Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the 1960s
A manufacturing city of brick rowhouses, downtown shops, suburban pull, civil-rights pressure, and federal urban renewal.
Looking around
You stand near the old center of a city of about 61,055 people6. Around it are brick rowhouses and duplexes built for factory and mill workers2, with the older business streets close by. To the west is Hamilton Watch Company’s plant3, and across the city’s working landscape are employers tied to RCA, Armstrong Cork, Raybestos-Manhattan, Sperry-Rand, ITT Grinnell, and Kerr Glass3. Downtown does not feel settled: several blocks of North Queen Street are being razed or planned for clearance2, and parts of South Duke Street are also touched by renewal2. The city government and redevelopment files speak of housing studies, market studies, relocation payments, and project maps1. Beyond the city edge, the county is building outward, because suburban houses were going up at about 100 a month by 19543. Newspapers, council meetings, churches, shops, and factories make this a compact, argued-over place.
Work
Factories still mattered
The west side held Hamilton Watch Company’s plant3, while the county’s larger industrial world included RCA, Armstrong Cork, Raybestos-Manhattan, Sperry-Rand, ITT Grinnell, and Kerr Glass3.
Home & table
Brick rows, suburban pull
Many city households lived among brick rowhouses and duplexes2 near industrial and commercial districts. At the edge of city life, about 100 new county homes a month3 showed how strongly families and money were moving outward.
Law & power
Renewal had bulldozers
Power sat in City Hall, the Redevelopment Authority, and federal urban-renewal money: the files list project maps, housing studies, road plans, and relocation-payment lists1. Named projects included Duke Street, Adams, Queen Street, Church-Musser, and Higbee1.
Who lived here
Race shaped opportunity
The city’s small minority population9 was concentrated in the southeast as renewal began. In a 1964 labor study, Black unemployment at chamber-member firms was 12.1 percent, compared with 1.1 percent for white workers5.
In the air
Civil rights came home
National civil-rights arguments were not distant: local papers covered Mayor George Coe meeting NAACP leaders4 and a City Council meeting soon after. Urban renewal raised a second question: whether clearing “slums” also destroyed viable homes and neighborhoods.
Roads & news
Two daily papers
A 1962 directory listed the Intelligencer-Journal and the News10 for Lancaster. These papers carried council business, civil-rights stories, redevelopment disputes, advertisements, deaths, sports, and the wider Cold War decade.
Money
Hourly floors were low
For workers covered by the federal floor, the minimum wage moved from $1.00 an hour in 1960 to $1.60 by 1968. Factory, service, and clerical wages varied far above or below that depending on employer, union, race, and sex.
What people feared
Displacement was a danger
The risk was not only illness or machinery; it was losing a place to live or trade. The Higbee project alone involved 149 residences and 17 commercial structures4.
Year by year
- 1960Lancaster city counted 61,055 residents in the federal census. here6
- 1960Richard Nixon carried Lancaster County by more than two to one over John F. Kennedy in the presidential election. nearby7
- 1961A downtown proposal appeared in the Redevelopment Authority files, putting city-center change into formal planning. here1
- 1963A Lancaster city market study was filed amid downtown redevelopment planning. here1
- 1964The Civil Rights Act became federal law, and Lancaster papers were already covering NAACP pressure on city officials. the country4
- 1964A Lancaster labor-market study reported much higher Black unemployment than white unemployment among chamber-member companies. here5
- 1968The new Higbee School was completed and dedicated in January. here4
- 1969The Apollo 11 moon landing gave Lancaster households, shops, bars, schools, and factories a shared national event to discuss. the world
Pictures from the time
What the sources say
- Lancaster city had 61,055 residents in the 1960 census, down from 63,774 in 1950. from the sources6
- Lancaster County had 278,359 residents in 1960. from the sources11
- The 1962 newspaper directory listed Lancaster with the Intelligencer-Journal and the News, giving the Intelligencer-Journal a circulation of 33,643. from the sources10
- Much of the central-city housing stock consisted of brick rowhouses and duplexes that had filled in around industrial and commercial districts for factory and mill workers. from the sources2
- Hamilton Watch Company remained one of Lancaster city’s best-known manufacturers, with its plant on the west side of the city. from the sources3
- Major Lancaster County employers in the postwar period included RCA, Armstrong Cork Company, Raybestos-Manhattan, Sperry-Rand, ITT Grinnell, and Kerr Glass Company. from the sources3
- Lancaster County’s 1945 plan expected 100 new houses a year by 1950, but by 1954 the county was building about 100 new homes every month. from the sources3
- In the 1960s and 1970s, urban renewal razed several blocks of North Queen Street and replaced them with large office, hotel, and parking-garage buildings. from the sources2
- South Duke Street also lost buildings under Lancaster’s urban-renewal programs. from the sources2
- The Redevelopment Authority’s surviving 1958–1978 files include downtown proposals, a 1963 city market study, a 1964 Lancaster Negro Employment Report, housing studies, road plans, project maps, relocation-payment lists, deeds, and housing-inspection reports. from the sources1
- Named redevelopment projects active in the 1960s included Duke Street Project I, Adams Project, Queen Street Project, Church-Musser Project, and Higbee Project. from the sources1
- The Higbee project centered on the old Higbee School area at Dauphin and Rockland Streets and included 149 residences and 17 commercial structures. from the sources4
- A new Higbee School, later Martin Luther King Jr. School, was completed and dedicated in January 1968. from the sources4
- Lancaster’s southeast quadrant held the city’s small minority population at the beginning of the renewal era and was especially affected by redevelopment. from the sources9
- A 1964 dissertation on the Black labor market in Lancaster, financed by the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, found 1.1 percent unemployment among white workers at chamber-member companies and 12.1 percent among Black workers. inferred5
- Civil-rights issues were local news: Lancaster newspapers in 1964 covered a meeting between Mayor George Coe and NAACP leaders and a City Council meeting soon afterward. from the sources4
- Lancaster’s city government used a mayor-council form, and George Coe served as mayor from 1962 to 1966. from the sources8
- Lancaster County voted heavily Republican in the 1960 presidential election, giving Richard Nixon 78,390 votes and John F. Kennedy 33,233. from the sources7
- Pennsylvania’s legal minimum wage for many workers followed the federal floor, rising from $1.00 an hour in 1960 to $1.25 in 1963 and $1.60 by 1968. inferred
- No detailed online room-by-room description of ordinary Lancaster apartments or rowhouses in the 1960s was found in this quick search. not known
Sources
- Redevelopment Authority of Lancaster, PA Collection, 1958–1978. LancasterHistory
- Lancaster City Historic District. LivingPlaces
- Lancaster County Heritage: The Cultural Heritage Element. Lancaster County Planning Commission, 2006
- The Journal of Lancaster County’s Historical Society, Volume 124, Number 2. LancasterHistory, 2024
- A brief history of Black Lancaster, according to professor and historian Leroy Hopkins. One United Lancaster, 2023
- Lancaster, Pennsylvania Population by Year. World Population Review, 2026
- 1960 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania. Wikipedia
- George Coe (mayor). Wikipedia
- A City Transformed: Redevelopment, Race, and Suburbanization in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1940–1980. Penn State University Press, 2002
- N. W. Ayer & Son’s Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals, 1962. N. W. Ayer & Son, 1962
- Regional Census Data. Warwick Township, 2025
Nearby, about the same time
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Researched by Yore’s AI historian (gpt-5.5) in October 2026 from the sources above. It is about the place and the time, not about any person. Statements marked “inferred” are conclusions drawn from the sources, not records. Also available as plain Markdown. To cite: Yore, “Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the 1960s”, yorehistory.com/place/lancaster-pennsylvania/1960s