The Decade Rooms · 1960–1969

The Sixties — The Living Room Watches the World

The whole decade happens on television: the march, the moon, the war.

Life at home

Color TV arrives just in time for the world to demand witnessing: Birmingham, Dallas, Selma, Saigon, the Sea of Tranquility. The kitchen quietly gains a microwave; the driveway gains a second car; the teenager gains a stereo and an opinion.

The gadget of the decade

Color television - the box that made the march, the war, and the moon landing happen in your living room, in color, at dinner.

The hard thread

Three assassinations, one war on the evening news, cities burning in July. The living room becomes the place America finds out what it is.

Other eyes

The decade of a draftee, a debutante, and a Freedom Rider share a calendar and almost nothing else - except the television.