Mods….that’s hardly really history!

Article by Sarah Kenny. Edited and Researched by Liam Brake.

Mention mod culture to somebody and many things will spring to mind: Vespa scooters, parker coats, The Who, and Quadrophenia. But what if I were to mention academic history? A quick search on Jstor will, unsurprisingly, garner few results.  But why, you may ask, would it be necessary to search mod culture in an academic database? It’s hardly an ‘academic’ topic.

Mod culture emerged from the underground jazz clubs of London’s West End in the late 1950s. Named as a result of their taste for modernist jazz, this early group of mods had very little impact outside of London. However, this somewhat intellectual and elitist movement gave way to a ‘second generation’ of mods, and it is in this second generation that the scooter boys on Brighton’s beaches can be found. Mod culture, for all the cultural symbols we now associate with it, was very much a working class movement encompassing fashion and music. It influenced mass culture and it infiltrated the high street at every level.  It was all encompassing, and it was very much a product of its era. The Daily Mail reported in 1963 that ‘to be a Mod… is more than a fashion. It is almost a way of life.’

Mod culture then, provides us with the chance to explore fashion, consumerism and music in the 1960s. At least this is the way that popular and more general histories of the period have portrayed the movement. Mod culture provides much more than the opportunity to document changing fashions and to be used as one of many examples of growing consumerism; through mod culture it is possible to explore many issues relevant to academic study of the 1960s, and the post-war period more generally.

Mod culture is most obviously an example of growing consumerism and the emerging teenage market, and it is in this field that it is possible to find fleeting references to the movement in academic and popular histories. Less recognised however, is the place of mod culture in the social and government reaction to the changing face of British culture and society. The clashes between mods and rockers on the beaches of Brighton have been well documented, and are cemented in our idea of what mod culture means. But what about the impact that this movement had on the everyday aspects of British life? Mod culture did not begin and end on the beaches of Brighton; it made visible changes to British culture. The popular television programme Ready, Steady, Go! was aimed at a mod audience and broadcast across Britain every Friday night. The fashion boutiques appearing on high-streets across the country benefitted enormously from the influence of RSG!. Mod culture was a personification of the growing influence of teenagers and young people in Britain, and the government and media were not ignorant to these changes. The media was soon awash with stories of unruly teenagers whilst at the same time praising their fashions and culture; mods at once became a sign of the breakdown of traditional society whilst heralding the modernity and cosmopolitanism of 1960s Britain. The mod movement seemed to be a embodiment of the changing face of British society and this did not go unnoticed by the government. Pirate Radio, popularised by the stations Radio Caroline and Radio London, became a target of government attack as they attempted to retain control over the cultural output of a media increasingly aimed at Britain’s teenagers. This is only one example of the way mod culture can be studies with regards to wider themes of academic interest.

So, with this in mind, why is it that mod culture and youth culture more generally has been disregarded by modern British historians? In a similar vein, is it right that certain topics are viewed as more worthy of study than other and should be avoided by academic historians? This idea is rarely spoken of, yet we all have an idea as to what constitutes ‘proper’ history. As a somewhat naïve undergraduate I attempted to do my extended course assignment on pirate radio. It was almost impossible to find anything academic written about it (I obviously went ahead and wrote the assignment on what little I could find anyway) and it is safe to say that I didn’t do as well as I’d liked. At first I thought the subject was the problem- I was always taking a chance by studying pirate radio. It was the logical conclusion to reach as nobody else had bothered to study it in an academic context. The problem was not the subject, I now realise, but simply the way it had been framed. Academic historians, unfortunately, have a reputation for being lofty, elitist types, and my fear that my topic of interest was not ‘academic’ enough is demonstrative of this.

Modern British scholarship has to evolve to encompass topics that may not be deemed traditionally academic, and youth culture certainly comes under this banner. The study of history has always evolved: once the glorified biographies of great men it has developed to accommodate the growing visibility of the working classes, of women, and of other cultures. Youth culture has become one of the most visible forces in contemporary society and it is time that academic historians began to recognise this change in their approach to the study of youth.

It’s not all negativity, though. A small handful of historians are paving the way for a serious study of youth culture. The ‘Subcultural Network: The Interdisciplinary Network for the Study of Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Change’ is going some way to confronting the lack of historical research in this area.

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