Easy Rider and "longhairs" (2 posts)

sixties@jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Wed, 26 Jun 1996 16:18:05 -0400

(1)
Sender: <PUBBLAN@amber.indstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Easy Rider & "longhairs"

<John Pastore's interesting response re. Easy Rider & hippies & rednecks
<brought to mind a thought that's popped in & out of my head from time to
<time: it might be interesting to trace the linkage between the hippie
<styles --especially jeans, flannel shirts, and long hair (males)-- and
<the fact that the most common place one seems to find these now (I
<think) are among pickup-driving working class males.... If I'm right
<about this, it's interesting because the working class IN the 60s was so
<hostile to the hippie phenomenon (e.g., the "rednecks")... What
<happened? Any theories?

<Ted Morgan

the hippies co-opted the working-class look (which was also the way the beats dressed -- look at pictures of kerouac - in the 60s as
they did the military look. no long hair though.

you probably see a lot of this style among grungers, too.

blue collar and redneck are two different things.

marty

i dress like this and am a professional with two master's degrees.

(2)
Sender: Kent Manno <kmanno@gti.net>
Subject: Re: Easy Rider & "longhairs"

The dress you are describing is quite natural for workers today...I have a
truck
driver friend of mine in Quebec and he fits your description to the tee. I
believe
they dress in this fashion because it is comfortable and the clothes are rugged
enough for the loading, driving, and unloading work they do. There are obviously
some older truck drivers out there and they just continued dressing the way they
did in the sixties.

oops...just read your comment...and you didn't say truckers per say...I
would still
say, however, that it was for comfort and such....

It might be better to start this discussion by asking what was the
standard/normal
dress of truckers/workers in the sixties. If it was the same as the
hippies...who was copying
who...or what exactly was the trend.

Clothing may not play that big of a role...as did the differences in ideology.

Peace,
Kent


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Kent H. Manno
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