1980s: Fashion
By the 1980s, American fashion recovered from polyester leisure suits and hot pants—the strange fashion trends of the 1970s—and became far more tasteful. Leading the way w...
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1980s: Film and Theater
Special effects had begun to play a larger role in films in the 1970s, but it was in the 1980s that special effects began to be used to make a wide range of movies more excitin...
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1980s: Print Culture
The publishing industry was very much affected by the trends affecting other areas of popular culture in the 1980s—the concentration of power in large corporations and the ...
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Anxiety.
The general anxiety the American public felt toward science and technology in the 1970s deepened during the 1980s. In the 1970s many Americans began to doubt a long-standing faith that scien...
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The Great Divide.
The decade of the 1980s was a great period of restructuring for the majority of religions in the United States. Coming off the turbulent eras of the 1960s and early 1970s many tradi...
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Topics in the News
Cable and the Decline of the Big Three
The Cable News Network
Computers: Machines of the Decade
The Computer Revolution
Fox: The Fourth Network
MTV and its Influence
New Magazines
...
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AIDS
American Consumerism
Americanism Returns
The Antinuclear Movement
Baby Boomers Become "Yuppies"
Child Abuse
A Supreme Court Decision On Child Abuse
The Cocaine Crisis
Cocaine Anonymous...
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The Reagan Revolution.
With the election of former California governor Ronald Reagan to the presidency, the country was entering a decade of change that was soon to become known as the Reagan revolut...
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The Reagan Decade.
In American politics the 1980s were the decade of Ronald Reagan, who was elected president in 1980 and succeeded by his vice president, George Bush, in 1989. Reagan's vision of the...
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Conservatism and Luxury.
The turbulent, self-expressive era of the 1960s and 1970s evolved into the 1980s — in fashion, a decade marked by traditionalism, luxury, and consumerism. Many American...
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Expanded Opportunity.
In the early 1980s the educational policy catchword changed from equity to excellence. Battles had raged during the 1960s and 1970s over expanding educational equity and opport...
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Economic Malaise.
Many Americans perceived the 1980s as a prosperous and pleasant decade, especially in contrast to the 1970s. As the 1980s unfolded, however, others argued that the ailments of the n...
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1980s: Fashion
America 1980-1989: Science and Technology