From music to politics to protests, students were getting more involved than ever in the 1970s.
Along with the Vietnam War came anti-war protests, and as the people lost faith in the Nixon administration after the Watergate scandal, the way the American people viewed their government was forever altered.
On the musical front, the age of The Beatles came to an end and with it, rock ‘n’ roll broke into a huge number of genres including punk rock, hard rock, soft rock, and country rock. However, for the time being, there was a new force in the scene: disco.
The Bark published two articles about the musical genres of the time over the ‘70s. One was about the disco movement, and talked about the influence of dance, while the other was about the new wave punk movement.
One of the most revolutionary inventions of the past 50 years, the microprocessor, found in all computers, made its debut in the late ‘70s, along with video games, VCRs, computers, and hundreds of other inventions commonplace today.
After winning the space race in the late ‘60s, America landed its final spacecraft of that era on the moon, Apollo 17 in 1972, while in 1975 Apollo 18 met up with a Russian spacecraft outside the atmosphere to conduct joint experiments, a symbolic act of cooperation between the rival countries.
During the ‘70s, the alternative movements of the ‘60s became mainstream. Guys grew their hair out and often dressed in a Western style. Girls began sporting short shorts and skirts that fell above the knee, forcing the administration to crack down on the dress code.
But students didn’t push the limit just in regards to the dress code. In 1979, a student planted pot seeds in the windowsill planter boxes outside the classroom of English teacher Pat Bacchus. According to Cyndi Cady, Class of 1979, the plants got “pretty darn big” before Bacchus figured out what they were.
Fads of the time included lava lamps, mood rings, Rubik’s cubes, and pet rocks, along with the unique tradition of streaking naked through public places.
Title IX was passed in 1972, ensuring that girls’ sports teams would be considered equal to boys’ teams. At the start of the ‘70s, Redwood already had many girls’ sports teams, although they often followed different rules than the boys’ teams did.
