Welcome to this installment of Context Clues, where we give you a tapestry of content from

previous episodes in hopes that it might create a fuller picture of the new topic at hand.

I'm your host, Chelsea Weber-Smith, and this is American hysteria.

Our next topic is called the Strieking Craze, and it will focus on this hugely popular

national college prank that flared up like an antique viral sensation in 1974, and what

it has to say about one of the most controversial landscapes in American history, the University

campus.

Just as we see today, colleges have long been places of political action, places where

impactful activist groups form and express their opinions loudly and sometimes with some

property destruction.

This was especially true during a time when many in the mainstream perceived the nation

to be crumbling around them, losing their conservative footing in a world very different

from their youth in the 1950s.

When the Strieking Craze struck in 1974, huge crowds of young people had been revolting

against the Vietnam War and its frightening draft, revolting in the name of Black Liberation,

Gay Liberation, and Feminism, and this had been going on for years.

At the time Nixon was embroiled in the Watergate scandal and a massive recession was bearing

down on the middle and working class.

The liberal youth of the time were accused by the older generation of being raised in

a too permissive culture and were looked upon with much recorded to stain.

But how on earth does this relate to the college Strieking Craze of 1974?

Well, we'll find out in the next episode, but it all has something to do with nostalgia

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