer to batman i just was so happy i guess to have a part in the show i just i felt like a television star or something for the most part the local folks hate it not all of them but most of them they feel it's unfair unrepresentative of them which means to me they weren't looking at themselves they were looking at how they looked to the outside world and when you actually saw it they weren't so comfortable with that i'm going to try and find more clips from more documentaries from this time to broaden out what's on my youtube channel regarding the 1960s the baby boomers i hope you enjoyed webster groves missouri 1966 david hoffman filmmaker thank you and you'll see why we should be [Music] [Applause] is

Channel: David Hoffman

Views: 1,390,160

Keywords: David Hoffman filmmaker, 1960s, 1960s teenagers, 1960s students, Missouri history, Webster Groves, typical teenagers, 60s teens, baby boomers, baby boomer teenagers, middle America, 1960s typical, 1960s rebels, 1960 styles, 1960s culture, American history, American popular history, 1960s dating, 1960s relationships, dating, dating sites, teenage relationships, teenage dating

Id: giQxUkZ4Anc

Length: 18min 57sec (1137 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/asterisk2a]

I highly recommend the other snippets from that time on this YouTube channel: David Hoffman

He is also looking for some support, he just wrote a Documentary Class for SkillShare.

[u/ummyeahok42]

This guy has a great documentary on some mountain folk and their music.

[u/wasthatlatin]

Bummed I miss Mrs. Condom's dancing school. Sounded promising.

[u/rookerer]

Most of them didn't.

It was a counter-culture movement after all.