A New TV Show Set In 1960

Mad Men is a new TV series coming to AMC. It is set in 1960 and the characters are ad men (and women) who work at an advertising agency. The pre-show hype includes a cool behind-the-scenes look at how the show was put together and the lengths to which producers went to accurately recreate 1960.

I was a kid then. Now I’m an “ad man” – I make radio commercials. Some synergy, ‘ey?. Here is some of what I remember from 1960 and some of what I’ve looked up.

If you weren’t around then, you might think the entire decade was peace, love, drugs, hippies and Hendrix. That was all part of the mid and late 60s. The first year of that pivotal decade was more like a carry-over from the 1950s.

On the surface, 1950s society appeared to be simple, conservative and boring. As the decade neared its end, youth culture began to exert some influence in the form of rock & roll music of the Elvis style. The Space Race had begun to influence style, particularly in the design of automobiles and kitchen appliances.


The early 1960s were more a decade of attempted coolness and class. It seems that every one smoked cigarettes and the three-martini lunch really did exist in some circles.

In 1960, thirtysomethings had fought and survived World War II and were trying to make their mark on society. Twentysomethings of 1960 were kids during the war. Their fathers had likely served in the military during the War and their mothers might have had a taste of the working world briefly while the men were overseas but now they were mostly back to being housewives.

An older generation still ruled style and politics, a younger generation began to influence some aspects of the culture and the oldest Boomers were not yet in high school.

Women who worked in 1960 were likely to be employed in clerical positions and their male bosses might expect them to engage in activities that involved the prone position. It is hard to quantify this behavior because it didn’t really make the news and wasn’t especially part of TV show plot lines. But overt sexism is “documented” in some movies of the era and in this new TV show.

A typical American family in 1960 had a mom, a dad and two or three kids, all living together in the same house. Divorce was still unusual. The typical household had one TV, one phone and one car. Dad worked all day at a job and mom stayed home and cleaned and cooked. Many TV shows on the 1960 schedule, such as Leave It To Beaver, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet and The Flintsones, portrayed that idealized American family.

You could feel change in the air in 1960. Dreams of spaceflight were about to become reality. The civil rights movement began to get high-profile TV coverage of events when four black college students began a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s counter in North Carolina on February 1st. In November, Vice President Richard Nixon, part of the old guard, was defeated in his bid for President by the younger John Kennedy.


It will be interesting to see how Mad Men handles the various aspects of 1960. Will it be reasonably accurate in how it presents the era (as much as any TV drama can be) or will it be a stereotype drawn from the same kind of ‘skim the surface’ research I did for this post? We’ll know in a few weeks.



Meanwhile, here are a few interesting links that provide a glimpse into the ad world of the 1960s.

TV commercials from 1960s

More TV commercials

A Slinky commercial

A Chevrolet commercial


And here is a 1960 song survey.