Top of the Charts

Top of the Charts team: What were the most played songs, the best-selling books, the most-watched TV programs—the cultural productions that became galvanizing events each year? Each week, this team will share with us a hit song (whether Billboard 100 hits or college and urban radio favorites), top box-office grossing.

  • Television
  • Music
  • Movies
  • Books
  • Arts
  • Sports and Leisure
  • Economic Markets and Price Index
  • Employment and Social Welfare

 

Television

Music

  • Billboard:  Select Year and Week, “In this Issue” section (typically on page 4) provides the Music charts.
  • Billboard The Hot 100. See other lists under Charts
  • Airheads Radio Survey Archive (ARSA). Search by state, place or station to see radio playlists
  • Broadcasting Yearbook: 1935-2010
    --Includes TV and Radio directories; “Black programming on U S stations” (Section D)
    --At the beginning of each volume there is a table of contents (often untitled) and a detailed index; sometimes one, sometimes the other is first.
  • URBAN RADIO.  To find urban radio stations:  See HOLLIS Record, Black list; the concise reference guide to publications and broadcasting media of Black America, Africa and the Caribbean. New York, Panther House, 1970,--for names of broadcasting stations on p. 37 of the book/ # 65 of the HathiTrust display.

Movies

Variety, For top movies

PROQUEST, ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE ARCHIVE

Search:   >>>>> 

  • Document Title:                "50 Top grossing films" 
  • Publication Title:               "Variety"
  • Set date limits.                 1970-1979

Books & Best Sellers

PROQUEST HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS: THE NEW YORK TIMES

Search  >>>>>>

  • Documents title: "best sellers"
  • Publication date: Specific date range.

Arts

Consider thinking about what art being produced, sold, viewed, and exhibited in the 1970s.  Using broad catalogues of the history of contemporary art is a quick way to get into the topic.  In addition, you may look at art journals, magazines, auction house catalogues to consider trending arts, artist, exhibits happening, etc.

Art Forum Art Guide  The Art Forum art guide provides listings of galleries and shows by city.

The Art Dealers Association of America  The Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) is a non-profit membership organization of the nation's leading galleries in the fine arts. ADAA has 180 member galleries in more than 25 U.S. cities. This link leads directly to a listing of ADAA contemporary art galleries.

ARTbibliographies Modern ARTbibliographies Modern provides full abstracts of journal articles, books, essays, exhibition catalogs, PhD dissertations, and exhibition reviews on modern and contemporary art. Use Find It @ Harvard links to locate full text.

Art Full Text  Art Full Text includes full-text articles, abstracts, and indexed images from art and architecture periodicals and a range of other materials. Has a large amount of full text material easily available. For other items, use Find It @ Harvard.

Oxford Art Online Oxford Art Online is the access point for Grove Art Online, the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, and other Oxford art reference resources.

Artforum (NY) offers articles, advertisements, and news of the art world

ARTnews, 1970-1975- .  New York : Artnews Associates.--Offers news of the art world

Economic Markets and Price Index

FRASER.  Historical economic statistical publications, releases, and documents.

FRED  A database of historical U.S. financial and economic time series, including interest rates, commercial banking and monetary data. Includes GeoFRED, a data-mapping tool which displays color-coded employment data on the state, MSA, and county levels.

 

Consumer Price Index, 1913-

Inflation Calculator: https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

 

State and Local Personal Income  Personal income data for 1948-present; annual estimates for the United States, regions, and all states by major source; total and per capita personal income; total and per capita disposable personal income; earnings, wage and salary disbursements, full- and part-time employment, and wage and salary employment by two-digit Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) industry.  (best to use the search bar to look for material before 1980)

Employement and Social Welware

State and Local Personal Income  Personal income data for 1948-present; annual estimates for the United States, regions, and all states by major source; total and per capita personal income; total and per capita disposable personal income; earnings, wage and salary disbursements, full- and part-time employment, and wage and salary employment by two-digit Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) industry.

Census Bureau  Recent and historical census counts (from the Census of Population and Housing), as well as data from the Economic Census, the Census of Governments, the Census of Agriculture and foreign and domestic trade data. Census data was also used to construct the Opportunity Atlas a comprehensive census tract-level atlas of children’s outcomes in adulthood using anonymized data covering nearly the entire U.S. population.

United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics  Download data on county wages, income, unemployment, pay & benefits  (best to use the search bar to look for material before 1980)