The Nation 1960

For What It's Worth in 1960

The cost of a new house $12,700

The mortgage interest rate 1.8%

The cost of new car $2,600

The average income $5,315
A gallon of gas 25 cents

A gallon of milk 50 cents

A US Postage stamp 4 cents

Unemployment Rate 5.5%

Nightly news aired for 15 minutes at 7:30pm EST. The anchors are Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC, John Daly on ABC and Douglas Edwards on CBS.

...and we are doing the twist with Chubby Checker and laughing at Don Knotts  on black & white TV.

It was not until 1960 that the Supreme Court began to enforce integration they had unanimously decided upon with their most important decision of the 20th Century, Brown vs. Education, which was argued by Supreme Court Justice to be Thurgood Marshall in 1954. Brown vs Board of Education

Norman Rockwell's famous painting of six year old Ruby Bridges suffering a hail of racial epitaphs and tomatoes as she integrated the first school in New Orleans. The Ruby Bridges website

The Kennedy - Nixon debate is the story of the year which was to portend the new power of television in our electoral process. What we saw became more important than what we read or what we heard. The full Kennedy Nixon Debate Video

John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson win the Presidency with one of the smallest margins in history - 113,000 votes out of 68.3 million. John F. Kennedy wins the Presidential election.

The first rumblings of an organized civil rights movement begin at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Greensboro sit-ins.

Nobel prizes 1960

Physics - Donald Arthur Glaser
Chemistry - Willard Frank Libby
Physiology or Medicine - Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Peter Brian Medawar
Literature - Saint-John Perse
Peace - Albert John Luthuli

" Not everybody else was bored in 1960, and there were some adventurers—bearing spears in the Congo or banging shoes at the U.N.—who could hardly be called scientific. But the world of 1960 will readily agree with Chemist Willard Libby that U.S. scientists and their colleagues in other free lands are indeed the true 20th century adventurers, the explorers of the unknown, the real intellectuals of the day, the leaders of mankind's greatest inquiry into the mysteries of matter, of the earth, the universe, and of life itself. Their work shapes the life of every human presently inhabiting the planet, and will influence the destiny of generations to come. Statesmen and savants, builders and even priests are their servants; at a time when science is at the apogee of its power for good or evil, they are the Men of the Year 1960."Time man of the year cover story

The World 1960