This weekend’s cartoon is from Berry’s World, a strip that ran from 1963 to 2003, written by Jim Berry.
This particular cartoon is from September 16, 1969, the height of barefoot hippie days.
8:01 am, November 23, 2013 by Bob Neinast
This weekend’s cartoon is from Berry’s World, a strip that ran from 1963 to 2003, written by Jim Berry.
This particular cartoon is from September 16, 1969, the height of barefoot hippie days.
Posted in Barefoot, Comics | 5 Comments
Reblogged this on home clothes free.
I am not convinced the sitting man is “establishment”. He is barefoot. I have this nagging memory of my dad (WWII vet and major anti-hippie) in the late 60’s walking around the backyard wearing a speedo swimsuit with black oxford shoes and socks.
I wonder when and why parents who grew up in an era when it was common for children to be barefoot all summer long didn’t allow their own children the same. It must have happened some time, or we would still see as many barefoot children as in the early 20th century. Did they all think of their childhood as a time of terrible hardship and bare feet as a symbol of it? “My children should have a better childhood than I did, and if I have to force them into shoes …”?
I suspect to some extent it was a rural/urban thing. I don’t think city kids went barefoot anywhere near as much as country kids. And the big chain stores were all pretty much urban (or, back then, also suburban with those people having moved out of the cities).
Regarding the rural/urban thing, I assume that in cities it was the “poor kids” who went barefoot and the “rich kids” who wore expensive clothes to show off their family’s wealth. Whereas in rural areas there was no need to show off anything unless going to town, so even the kids of wealthy farmers would have gone barefoot out of tradition and because it’s most practical.
Things certainly changed a lot with industrial mass production of footwear, meaning shoes were not a status symbol any more (anyone could afford shoes, but soon enough, trendy brand names took over that role).