Life in the 1980s

This is a list of items describing life in the 1980s, mainly in the Los Angeles, California, USA, area.

1. Economically, the decade started out slowly, but then there was the longest period of sustained economic growth up to that time, as people regained confidence from the malaise of the 1970s.

2. Telephones .
   • There was only one telephone area code, 213, for the whole Los Angeles area until 1982.  (There were eight area codes for the state of California; viz., 213, 415, 916, 714, 805, 209, and 408. This situation had existed from 1959.) In 1982, 619 was split off 714, and in 1984, 818 was split off 213.
   • Cordless telephones were widely sold.
   • Telephone home answering machines were available and popular.
   • In 1984 the courts ended the monopoly of AT&T on long distance calling.  AT&T had been using long distance revenue to subsidize local service. Anyone who had local service from a company not controlled by AT&T (General Telephone in the Los Angeles area) had higher rates, and lower quality service. But competition from MCI and Sprint, using satellite communications, forced a change.  The result was that AT&T was broken up; the new AT&T became a long distance carrier, and other long distance companies (such as Sprint and MCI) were allowed to compete equally for the business.  The AT&T local operating companies were grouped into seven Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC), usually called "Baby Bells".
3. The postage for a first class letter was 15¢ per ounce since 1978, 18¢ briefly in 1981, 20¢ from 1981 to 1985, 22¢ from 1985 to 1988,  and 25¢ from 1988 to 1991.
4. Amtrak operated the following trains that terminated at Los Angeles: 
   • The Coast Starlight to Seattle [daily]
   • The Sunset to New Orleans [three times a week]
   • The Super Chief-El Capitan to Chicago via Albuquerque [because Amtrak’s service was not up to Santa Fe standards, Amtrak changed the name to the Southwest Limited.  It is now called the Southwest Chief.]
   • The San Diegans to San Diego [now part of the Pacific Surfliners]
   • The San Joaquins began operating in 1974 from Bakersfield to Oakland and Sacramento, with connecting bus service from Los Angeles to Bakersfield.
   • The Desert Wind to Chicago via Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Omaha ran from 1979 to 1997.
5. Air travel had become the main form of business travel, and was preferred for long-distance leisure travel.
   • There were many airlines that no longer exist, including Eastern, Western, Braniff, Hughes Air West, TWA, National, and Pan American. Because the FAA regulated air traffic, and set interstate air fares, several in-state airlines charged lower fares, and drew sizable market share, including PSA (founded 1949) and Air California (founded 1967). These two airlines were began charging lower fares than the interstate airlines could legally charge, and virtually drove them out of the internal California market. Incidentally, Air California hired married stewardesses, when the rule at the time was for stewardesses to be unmarried.
   • New jets were introduced during the 1980s.  The narrow-body Boeing 757 was introduced in 1983. The wide-body Boeing 767 was introduced in 1982.
6. Smoking was permitted indoors, and even in airplanes; but there were usually separate smoking sections in restaurants and on airplanes. By decade’s end, smoking was banned in grocery stores in California, and many workplaces banned smoking indoors.  Trains had some cars designated NO SMOKING, and buses usually only allowed smoking in the last few rows.
7. AIDS makes its first appearance in 1981.
8. U. S. Presidents during the decade were
   • Jimmy Carter (1977-81)--elected by a hopeful country, his presidency was plagued by "stagflation" (a stagnant economy with high inflation, combined with high interest rates) and the Iran hostage crisis
   • Ronald Reagan (1981-89) was one of the three most important Western leaders in the last phase of the Cold War.
   • George H. W. Bush (1989-93)
9. International leaders of the decade included:
   • The pope was John Paul II (1978-2005). He became one of the three most important Western leaders in the last phase of the Cold War.
   •  In 1981, Prince Charles of the United Kingdom married Lady Diana Spencer, in what may have been the wedding most watched on television.
   • The Prime Minister of Great Britain was Margaret Thatcher (1979-90).  She was one of the three most important Western leaders in the last phase of the Cold War.
   • Prime Ministers of Canada: Joe Clark (Progressive Conservative, 1979-80); Pierre Trudeau (Liberal, 1980-84); John Turner (Liberal, 1984); Brian Mulroney (Prog. Conservative, 1984-1993)
   • Presidents of France: Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (UDF, 1974-81); François Mitterrand (Socialist, 1981-95)
   • Dictators of the Soviet Union: Leonid Brezhnev (General Secretary, CPSU, 1964-82); Yuri Andropov (1982-84); Konstantin Chernenko (1984-85); Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-91)
   • Dictators of Communist China: Hua Guofeng (1976-81); Deng Xiaoping (1981-89): overcame the "gang of four" to put China on a more pragmatic course; Jiang Zemin (1989-2003)
10. The Cold War reached its climax in the 1980s
    1. To protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Carter led a boycott of the 1980 summer Olympic games in Moscow.
    2. The Solidarity movement was founded in Poland in 1981.
    3. Mikhail Gorbachev became top man in the Soviet Union in 1985.  Attempting to overcome a stagnant economy, he called for glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring).
    4. President Reagan began a significant military expansion, and announced that the United States planned to work on a "Strategic Defense Initiative".
    5. In 1988, the Soviet Union withdrew its military from its Eastern European satellites, and announced that they were on their own.  At first, no one believed this.
    6. In 1989 many Chinese in Beijing held protests against communism in Tien An Men Square. At first the government seemed unable to act, but after about a week the demonstration was brutally put down with tanks.
    7. In 1989 Poland held free elections, and the communists were thrown out.  To everyone's surprise and delight, the Soviet army did nothing. Hungary then eased its border restrictions with Austria. Thousands of East Germans began traveling through Czechoslovakia to Hungary to Austria. To ease the plight of this massive flow of refugees, and perhaps to keep them as citizens, the East German government decided to allow direct crossings into West Germany. But the border guards were unprepared for the flood of persons trying to cross.  The Berlin Wall was opened, and then came down.  Then the communist governments of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary collapsed.  (Romania and Bulgaria remained communist, but not for long.)  Symbolically, at least, the Cold War was over.
11. Many social movements continued into the 1980s.
    • Political correctness begins to take hold, especially on college campuses.
    • The feminist movement continues, although many of its goals had been realized.  There is still perceived to be a "glass ceiling", preventing women from being promoted to upper management positions in major corporations.  Many women continue to use the title "Ms" in preference to "Mrs" or "Miss".
    • There is a strong movement against alcohol and drug abuse, with M.A.D.D., D.A.R.E., and Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" idea.
    • There is an anti-nuclear movement (both against nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants) fueled in part by the Chernobyl reactor disaster in 1986.
12. There were religious changes in the 1980s.
    • Many (so-called) "mainline" protestant churches (such as the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, the American Baptist Churches, and the Disciples of Christ) continued to lose members, at the same time as they became more liberal.
    • In 1983, the Presbyterian church, having split at the outbreak of the civil war, reunited as the Presbyterian Church (USA), merging the northern (UPCUSA) and southern (PCUS) churches.  But the united church was as liberal as its parts, and continued to lose members.
    • In 1988, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) was formed by the union of the Lutheran Church in America (mostly German and Swedish heritage), the American Lutheran Church (mostly Norwegian and German heritage), and The Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (formed in 1976 as a breakaway from the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod [mostly of German heritage] because the LCMS was becoming too conservative for them).  They also continued to drift in a liberal direction, and continued to lose members.
    • There was a strong growth in the Neopentecostal (or "Charismatic") movement, emphasizing the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including healings and speaking in tongues.  But rather than join traditional Pentecostal churches, many followers of the movement stayed with their own denominations, and there were charismatic revivals in most of the traditional denominations, including the Roman Catholic Church.
    • Many televangelists were involved in scandals.
13. In the 1984 presidential election campaign the term Yuppie (from Young Urban Professionals) became prominent to describe socially liberal and fiscally conservative supporters of the candidacy of Senator Gary Hart.  Later the term became slightly derogatory for those 20-30s who drove BMWs, ate Brie, drank Chardonnay or Pinot Gris, and wore designer suits.
14. Popular music began to diverge into many subcultures during the 1980s.
    • Disco music's popularity ended around 1980. 
    • New wave appeared, an easy-listening genre some people described as no different from Muzak.
    • Hip hop and rap music, beginning in New York and Los Angeles, became a national phenomenon.
    • MTV was launched, and made music videos an important part of music marketing, altering pop music.
    • Hard rock is quite popular, with such artists as Van Halen, Bon Jovi, and Guns n' Roses.
    • Alternative rock, so called, appears.
    • Punk rock appears, generating much publicity and a specialized following, with bizarre dress and hair styles.
15. Cable television (originally, CATV=Community Antenna TeleVision), originally designed for areas that could not get good reception with an antenna, became generally available in most areas.  This led to many new cable channels, including MTV, CNN, and HBO.
16. Sports news of the decade
    • President Carter organized a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympic games.  In retaliation, the Soviet Union organized a boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic games.  But the L. A. Olympics were a big success, and, unlike other games, made money.
    • There was a baseball strike in 1981, and the season was lost.
    • The Loma Prieta earthquake struck in 1989, just as the first game of the Oakland-San Francisco was about to begin.
17. Numerous fads came and went during the decade.
    • As part of a fitness and healthy eating, there was an oat bran craze, which ended about 1989. Marketers claimed that oat bran reduced cholesterol and the risk of heart attack.
    • Male bonding, which was a sociologist's term for describing animal behavior, was popularized.
    • There was a tongue-in-cheek reaction to male bonding and the feminist movement in a series of books that began with Real Men Don't Eat Quiche in 1982. Added to popular vocabulary were terms such as real man and quiche-eater. (And the term quiche-eater was supplanted by metrosexual in the first decade of the XXI century.)
    • There were around 10 million copies Rubik’s cube sold in the 1980s.  It had about 4.3 × 10¹⁹ possible arrangements.  Many people would spend hours trying to solve it.
    • Trivial Pursuit was first marketed in 1981, and reached a popularity peak in 1984.
    • Cabbage Patch Kids dolls were the "must have" Christmas gift in 1983, with fights occurring for scarce stock.  Each doll is unique, and comes with a "birth certificate".
    • A ninja and martial arts craze swept America due to the popularity of Kung Fu Theater and Ninja Movies. The cartoon characters Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles become a widely mass-marketed pop culture phenomenon.
    • Break dancing, at least as a media phenomenon, reached its peak in the 1980s.
    • Baby on Board signs for car windows become popular, supposedly as a safety feature, but really a way of bragging.
    • Chia pets, clay animal figurines which are planted with chia, to resemble skin or fur.
    • The popularity of platform shoes continued from the 1970s.
    • Smurfs, a Belgian import, became an animated TV series in 1980, with spinoff toys
    • My Little Pony, a design of small pony toys, appealed to young girls.
    • Strawberry Shortcake, originally a greeting card character, became a doll with many "friends", and a huge fad in the 1980s.
    • Care Bears, also originally on greeting cards, became an animated TV series and movies in the 1980s.
    • Valley girls, and valspeak, the "dialect" of teenage girls from the San Fernando Valley was observed, with phrases like, "What-ever!", "grody to the max", "totally", and "As if!"
18. Fashions of the decade became more conservative.  Men's hair was short again. Professional men ("Yuppies") wore "power suits" to indicate success. Yet there was a trend toward casual wear, partly influenced by the fitness craze.  By decade's end, many companies were allowing "casual Fridays".
    • There was a return to more opulent dress, partly inspired by First Lady Nancy Reagan and Diana, Princess of Wales.
    • Men’s hair became shorter, in part influenced by the military
    • Tanning salons were popular, in a move to "style over substance".
    • Casual wear also gained popularity, including "designer" warm-up suits, leg warmers, and torn sweat shirts.
    • Brand-name sneakers became fashionable, with companies such as Nike and Adidas making specialty shoes for different activities (running, walking, basketball, &c), and shoes with a label with the name of a well-known personality.  Some sneakers became so expensive that the L.A.P.D. accused the sneaker makers of indirectly feeding the illegal drug trade!
19. There was more heavy industry in the Los Angeles area than there is today.
    • Some aerospace companies that existed at the time were: McDonnell Douglas, Hughes Aircraft (acquired by General Motors in 1985), TRW, Convair (part of General Dynamics), AeroJet, Northrop, Lockheed, Martin-Marietta, Garrett AiResearch (part of Signal Companies, which merged with Allied Chemical & Dye, to become a part of AlliedSignal), Honeywell, Boeing, The Aerospace Corporation, and Rockwell.
    • Automobile assembly was an important industry in the Los Angeles area in 1980 but many plants were closing:  Ford (Pico Rivera; closed in 1980, but later became Northrop’s B-2 plant), GM (South Gate: Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac; closed 1982), and GM (Van Nuys: Chevrolet; closed, 1992).
    • There were also tire manufacturing plants in the Los Angeles area:  Firestone in South Gate, Goodyear in south central Los Angeles, and U. S. Royal (became Uniroyal in 1967) in the City of Commerce.  (I don't know when these plants closed.)
20. There were more department stores, including Robinson’s, I. Magnin, Joseph Magnin, Bullock’s, Ohrbach’s, The May Company, and The Broadway.  Both J. C. Penney and Sears had retail stores that have since closed.
21. To attract business, grocery stores offered double coupons, which doubled the discount if the shopper presented a manufacturer's coupon for "cents off", usually up to a limit of 50¢ or $1.  At first, you had to clip special "double coupons" from the newspaper ads, but later they doubled all coupons.
22. The 99 Cents Only stores opened in 1982.
23. Arcade video games were popular in the 1980s.  Popular games were Pac-man, Ms Pac-man, Donkey Kong, and Space Invaders.  Home video games became popular, especially Atari, but the market collapsed in 1983. 
24. Compact disks were introduced for music in Japan in 1982, and elsewhere in 1983.  Their popularity spread quickly, and soon vinyl disks were no longer being made.  Cassettes remained popular through the decade, reaching their peak sales in 1988.
25. Cellular phones first became available in the United States in 1983. They used analog technology, and gradually began to proliferate.
26. Microcomputers were proliferating, and IBM, not wanting to be left out of the market, introduced its PC in 1981.  It may not have been the best computer design, but its open architecture led to numerous clones, and that, with IBM’s prestige, allowed the PC to become the standard. In 1983 was introduced Lotus 1-2-3, very similar to the earlier VisiCalc, the first really successful spreadsheet program, the "killer application" that made PC sales take off, becoming an essential tool for small business. In 1984, Apple introduced the McIntosh computer, the first graphic user interface (GUI). By the end of the decade, many people, having used computers at work, saw the advantage of having one at home.
27. Microwave ovens began to appear in just about every home over the 1980s.
28. Video recorders (or VCRs) proliferated in the 1980s, with VHS becoming more popular than Sony's Betamax.
29. Cable TV (CATV), which had been primarily to provide access for areas with poor antenna reception, began adding more channels and marketing to all areas.  New channels that began to have an impact included CNN, MTV, ESPN, Showtime, and TNT.
30. Almost all televisions purchased during the decade were color.
31. In 1984, due to numerous complaints that the PG rating allowed too many movies unsuitable for young children, the PG-13 rating was created.  Notable movies of the 1980s included:
    • 1980: Ordinary People, Coal Miner’s Daughter, The Elephant Man, Raging Bull, Tess, American Gigolo, Blues Brothers, Caddyshack, The Final Countdown, Friday the 13th, Nine to Five, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
    • 1981: Chariots of Fire, Atlantic City, On Golden Pond, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Reds, Halloween II
    • 1982: Gandhi, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Missing, Tootsie, The Verdict, Blade Runner, Tron, Poltergeist, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; First Blood (the first Rambo film)
    • 1983: Terms of Endearment, The Big Chill, The Dresser, The Right Stuff, Tender Mercies, Scarface, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Wargames; Flashdance
    • 1984: Amadeus, The Killing Fields, A Passage to India, Places in the Heart, A Soldier’s Story, Nightmare on Elm Street, Beverly Hills Cop, Footloose, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Terminator, The Karate Kid
    • 1985: Out of Africa, The Color Purple, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Prizzi’s Honor, Witness, Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, Desperately Seeking Susan; Rambo: First Blood Part II; The Black Cauldron
    • 1986: Platoon; Children of a Lesser God; Hannah and Her Sisters; The Mission; A Room with a View; Aliens; Top Gun; Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; Full Metal Jacket; Crocodile Dundee; The Great Mouse Detective
    • 1987: The Last Emperor, Broadcast News, Fatal Attraction, Hope and Glory, Moonstruck, The Untouchables, RoboCop, Mannequin, The Princess Bride, Spaceballs
    • 1988: Rain Man, The Accidental Tourist, Dangerous Liaisons, Mississippi Burning, Working Girl, Big, Coming to America, A Fish Called Wanda, Hairspray, Rain Man, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Beetle Juice; Rambo III
    • 1989: Driving Miss Daisy, Born on the Fourth of July, Dead Poets Society, Field of Dreams, My Left Foot, Ghostbusters II, Back to the Future Part II, When Harry Met Sally, Glory, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, The Little Mermaid, Batman, Do the Right Thing
32. Notable Broadway musicals of the 1980s included:
    • 1979-80: Evita; Barnum; Sugar Babies
    • 1980-81: 42nd Street; Sophisticated Ladies
    • 1981-82: Nine; Dreamgirls; Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
    • 1982-83: Cats; Blues in the Night; Merlin; My One and Only
    • 1983-84: La Cage aux Folles; Baby; Sunday in the Park with George; The Tap Dance Kid
    • 1984-85: Big River; Grind; Leader of the Pack; Quilters
    • 1985-86: The Mystery of Edwin Drood; Big Deal; Song and Dance; Tango Argentino
    • 1986-87: Les Misérables; Me and My Girl; Rags; Starlight Express
    • 1987-88: Phantom of the Opera; Into the Woods; Romance/Romance; Sarafina!
    • 1988-89: Jerome Robbins’ Broadway; Black and Blue; Starmites
    • 1989-90: City of Angels; Aspects of Love; Grand Hotel, The Musical; Meet Me in St. Louis
33. Notable television shows of the 1980s included: The Oprah Winfrey Show (Syndication, 1986–); Taxi (ABC/NBC, 1978-83); The Rockford Files (NBC, 1974- 80); Sesame Street (PBS, 1969–); The Twilight Zone (CBS, 1985-89); St Elsewhere (NBC, 1982-88); Thirtysomething (ABC, 1987-91); Hill Street Blues (NBC, 1981-87); Saturday Night Live (NBC, 1975–); The Simpsons (Fox, 1989–); Seinfeld (NBC, 1989–1998); The Jeffersons (CBS, 1975-85),  M*A*S*H (CBS, 1972-83), Dallas (CBS, 1978-91); The Dukes of Hazzard (CBS, 1979-85); Flo (CBS, 1980-81); That’s Incredible! (ABC, 1980-84); Yes Minister [UK] (PBS, 1980-88); Dynasty (1981-89); Falcon Crest (1981-90); Cheers (NBC: 1982-93); Magnum P.I. (1980-88), The A-Team [including Mr. T] (1983-87), Press Your Luck (1983-86); Murder, She Wrote (CBS, 1984-96); Married... with Children (Fox: 1987-97); Miami Vice (1984-89); The Cosby Show (CBS: 1984-92); EastEnders [UK] (1985-); MacGyver (1985-92); The Golden Girls (1985-92); ALF (1986-90); 21 Jump Street (1987-91); Full House (1987-95); Life Goes On (1989-93); Roseanne (1988-97); Star Trek: The Next Generation (Syndication: 1987-94); Santa Barbara (1984-93); The Wonder Years (1988-93); and You Can’t Do That on Television [USA/Canadian children’s comedy show is now a nostalgic cult classic.] (1979-92)
34. The blockbuster television mini-series continued with Shogun (1980: NBC); The Winds of War (1983: ABC); and War and Remembrance (1988: ABC). 

References:

• Wikipedia
• Feinstein, Stephen. The 1980s From Ronald Reagan to MTV (part of the Decades of the 20th Century series). Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2000.  A nice summary, written about an 8th grade level.

See also:

• Wikipedia article on the 1980s
• Kingwood Cultural Library--American Cultural History: 1980-9
• Headline history of Los Angeles, 1980-2000
• Song lists from the 1980s
• Wikipedia list of 1980s TV shows in the US
• Life in the 1940s
• Life in the 1950s
• Life in the 1960s
• Life in the 1970s

• Last updated: February 22, 2008.