1965: Operation Match

In the Old World, the marriage broker learned the personality traits and financial status of all eligible men and women and did a fairly successful job of matching compatible types.

     Today, like almost any other project in the United States, the match can be programmed by the use of IBM Computer 7090.

     The computer is part of the program called Operation Match originated by two Harvard University students who now use the system on 500 college campuses in the U.S., England and Canada.

     The marriage broker had his fee, so does the computer -- $3 apiece. But the computer also wants answers to 105 questions such as religion, musical preferences, sports and personality tests. Then it will find a person ranging in age from 17 to 27 who seems compatible with the first set of responses.

     -- "IBM Computer Pairing Off Students on 500 Campuses" (United Press International, November 1965): @

* " 'Match' Eliminates Much Hit-Or-Miss; May Make Some UNC Misses Into Mrs." (The Daily Tar Heel, September 23, 1965): @

* "IBM Mating Hits Penn" (The Daily Pennsylvanian, October 14): @

* "$3 Will Get A Date With 'Computer Gal' " (The Pittsburgh Press, October 24): @

* "Operation Match" (The Harvard Crimson, November 3): @

* " 'Operation Match' Dates On Way" (The Daily Illini, December 1): @

* "boy ... girl ... computer" (Look magazine, February 22, 1966): @

* "Matching Them Up" (Harvard magazine, 2003): @
* "Looking for Someone" (The New Yorker, 2011): @
* "Love in the Time of Algorithms: What Technology Does to Meeting and Mating" (Dan Slater, 2013): @
* "This 50-year-old app foretold the future of dating and socializing online" (Fusion, 2015): @
* "What Online Dating Was Like In The 1960s" (video, FiveThirtyEight, 2015): @ 

---

Monday, June 7, 1965: Griswold v. Connecticut

In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court ruled that a state's ban on the use of contraceptives violated the right to marital privacy. The case concerned a Connecticut law that criminalized the encouragement or use of birth control. ... Estelle Griswold, the executive director of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut, and Dr. C. Lee Buxton, doctor and professor at Yale Medical School, were arrested and found guilty as accessories to providing illegal contraception. They were fined $100 each. Griswold and Buxton appealed to the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, claiming that the law violated the U.S. Constitution. The Connecticut court upheld the conviction, and Griswold and Buxton appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reviewed the case in 1965. The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision written by Justice William O. Douglas, ruled that the law violated the "right to marital privacy" and could not be enforced against married people.

     -- From "Expanding Civil Rights: Landmark Cases," www.pbs.org: @

     -- Caption: Estelle Griswold, executive director of the Planned Parenthood League, standing outside the center in April 1963, which was closed pending decision of the U.S. Supreme Court regarding Connecticut state law forbidding sale or use of contraceptives (from "The Legal Legacy of Griswold v. Connecticut," David J. Garrow for American Bar Association, 2011): @

* "Birth Control Law Said 'Invasion of Privacy' " (The Associated Press): @

* Oral arguments (from The Oyez Project): @

* Text of ruling (from FindLaw): @

* "Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the making of Roe v. Wade" (David J. Garrow, 1994): @

* Summary from "Sexual Rights in America: The Ninth Amendment and the Pursuit of Happiness" (Paul R. Abramson, Steven D. Pinkerton and Mark Huppin, 2003): @

---

September 1964: "Notes on 'Camp'"

New York critic and intellectual Susan Sontag (1933-2004) made her name as essayist with the collection "Against Interpretation," a series of writings on contemporary culture and art (twentieth century, and postwar mainly), with which she provided an alternative for the then prevailing modes of interpretation New Criticism, and Modernism. Calling attention to challenges to the canon of high art, Sontag wrote passionately about popular culture (movies, theatre, literature, fashion, arguing for it to be taken seriously as high art. Her political activism penetrated her writings, giving them a pressing topicality, and demonstrating how popular culture embodies its times' ethos. "Notes on 'Camp' " is an attempt to tackle a very visible but nevertheless ignored fascination for forms of art that by all standards would be considered failures (sometimes close to achievement but never quite), but are nevertheless championed by patrons. Sontag claims that camp is an aesthetic sensibility that is characterized by a high degree of, and attention for stylization, artifice, travesty, double entendre, extravagance and unintentional badness. According to Sontag, we find this sensibility especially towards types of art that are closely associated with popular culture, like movies, fashion, design, or television. Sontag claims that in the twentieth century (since Oscar Wilde, she says) the appraisal of camp has taken the form of a cult, of a dedication that aims to challenge the distinctions between good and bad taste. Camp is "good because it's awful." Because, as Sontag writes, "camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation -- not judgment" it can put itself in an outsider position. As such it can be the flea in the fur of proper taste -- a form of buffery, dandyism, or snobbery free from responsibility. Camp is not limited to political and cultural boundaries -- in fact it challenges these by pretending to be about pure aesthetics only. What distinguishes camp from true art is that it fails in its achievement on enlightenment (an argument similar to that of Benjamin). But instead it manages to hold up a mirror to the pretensions and prejudices of the art establishment. And in that sense it is very political.

     -- From "The Cult Film Reader" (2008)

Note: Sontag's essay appeared in the Fall 1964 edition of Partisan Review. While the exact date of publication is uncertain, the edition contains an advertisement of upcoming classical music concerts at New York's Carnegie Hall. The earliest date listed on the ad is September 28, so I'm assuming Partisan Review was published earlier that month.

* Partisan Review, Fall 1964 (Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University): @

* "Against Interpetation: And Other Essays" (Sontag, 1966): @

* Entry on camp (The Chicago School of Media Theory): @

* Susan Sontag Foundation: @

* "Susan Sontag: A Biography" (David Schreiber, 2014): @

* Review of biography (Brain Pickings): @

---

Wednesday, September 2, 1964: Abortion and television

The NBC soap opera "Another World," which had premiered in May, is the first U.S. television series to make abortion part of a sustained plotline. (Other shows had incorporated the topic, but "Another World" dealt with it through pregnancy, abortion and aftermath.)

     The story: When college student Pat Matthews becomes pregnant, her boyfriend persuades her to have an illegal abortion. Told later that she will be unable to have children, Matthews shoots and kills her boyfriend. She is acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity, then marries her defense attorney and has twins.

    The plotline takes place over several weeks, with the abortion taking place in the September 2 episode.

     -- Photo of Pat Matthews (played by Susan Trustman) from We Love Soaps website

* Summary from We Love Soaps: @

* Episode summaries, 1964 and 1965 (Eddie Drueding's AWHP): @ and @

* "Another World" entry from Archive of American Television: @

* "Abortion Onscreen" (Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health; University of California, San Francisco): @

* "A Timeline of Abortion Stories in Popular U.S. Media" (The Abortion Diaries): @ 

---

Monday, June 22, 1964: 'I know it when I see it'

As part of his concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio -- ruling that the French film "Les Amants" ("The Lovers") was not obscene and thus the state of Ohio could not ban its showing or prosecute a theater owner for having done so -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart wrote what would become a well-known phrase, if not a strict legal definition.

I have reached the conclusion ... that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

* Summary (from ACLU of Ohio): @

* Transcript of ruling (from Legal Information Institute, Cornell University): @

* Oral arguments (from www.oyez.org): @

* "Fifty Years of "I know it when I see it' " (from www.concurringopinions.com): @

* "On 'I Know It When I See It' " (Paul Gewirtz, Yale Law Journal, 1996): @

* "Movie Day at the Supreme Court or 'I Know It When I See It': A History of the Definition of Pornography" (from corporate.findlaw.com): @ 

---

Friday, June 19, 1964: Carol Doda

Carol Doda, a waitress at The Condor nightclub in San Francisco, first dances in a topless bathing suit (designed by Rudi Gernreich). Her fame increases along with her bust size, as she soon goes from a 34B to a 44D through a series of silicone injections. Many other San Francisco bars follow The Condor's lead in offering topless entertainment.

-- 1969 photo from Corbis Images. Caption: "Five years ago, a go-go dancer named Carol Doda descended bare-breasted from a hole in the ceiling of a discotheque called The Condor club. Carol is seen here performing her 'topless dance' to the accompaniment of the rock 'n' roll duo of George 'n' Teddy."

* "The First Monokini: Trying to make the Topless Swimsuit Happen in 1964" (from www.messynessychic.com): @

* "Me? In That!" (Life magazine, July 10, 1964): @

* "The West Passes the Topless Test" (Life magazine, March 11, 1966): @ 
* "Varieties of Topless Experience" (Arthur Berger, San Francisco State College, 1966): @

* "North Beach: Hotbed for the Bizarre / Where Topless Go-Go's and Booming Bands Bustle" (Billboard magazine, May 6, 1967): @

* "Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show" (Rachel Shteir, 2004): @ 
* The Condor summary (from www.mistersf.com): @ 

---

October 1963: 'Louie Louie'

The Kingsmen's version of the 1957 song is released on Wand Records (having already been released in April on the smaller Jerden Records). It enters the Billboard Hot 100 charts in November, peaking at No. 2 in December 1963/January 1964.

In February 1964, amid reports that the governor of Indiana had suggested the song not be played on radio stations in the state because of what sounded like obscene words, the FBI investigated. The bureau found no evidence of obscenities in the muddled lyrics.

* Listen to song: @
* "The 'Louie Louie' lyrics" (from louielouieweb.tripod.com): @
* Summary from HistoryLink.org: @

* The Louie Report ("The blog for all things 'Louie Louie' "): @

* " 'Louie Louie' through the ages" (Peter C. Blecha, 2007): @
* "The Kingsmen's infamously innocent 'Louie Louie' back in front of the feds at downtown Federal Building" (The Oregonian, 2013): @
* Billboard chart history (from www.song-database.com): @

* List of cover versions (from andymartello.com): @

* "Was 'Louie Louie' Banned in Indiana? " (from Purdue University): @

* "Indiana Gov. Puts Down 'Pornographic' Wand Tune" (Billboard, February 1, 1964): @
* " 'Louie' Publishers Say Tune Not Dirty At All" (Billboard, February 8): @
* "The FBI Investigated the Song 'Louie Louie' for Two Years" (from Smithsonian.com): @

* FBI files: @

* "Louie Louie: The History and Mythology of the World's Most Famous Rock 'n' Roll Song" (Dave Marsh, 1993): @; author's website: @

* Entry from "The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made" (Marsh, 1989): @

* "Louie Louie: Me Gotta Go Now" (Dick Peterson, 2006): @ 
* 2011 radio interview with original lead singer Jack Ely ("The Allan Handelman Show"): @

---

Wednesday, June 5, 1963: Profumo Affair

From The Associated Press (link to full story below):
     LONDON -- The British conservative party's chances for re-election reached a new low today as a result of a personal scandal involving a cabinet minister.
     John Profumo, prime minister Harold Macmillan's 48-year-old war minister, quit his cabinet post and his seat in parliament last night after confessing he had lied in denying an "improper association" with a notorious model, Christine Keeler.
     Profumo's disgrace was a political bombshell for Macmillan and his conservative party, who had believed the minister's denial in the house of commons March 22 of persistent rumors that he had illicit relations with the 22-year-old model, a redheaded beauty who numbered two Jamaican Negroes among her lovers.

* "Tory Fortunes to New Low" (June 6, 1963): @

* "Temptress Rocks the Empire" (Life magazine, June 21, 1963): @
* Short summary (from Encyclopedia Britannica): @

* John Profumo biography (from Oxford Dictionary of National Biography): @
* From BBC: March 22 - @; June 5 - @
* "The Profumo Affair" (from BBC America): @

* "The Profumo Scandal" (from iconicphotos.wordpress.com): @
* "1963: The Profumo scandal lays bare the sex revolution" (Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian, 2013): @
* "Clouds of Scandal" (Christine Keeler, Vanity Fair, 2001): @
* "An English Affair: Sex, Class and Power in the Age of Profumo" (Richard Davenport-Hines, 2012): @ 

---

May-June, 1963: 'A Bunny's Tale'

Gloria Steinem's account of working as a Playboy Bunny appears in the May and June issues of Show magazine. The introduction: "Earlier decades of this century had their Follies girls and their Wampus baby stars. The Sixties have Playboy Club bunnies, called by their employers 'the most envied girls in America.' What really goes on in their 'glamorous and exciting world'? To find out, Show chose a write who combines the hidden qualities of a Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude graduate of Smith College with the more obvious ones of an ex-dancer and beauty queen."

* Short summary from Undercover Reporting: @

* Part One, May issue: @

* Part Two, June issue: @

* "Gloria Steinem's 'A Bunny's Tale' -- 50 Years Later" (The Guardian, May 2013): @

* Interview, Makers.com: @

* 2011 interview, CBS News: @

* "Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions" (Steinem, 1983): @

* Steinem's website: @ 

---