What Was Going On In 1961?

Prototype Happenings In Northeast Ohio In 1961

Railroads

• Baltimore & Ohio
• Bessemer & Lake Erie
• Erie Lackawanna
• Fairport Painesville & Lake Erie
• New York Central
• Nickel Plate
• Pittsburgh & Lake Erie (trackage rights)
• Pennsylvania

Model Railroading

• Start of the NMRA Achievement Program
• 1st Open House of the Youngstown Model Railroad
• Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman were the main magazines
• HO and O were the main modeling scales
• Z, N, and G scales did not exist yet
• HO Kitmaster kit of an, American General Locomotive, sold for $1.50
• Bowser moved to Muncy, PA

Industries

• US leader in steel and automobile manufacturing
• Railroads going strong, but passenger traffic dropping
• Computers were in their infancy – still lots of manual labor

 

General Happenings In The World

• U.S. President: John F. Kennedy
• Integrated Circuit is patented
• Minimum wage raised to $1.15 per hour
• First in-flight movie shown on TWA flight
• East Germans close the border between East and West Berlin
  Construction on Berlin Wall completed
• Beach Boys perform live for first time
• Bay of Pigs landing in Cuba is a disaster
• Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is first man to travel in space
• Alan Shepard is the first American in space
• Poppin’ Fresh Pillsbury Dough Boy is first introduced
• The Jerk, The Pony, and the Frug become popular dances
• Television Favorites:
  • Hazel
  • Perry Mason
  • Candid Camera
• Roger Maris breaks Babe Ruth’s home run record of 60
• Life expectancy is 69.7 years

1961 Cost Of Living

• New House $12,550
• Average Income $5,315 per year
• New Car $2,849
• Average Rent $110 per month
• Movie Ticket $1
• Gasoline $0.27 per gallon
• U.S. Postage Stamp $0.04
• Milk $1.05 per gallon
• Coffee $0.85 per pound
• Eggs $0.30 per dozen
• Bread $0.21 per loaf

1961 Movies

• West Side Story
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s
• One Hundred and One Dalmations
• The Parent Trap
• The Hustler
• The Guns of Navarone

1961 Music

• Big Bad John
• Blue Moon
• Runaround Sue
• Runaway
• Mother-in-Law
• Please Mr. Postman
• Hit the Road Jack
• The Lion Sleeps Tonight
• Tossin’ and Turnin’
• Travelin’ Man

Life In 1961

• You could have bread and milk delivered to your house
• Doctors made house calls
• You used a typewriter to create documents
• To make a couple of copies, you used carbon paper to make carbon copies (that’s where the cc comes from when you want to copy people on an e-mail!)
• To make lots of copies, you mechanically typed on mimeograph paper and “ran off” copies in that wonderful blue ink

What We Didn’t Have In 1961

• Color TV
• Remote control for TV
• Cable TV
• Cell phones
• Personal computers
• Calculators
• Digital cameras or camcorders
• VCRs, DVRs, or TIVO
• GPS, Mapquest, or other electronic maps
• Videos to rent since there weren’t video players
• Cassette tapes, CDs, or MP3s
• Answering machines
• Touch-tone phones
• Cordless phones
• Microwave ovens
• The Internet
• Video games
• 10-speed bikes
• ATVs
• Satellite-based weather forecasts
• Weather radar
• Copying machines for general use
• Junk mail!
• Identify theft!
• Visa, MasterCard, or Discovery credit cards
• Electronic organizers, but you could use a pocket notebook and write things down