The shaping of Marshall Bloom at Amherst College in the ’60s

From Daily Hampshire Gazette

Second of four parts

President John F. Kennedy arrived at Amherst College by helicopter.  Credit: AMHERST COLLEGE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

When the life force known as Marshall Irving Bloom arrived in the Pioneer Valley from Denver, it was, technically speaking, the 1960s.

It just didn’t feel like it. Back in September 1962 at Amherst College, hair was short. Many students hadn’t heard of marijuana. The No. 1 song in America was “Sherry” sung with the innocent falsetto of Frankie Valli.

There was almost no political activism. Vietnam was way beyond the horizon. Civil rights had not taken hold — Rosa Parks, sit-ins, and freedom rides notwithstanding. Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” was not yet published. There was no back-to-the-land consciousness. The letters LGBT had no meaning. There was, in short, no “Movement.”

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