Was the 1960s a progressive or conservative era in American history?

While no time in American history can fairly be called all “progressive” or all “conservative,” it is appropriate to say that, on balance, the 1960s were a progressive era.  This was a time of great change in the United States.  Conservatives, at the time, could only fight a rear-guard action against the more liberal spirit of the age.

The 1960s were a time of major change in the United States.  One of the most important changes was brought about by the Civil Rights Movement.  That movement destroyed the old system of racial segregation in the South and brought about legal equality for African Americans.  A second major change was the movement for women’s rights.  This was the decade in which Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique and in which the National Organization for Women was founded.  Third, there was the growing acceptance of “sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.”  During the 1960s, American youths were coming to listen to very different kinds of music, have very different attitudes towards sex and even (though this was not nearly as widespread) to condone the use of illegal drugs.  Finally, Americans (particularly the young) were starting to feel very differently about authority and about their country.  This was the era of the Vietnam War, in which many Americans openly criticized their government for getting involved in a war.  It was a time when many Americans felt that their government did not act in moral ways.  Because they felt this way, many of them discarded traditional ideas of patriotism and respect for authority.  These attitudes (along with those about sex, drugs, and music) helped bring about the hippie movement. 

There were also political changes.  Along with the legislation that the Civil Rights Movement inspired, the US government passed Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs.  Before the Vietnam War, Americans felt that they lived in a time in which government could fix all of the problems of society.  This was a very progressive impulse.

All of this combines to make the 1960s a very progressive era.  It is true that this wave of progressivism started to recede by the late 1960s.  Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, starting a move back towards more conservative values that would gain momentum by the 1980s.  However, this was too little, too late, to make the 1960s as a whole a conservative era.