Singer at a modern Hippie movement in Russia
'Hippie' (sometimes spelled "hippy") refers to a member of a subgroup of the
counterculture that began in the
United States during the early 1960s, becoming an established
social group by 1965, and expanding to other countries before declining in the mid-1970s.
[1][2] Hippies, along with the
New Left and the
American Civil Rights Movement, are considered the three dissenting groups of the
1960s counterculture.
2
Originally, hippies were part of a
youth movement composed mostly of white teenagers and young adults, between the ages of 15 and 25 years old, who inherited a tradition of cultural dissent from the earlier
Bohemians and the
beatniks.
[3][4] Hippies rejected established institutions, criticized
middle class values, opposed
nuclear weapons,
opposed the Vietnam War, embraced aspects of
Eastern religions, championed
sexual liberation, were often
vegetarian and eco-friendly, promoted the use of
psychedelic drugs to expand one's consciousness and created
intentional communities or communes. They used alternative arts, street theatre,
folk music, and
psychedelic rock as a part of their lifestyle and as a way of expressing their feelings, their protests and their vision of the world and life. Hippies opposed political and social orthodoxy, choosing a gentle and nondoctrinaire ideology that favored peace, love and personal freedom,
[5][6] perhaps best epitomized by
The Beatles' song "
All You Need is Love".
[7] They perceived the dominant culture as a corrupt, monolithic entity that exercised undue power over their lives, calling this culture "
The Establishment", "
Big Brother", or "
The Man".
[8][9][10] Noting that they were "seekers of meaning and value," scholars like
Timothy Miller describe hippies as a
new religious movement.
[11]
After 1965, the hippie ethos influenced The Beatles and others in the
United Kingdom and
Europe, and they in turn influenced their American counterparts.
[12][13] By 1968, self-described hippies had become a significant minority, representing just under 0.2% of the U.S. population.
[14] Hippie culture spread worldwide through a fusion of
rock music,
folk,
blues, and
psychedelic rock; it also found expression in literature, the dramatic arts,
fashion, and the visual arts, including film, posters advertising rock concerts, and
album covers.
[15] Eventually the hippie movement extended far beyond the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, appearing in
Australia,
Canada,
New Zealand,
Japan,
Mexico,
Brazil and many other countries.
[16]
Etymology
Main articles: Hippie (etymology)
Lexicographer
Jesse Sheidlower, the principal American editor of the
Oxford English Dictionary, states that the terms "hipster" and "hippie" derive from the word "
hip", whose origins are unknown.
[17]
The term "hipster" was coined by
Harry Gibson in 1940,
[18] and was often used in the 1940s and 1950s to describe
jazz performers. The word "hippie" is also jazz slang from the 1940s, and one of the first recorded usages of the word "hippie" was in a radio show on
November 13,
1945, in which
Stan Kenton called
Harry Gibson, "Hippie".
[19][20] However, Kenton's use of the word was playing off Gibson's nickname "Harry the Hipster." Reminiscing about late 1940s
Harlem in his 1964 autobiography,
Malcolm X referred to the word "hippy" as a term that
African Americans used to describe a specific type of
white man who "acted more
Negro than Negroes."
[21]
The more contemporary sense of the word "hippie" first appeared in print on
September 5,
1965, in the article, "A New Haven for
Beatniks", by
San Francisco journalist Michael Fallon. In that article, Fallon wrote about the Blue Unicorn
coffeehouse, using the term "hippie" to refer to the new generation of beatniks who had moved from
North Beach into the
Haight-Ashbury district. Fallon reportedly came up with the name by transforming
Norman Mailer's use of the word "hipster" into "hippie".
[22] Use of the term "hippie" did not catch on in the
mass media until early 1967, after
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen began referring to "hippies" in his daily columns.
[23][24]
History
Antecedents
The symbol of the Wandervogel ("migratory bird") youth movement
A 1967 article in ''Time Magazine'' asserts that the foundation of the hippie movement finds historical precedent as far back as the counterculture of the
Ancient Greeks, espoused by philosophers like
Diogenes of Sinope and the
Cynics.
[25] The article also claims that the Hippies were influenced by the ideas of
Jesus Christ,
Hillel the Elder,
Buddha,
St. Francis of Assisi,
Henry David Thoreau,
Gandhi, and others.
25
In
fin de siècle Europe, from 1896-1908, a German youth movement known as ''
Der Wandervogel'' began to grow as a countercultural reaction to the organized social and cultural clubs that centered around German folk music. In contrast to these formal clubs, Wandervogel emphasized amateur music and singing, creative dress, and communal outings involving hiking and camping.
[26] Inspired by the works of
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Goethe,
Hermann Hesse, and Eduard Baltzer, Wandervogel attracted thousands of young Germans who rejected the rapid trend toward urbanization and yearned to return back-to-nature, to the natural, pagan, and spiritual life of their ancestors.
[27]
During the first several decades of the twentieth century, these beliefs were introduced to the United States as Germans settled around the country, some opening the first
health food stores. Many moved to Southern California where they could practice an alternative lifestyle in a warm climate. In turn, young Americans adopted the beliefs and practices of the new immigrants. One group, called the "Nature Boys", took to the California desert, raised organic food, and espoused a back-to-nature lifestyle.
Eden Ahbez, a member of this group, wrote a hit song called ''
Nature Boy'', which was recorded in 1947 by
Nat King Cole, popularizing the homegrown back-to-nature movement to mainstream America. Eventually, a few of these Nature Boys, including the famous
Gypsy Boots, made their way to Northern California in 1967, just in time for the
Summer of Love in San Francisco.
[28]
Beat generation
Main articles: Beat generation
The Beat Generation gradually gave way to the
Sixties counterculture, accompanied by a shift in terminology from "beatnik" to "hippie." Many of the original Beats remained active participants, notably
Allen Ginsberg, who became a fixture of the anti-war movement. On the other hand,
Jack Kerouac broke with Ginsberg and criticized the 1960s protest movements as "new excuses for spitefulness". Through a variety of popular media, including
television shows such as ''
the Many Loves of Dobie Gillis'', the beat image became somewhat commercialized, and also a large influence on members of the new counterculture.
Bob Dylan became close friends with Allen Ginsberg, and Ginsberg became close friends with
Timothy Leary. Both Leary and Ginsburg were introduced to LSD by
Michael Hollingshead in the early 1960s, and both became instrumental in popularizing psychedelic substances to the hippie movement.
In 1963, Ginsberg was living in San Francisco with
Neal Cassady and
Charles Plymell.
[29] Around that time, Ginsberg connected with
Ken Kesey, who was participating in
CIA sponsored LSD trials while a student at Stanford. Neal Cassady was the bus driver for Ken Kesey's
Merry Pranksters, and he attempted to recruit Kerouac into their group, but Kerouac angrily rejected their invitation and accused them of attempting to destroy the American culture he celebrated.
According to
Ed Sanders, the change in the public label from "beatnik" to "hippie" occurred after the 1967
Human Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, where Allen Ginsberg,
Gary Snyder and
Michael McClure led the crowd in chanting "Om". Ginsberg was also at the infamous
1968 Democratic National Convention, and was friends with
Abbie Hoffman and other members of the
Chicago Seven. Stylistic differences between beatniks, marked by somber colors, dark shades and goatees, gave way to colorful psychedelic clothing and long hair worn by hippies. While the beats were known for "playing it cool" and keeping a low profile, hippies became known for "being cool", and displaying their individuality. Although the beats tended to be essentially apolitical, hippies became active in the civil rights and anti-war movements..
1960–1966
Merry Pranksters
Main articles: Merry Pranksters
Red Dog Experience
During the early 1960s
Cambridge, Massachusetts,
Greenwich Village in
New York City, and
Berkeley,
California, anchored the American folk music circuit. Berkeley's two coffee houses, the
Cabale Creamery and the
Jabberwock, sponsored performances by folk music artists in a beat setting.
[30]
Starting in 1960, Chandler A. Laughlin III helped manage these two beat coffee houses, and he recruited the original talent that led to a unique amalgam of traditional folk music and the developing psychedelic rock scene.
[31]
In April 1963, Laughlin established a kind of tribal, family identity among approximately fifty people who attended a traditional, all-night
Native American peyote ceremony in a rural setting. This ceremony combined a psychedelic experience with traditional Native American spiritual values; these people went on to sponsor a unique genre of musical expression and performance at the Red Dog Saloon in the isolated, old-time mining town of
Virginia City, Nevada.
31
During the summer of 1965, Laughlin and his cohorts created what became known as "The Red Dog Experience," featuring previously unknown musical acts--
Big Brother and the Holding Company,
Jefferson Airplane,
Quicksilver Messenger Service,
The Charlatans,
The Grateful Dead and others—who played in the completely refurbished, intimate setting of Virginia City's Red Dog Saloon. There was no clear delineation between "performers" and "audience" in "The Red Dog Experience," during which music, psychedelic experimentation, a unique sense of personal style and Bill Ham's first primitive light shows combined to create a new sense of community.
38 Laughlin and George Hunter of the Charlatans were true "proto-hippies," with their long hair, boots and outrageous clothing of distinctly American (and Native American) heritage.
LSD manufacturer
Owsley Stanley lived in Berkeley during 1965 and provided much of the LSD that became a seminal part of the "Red Dog Experience," the early evolution of psychedelic rock and budding hippie culture. At the Red Dog Saloon, The Charlatans were the first psychedelic rock band to play live (albeit unintentionally) loaded on LSD.
[33]
Psychedelic rock
Main articles: Psychedelic rock
An example of a
tie dyed t-shirt. Tie dying in the late 60's and early 70's is considered part of the psychedelic movement.
;A Tribute to Dr. Strange
When the summer of 1965 ended, participants in "The Red Dog Experience" returned to San Francisco and spread their new sense of community with the creation of the Family Dog by Luria Castell, Ellen Harman and Alton Kelley.
[34] Modeled on their experiences at the Red Dog Saloon, on
October 16,
1965, the Family Dog hosted "
A Tribute to Dr. Strange" at Longshoreman's Hall.
[35] Attended by approximately 500 of the Bay Area's original "hippies," this was San Francisco's first
psychedelic rock performance, costumed dance and light show, featuring
Jefferson Airplane,
The Great Society and The Marbles. Two other events followed before year's end, one at California Hall and one at the Matrix.
31
;Trips Festival
After the first three Family Dog events, a much larger psychedelic event occurred at San Francisco's Longshoreman's Hall. Called "The Trips Festival," it took place on
January 21–
January 23,
1966, and was organized by
Stewart Brand,
Ken Kesey,
Owsley Stanley and others. Ten thousand people attended this sold-out event, with a thousand more turned away each night.
[36] On Saturday
January 22, the
Grateful Dead and
Big Brother and the Holding Company came on stage, and 6,000 people arrived to imbibe punch spiked with LSD and to witness one of the first fully-developed light shows of the era.
[37]
;Fillmore Auditorium and Avalon Ballroom
By February 1966, the Family Dog became
Family Dog Productions under organizer
Chet Helms, promoting happenings at the
Avalon Ballroom and the
Fillmore Auditorium in initial cooperation with
Bill Graham. The Avalon Ballroom, the Fillmore Auditorium and other venues provided settings where participants could partake of the full psychedelic music experience. Bill Ham, who had pioneered the original Red Dog light shows, perfected his art of liquid light projection, which combined light shows and film projection and became synonymous with the San Francisco ballroom experience.
[38]31[39]
The sense of style and costume that began at the Red Dog Saloon flourished when San Francisco's Fox Theater went out of business and hippies bought up its costume stock, reveling in the freedom to dress up for weekly musical performances at their favorite ballrooms. As ''San Francisco Chronicle'' music columnist
Ralph J. Gleason put it, "They danced all night long, orgiastic, spontaneous and completely free form."
31
Haight-Ashbury
Main articles: Haight-Ashbury
Some of the earliest San Francisco hippies were former students at
San Francisco State College (later renamed San Francisco State University) who were intrigued by the developing psychedelic hippie music scene and left school after they started taking psychedelic drugs.
31 These students joined the bands they loved and began living communally in the large, inexpensive
Victorian apartments in the Haight.
[40] Young Americans around the country began moving to San Francisco, and by June 1966, around 15,000 hippies had moved into the Haight.
22 The Charlatans,
Jefferson Airplane,
Big Brother and the Holding Company, and the
Grateful Dead all moved to San Francisco's
Haight-Ashbury neighborhood during this period.
;Diggers
Main articles: Diggers (theater)
Hippie action in the Haight centered around the Diggers, a guerrilla street
theatre group that combined spontaneous street theatre, anarchistic action, and
art happenings in their agenda to create a "free city." By late 1966, the Diggers opened
stores which simply gave away their stock; provided free food, medical care, transport and temporary housing; they also organized free music concerts and works of political art. The Diggers criticized the term 'hippie' with their October, 1967, 'Death of Hippie' event.
[18]
;Love Pageant Rally
Main articles: Love Pageant Rally
On
October 6 1966, the state of California made LSD a controlled substance, making the drug illegal.
[42] In response to the criminalization of psychedelics, San Francisco hippies staged a gathering in the
Golden Gate Park panhandle, called "The Love Pageant Rally",
42 attracting an estimated 700-800 people.
[43] As explained by Allan Cohen, co-founder of the
San Francisco Oracle, the purpose of the rally was twofold — to draw attention to the fact that LSD had just been made illegal, and to demonstrate that people who used LSD were not criminals, nor were they mentally ill. According to Cohen, those who took LSD were mostly idealistic people who wanted to learn more about themselves and their place in the universe, and they used LSD as an aid to meditation and to creative, artistic expression. The Grateful Dead played, and some sources claim that LSD was consumed at the rally.
[44]
Los Angeles
Los Angeles also had a vibrant hippie scene during the mid-1960s. The
Venice coffeehouses and beat culture sustained the hippies, giving birth to bands like
The Doors.
Sunset Strip became the quintessential L.A. hippie gathering area, with its seminal rock clubs
Whisky-a-Go-Go and
the Troubadour. The Strip was the location of the protest described in
Buffalo Springfield's early 1966 hippie anthem, "
For What It's Worth."
Millbrook
Before the Summer of Love,
Timothy Leary and
Richard Alpert formed the International Foundation for Internal Freedom in
Newton, Massachusetts, inhabiting two houses but later moving to a 64-room mansion at
Millbrook, New York, with a communal group of about 25–30 people in residence until they were shut down in 1967.
[45]
Drop City
Main articles: Drop City
In 1965, four art students and filmmakers, Gene Bernofsky, JoAnn Bernofsky, Richard Kallweit and Clark Richert, moved to a seven acre tract of land near Trinidad, Colorado. Their intention was to create a live-in work of Drop Art, continuing an art concept they had developed earlier, and informed by "
happenings." As Drop City gained notoriety in the 1960s underground, people from around the world came to stay and work on the construction projects. Inspired by the architectural ideas of
Buckminister Fuller and
Steve Baer, residents constructed
geodesic domes and zonahedra to house themselves, using geometric panels made from the metal of automobile roofs and other inexpensive materials. In 1967 the group, consisting of 10 core people and many contributors, won Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion award for their constructions. The community quickly grew in reputation and size, accelerated by media attention, including news reports on national television networks. Several other communities were formed in the region. With the Summer of Love and the explosion of the hippie movement, large numbers poured into Drop City. Overwhelmed, the original occupants left. Drop City continued for several more years, then was finally abandoned.
1967–1969
Summer of Love
Main articles: Summer of Love
On
January 14,
1967, the outdoor
Human Be-In in San Francisco popularized hippie culture across the United States, with 20,000 hippies gathering in
Golden Gate Park. The
Monterey Pop Festival from
June 16 to
June 18 introduced the rock music of the counterculture to a wide audience and marked the start of the "Summer of Love."
[46] Scott McKenzie's rendition of
John Phillips' song, "
San Francisco," became a hit in the United States and Europe. The lyrics, "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair", inspired thousands of young people from all over the world to travel to San Francisco, sometimes wearing flowers in their hair and distributing flowers to passersby, earning them the name, "
Flower Children."
Bands like the
Grateful Dead,
Big Brother and the Holding Company (with
Janis Joplin), and
Jefferson Airplane continued to live in the Haight, but by the end of the summer, the incessant media coverage led the Diggers to declare the "death" of the hippie with a parade. According to the late poet
Stormi Chambless, the hippies buried an effigy of a hippie in the
Panhandle to demonstrate the end of his/her reign.
Regarding this period of history, the
July 7,
1967, ''
TIME'' magazine featured a cover story entitled, "The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture." The article described the guidelines of the hippie code: "Do your own thing, wherever you have to do it and whenever you want. Drop out. Leave society as you have known it. Leave it utterly. Blow the mind of every straight person you can reach. Turn them on, if not to drugs, then to beauty, love, honesty, fun."
[cited in Marty, 1997, p. 125]
It is estimated that around 100,000 people traveled to San Francisco in the summer of 1967. The media was right behind them, casting a spotlight on the Haight-Ashbury district and popularizing the "hippie" label. With this increased attention, hippies found support for their ideals of love and peace but were also criticized for their anti-work, pro-drug, and permissive ethos. Misgivings about the hippie culture, particularly with regard to
drug abuse and lenient morality, fueled the
moral panics of the late
1960s.
[47]
New Communalism
When the Summer of Love finally ended, thousands of hippies left San Francisco, a large minority of them heading
back to the land. These hippies created the largest number of
intentional communities or communes in the history of the United States, forming alternative, egalitarian farms and homesteads in Northern California, Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Tennessee and other states. According to Timothy Miller, communes were organized in many different ways, some along religious, political, and even sexual orientation. Poet and writer Judson Jerome, who studied the American commune movement, estimates that by the early 1970s, about 750,000 people lived in more than ten thousand communes across the United States.
[48][49]
;The Farm
Main articles: The Farm (Tennessee)
In 1967,
Stephen Gaskin began to develop a philosophy of hippie perspectives at San Francisco State College, where Gaskin taught English, creative writing, and
General Semantics. Gaskin's "Monday Night Class" became a broad, open discussion group involving up to 1,500 students and other participants from the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1970, Gaskin and his wife,
Ina May Gaskin, invited by mid-western preachers to explain "what was happening" to their "Mr and Mrs Jones" congregations, led a caravan of 60 buses, vans and trucks on a cross country speaking tour. Along the way, they checked out various places that might be suitable for settlement. By the time they got back to San Francisco, they realized that they had become a "thing", and decided to return to
Summertown, Tennessee, where they bought 1,700 acres (688 hectares) and created an intentional community called "
The Farm.” The Farm became a widely respected,
spiritually-based hippie community that still thrives, although it is now more a hip village of 300 than a commune of 1,200.
[50]
People's Park
Main articles: People's Park (Berkeley)
In April 1969, the building of People's Park in Berkeley, California received international attention. The
University of California, Berkeley had demolished all the buildings on a 2.8 acre parcel near campus, intending to use the land to build playing fields and a parking lot. After a long delay, during which the site became a dangerous eyesore, thousands of ordinary Berkeley citizens, merchants, students, and hippies took matters into their own hands, planting trees, shrubs, flowers and grass to convert the land into a park. A major confrontation ensued on
May 15,
1969, and Governor
Ronald Reagan ordered a two-week occupation of the city of Berkeley by the
United States National Guard.
Flower power came into its own during this occupation as hippies engaged in acts of
civil disobedience to plant flowers in empty lots all over Berkeley under the slogan "Let A Thousand Parks Bloom."
Woodstock
Joe Cocker at Woodstock 1969
In August 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Festival took place in
Bethel, New York, which, for many, exemplified the best of hippie counterculture. Over 500,000 people arrived to hear the most notable musicians and bands of the era, among them
Richie Havens,
Joan Baez,
Janis Joplin,
The Grateful Dead,
Creedence Clearwater Revival,
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young,
Carlos Santana,
The Who,
Jefferson Airplane, and
Jimi Hendrix.
Wavy Gravy's Hog Farm provided security and attended to practical needs, and the hippie ideals of love and human fellowship seemed to have gained real-world expression.
Altamont
Main articles: Altamont Music Festival
In December 1969, a similar event took place in
Altamont, California, about 30 miles (45 km) east of San Francisco. Initially billed as "Woodstock West," its official name was The Altamont Free Concert. About 300,000 people gathered to hear
The Rolling Stones;
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young;
Jefferson Airplane and other bands. The
Hells Angels provided security that proved far less beneficent than the security provided at the Woodstock event: 18-year-old
Meredith Hunter was stabbed and killed while drawing a gun in front of the stage during The Rolling Stones performance, and four accidental deaths occurred. There were also four births at the concert.
1970-1973
By 1970, the 1960s
zeitgeist that had spawned hippie culture seemed to be on the wane.
[51][52] The events at Altamont shocked many Americans, including those who had strongly identified with hippie culture. Another shock came in the form of the
Sharon Tate and
Leno and Rosemary LaBianca murders committed in August 1969 by
Charles Manson and his "family" of followers. Nevertheless, the oppressive political atmosphere that featured the bombing of
Cambodia and shootings by
National Guardsmen at
Jackson State University and
Kent State University still brought people together. These shootings inspired the May 1970 song by
Quicksilver Messenger Service "What About Me?," where they sang "You keep adding to my numbers as you shoot my people down."
Charles Manson
Main articles: Charles Manson
Charles Manson was a lifelong criminal who had been released from prison just in time for San Francisco's Summer of Love. With his long hair,
charisma and the ability to charm a crowd with his
guitar playing, his singing and rhetoric, Manson exhibited many of the outward manifestations of hippie identity. Through twisted logic and psychological
manipulation, he inspired his followers to commit murder. Manson's highly publicized 1970 trial and subsequent conviction in January 1971 irrevocably tarnished the hippie image in the eyes of many Americans.
51 Other factors, such as the proliferation of drugs and their associated dependency, also contributed to the decline.
Mainstream
By the early 1970s, much of hippie style had been integrated into
mainstream American society.
[53] Large rock concerts that originated with the 1967
Monterey Pop Festival and the 1968
Isle of Wight Festival became the norm. Mustaches, beards and longer hair became commonplace and colorful, multi-ethnic clothing dominated the fashion world. In the mid-1970s, the mainstream media lost interest in the hippie counterculture, and it went out of fashion. The
Vietnam War came to an end, and hippies became targets for ridicule, coinciding with the advent of
punk rock and
disco. Although not as visible as it once was, hippie culture has never died out completely: hippies and
neo-hippies can still be found on college campuses, on communes and at festivals; while many still embrace the hippie values of peace, love, and community.
Ethos and characteristics
Hippies sought to free themselves from societal restrictions, choose their own way and find new meaning in life. One expression of hippie independence from societal norms was their unusual standard of dress and grooming. This made hippies instantly recognizable to one another and served as a visual symbol of their respect for individual rights and their willingness to question authority.
Similar to the beat movement preceding them and the
punk movement that followed soon after, hippie symbols and iconography were of low
social status, with hippie fashion reflecting a disorderly, often
vagrant style.
[54] As with other adolescent, white middle-class movements,
deviant behavior of the hippies involved challenging the prevailing
gender differences of their time: both men and women in the hippie movement wore jeans and maintained long hair,
[55] and both genders wore sandals or went barefoot.
22 Men often wore beards,
[56] while women wore little or no makeup, with many going
braless.
22
Hippies often chose brightly colored clothing and wore unusual
styles, such as
bell-bottom pants, vests,
tie-dyed garments,
dashikis, peasant blouses, and long, full skirts; non-Western inspired clothing with Native American, African and Latin American motifs were also popular. Much of hippie clothing was self-made in defiance of corporate culture, and hippies often purchased their clothes from flea markets and second-hand shops.
67 Favored accessories for both men and women included Native American jewelry, head scarves, headbands and
long beaded necklaces.
22
Travel was a prominent feature of hippie culture, both domestic and international. Hippie culture was communal, and travel became an extension of friendship. Schoolbuses similar to Ken Kesey's
Furthur, or the iconic VW bus, were popular because groups of friends could travel on the cheap. The
VW Bus became known as a counterculture and hippie symbol, and many buses were repainted with graphics and/or custom paint jobs—these were predecessors to the modern-day
art car. A
peace symbol often replaced the Volkswagen logo. Many hippies favored
hitchhiking as a primary mode of transport because it was economical,
environmentally friendly, and a way to meet new people.
Politics
;In the United States
Hippies were often
pacifists and participated in non-violent political demonstrations, such as
civil rights marches, the
marches on Washington D.C., and
anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, including
draft card burnings and the
1968 Democratic National Convention protests. The degree of political involvement varied widely among hippies, from those who were apolitical to
Yippies, the most politically active hippie sub-group.
[57] In addition to non-violent political demonstrations, hippie opposition to the Vietnam War included organizing political action groups to oppose the war, refusal to serve in the military and conducting "
teach-ins" on college campuses that covered Vietnamese history and the larger political context of the war.
Scott McKenzie's 1967 rendition of John Phillips' song "
San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)," which helped inspire the hippie Summer of Love, became a homecoming song for all Vietnam veterans arriving in San Francisco from 1967 on. McKenzie has dedicated every American performance of "San Francisco" to Vietnam veterans, and he sang at the 2002 20th anniversary of the dedication of the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial. "San Francisco" became a freedom song worldwide, especially in
Eastern European nations that suffered under
Soviet-imposed
communism.
[58][59]
Hippie political expression often took the form of "dropping out" of society to implement the changes they sought. At their inception, the back to the land movement of the 1960s,
cooperative business enterprises,
alternative energy, the
free press movement, and
organic farming were all politically motivated movements aided by hippies.
48 63
Drugs
As did the Beats before them, many hippies used
cannabis (marijuana), which they considered pleasurable and benign. They enlarged their repertoire of recreational drugs to include
hallucinogens such as LSD,
psilocybin and
mescaline. On the
East Coast of the United States,
Harvard University professors
Timothy Leary and
Richard Alpert advocated the use of psychotropic drugs for religious purposes. Regarding LSD, Leary said, "Expand your consciousness and find ecstasy and revelation within."
[60]
On the
West Coast of the United States,
Ken Kesey was an important figure in promoting the recreational use of psychotropic drugs, especially LSD, also known as "acid." By holding what he called "
Acid Tests," and touring the country with his band of
Merry Pranksters, Kesey became a magnet for media attention that drew many young people to the fledgling movement. The Grateful Dead played some of their first shows at the Acid Tests, often as high on LSD as their audiences. Kesey and the Pranksters had a "vision of turning on the world."
60
Harder drugs, such as
amphetamines and the
opiates, were also used in hippie settings; however, these drugs were disdained, even among those who used them, because they were recognized as harmful and addictive.
[61] Heroin, for example, was banned from the
Stonehenge Free Festival.
Travel
Hand-crafted Hippie Truck 1968
Many Hippies traveled light and could pick up and go wherever the action was at any time; whether at a "love-in" on
Mount Tamalpais near San Francisco, a demonstration against the Vietnam War in Berkeley, a party at
Ken Kesey's "Acid Tests", or if the "vibe" wasn't right and a change of scene was desired, hippies were mobile at a moment's notice. Pre-planning was eschewed as hippies were happy to put a few clothes in a backpack, stick out their thumbs and hitchhike anywhere. Hippies seldom worried whether they had money, hotel reservations or any of the other standard accoutrements of travel. Hippie households welcomed overnight guests on an impromptu basis, and the reciprocal nature of the lifestyle permitted freedom of movement. People generally cooperated to meet each other's needs in ways that became less common after the early 1970s. This way of life is still seen among the
Rainbow Family groups,
new age travellers and
New Zealand's housetruckers.
[62]
A derivative of this free-flow style of travel were hippie trucks and buses, hand-crafted mobile houses built on truck or bus chassis to facilitate a nomadic lifestyle. Some of these mobile gypsy houses were quite elaborate with beds, toilets, showers and cooking facilities.
On the West Coast, a unique lifestyle developed around the
Renaissance Faires that Phyllis and Ron Patterson first organized in 1963. During the summer and fall months, entire families traveled together in their trucks and buses, parked at Renaissance Pleasure Faire sites in Southern and Northern California, worked their crafts during the week, and donned Elizabethan costume for weekend performances and to attend booths where handmade goods were sold to the public.
The sheer number of young people living at the time made for unprecedented travel opportunities to special happenings. The peak experience of this type was the
Woodstock Festival near
Bethel, New York, from August 15 to 19, 1969, which drew over 500,000 people.
Legacy
Since the 1960s, many aspects of the hippie
counterculture have been assimilated by the mainstream.
[63][64] Public political demonstrations are considered legitimate expressions of free speech. Unmarried couples of all ages feel free to travel and live together without societal disapproval. Frankness regarding sexual matters has become the norm—even conservative talk radio hosts, like Dr.
Laura Schlessinger, feel free to exclaim "Orgasms are cool!" In urban centers especially, and in corporate America, the rights of
homosexual,
bisexual and
transexual people have expanded.
Religious and cultural diversity has gained greater acceptance. Eastern religions and spiritual concepts,
karma and
reincarnation in particular, have reached a wider audience with around 20% of Americans epousing some
New Age belief
[65]. A wide range of personal appearance options and clothing styles have become acceptable, all of which were uncommon before the hippie era.
[66][67] Co-operative business enterprises and creative community living arrangements are widely accepted. Interest in natural food, herbal remedies and vitamins is widespread, and the little hippie "health food stores" of the 1960s and 1970s are now large-scale, profitable businesses.
The immediate legacy of the hippies included: in fashion, the decline in popularity of the
necktie which had been everyday wear during the 1950s and early 1960s, and generally longer hairstyles, even for politicians such as
Pierre Trudeau; in literature, books like ''
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'';
[68] in music, the blending of
folk rock into newer forms including
acid rock and
heavy metal; in television and film, far greater visibility and influence, with some films depicting the hippie ethos and lifestyle, such as''
Woodstock'', ''
Easy Rider'', ''
Hair'', ''
The Doors'', and ''
Crumb''. Even children's educational television shows such as
Mulligan Stew were influenced by the hippies.
While many hippies made a long-term commitment to the lifestyle, some younger people argue that hippies "sold out" during the 1980s and became part of the materialist, consumer culture.
Heath_Potter_2004">. Hippies may still be found in
bohemian enclaves around the world.
16
Contemporary hippies have made use of the
World Wide Web and can be found on virtual communities. In the
United Kingdom, the
New age travellers movement, while eschewing the label 'hippie', nevertheless revived many hippie traditions into the 1980s and 1990s. Current events,
festivals and
parties continue to promote the hippie lifestyle and values. The "
boho-chic" fashion style of 2003-2007 had a number of hippie features and the London ''
Evening Standard'' even used the term "hippie chic" (11 March 2005).
Some hippie ideals were an influence on
anarcho-punk bands such as
Crass, as well as on many
peace punk and some
crust punk bands. Crass's drummer
Penny Rimbaud wrote an essay called "The Last Of The Hippies" recalling how a hippy friend, Phil Russell (a.k.a. Wally Hope), was allegedly committed to a mental institution after becoming a thorn in the side of the establishment. The members of Crass were old enough to have been members of the hippie counter-culture.
Neo-hippies
Main articles: Neo-hippies
Art car seen in Northern California
Neo-hippies, some of whom are sons, daughters and grandchildren of the original hippies, advocate many of the same beliefs of their 1960s counterparts.
Drug use is just as accepted as in the "original" hippie days, although most neo-hippies do not consider it necessary to take drugs in order to be part of the lifestyle, and others reject drug use in favor of alternative methods of reaching higher or altered consciousness such as drumming circles, community singing, meditation, yoga and dance.
In the United States, some hippies refer to themselves as "Rainbows," a name derived from their tie-dyed T-shirts, and for some, from their participation in the hippie group, "
Rainbow Family of Living Light". Since the early 1970s, the Rainbows meet informally at
Rainbow Gatherings on U.S. National Forest Land as well as internationally. "Peace, love, harmony, freedom, and community" is their motto.
Festivals
Glastonbury Festival in 1985.
Many neo-hippies were part of the
Deadhead and
Phish Head communities, attending music and art festivals around the United States. Many of the bands performing at these festivals are called
jam bands, since their songs contain long instrumentals similar to the original hippie bands of the 1960s. The biggest hippie jam fest is called The
Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival.With the demise of the
Grateful Dead and
Phish, the nomadic touring hippies are left without a main jam band to follow. Instead, the modern nomadic touring hippie can attend a growing series of summer festivals.
Psychedelic trance or "
psytrance," a type of
techno music influenced by 60s
psychedelic rock and hippie culture is also popular among neo-hippies worldwide. Psytrance hippies usually attend separate festivals where only electronic music is played.
In the UK, there are many
new age travellers who are known as hippies to outsiders, but prefer to call themselves the
Peace Convoy. They started the
Stonehenge Free Festival in 1974, especially
Wally Hope, until the
English Heritage legally banned the festival, resulting in the
Battle of the Beanfield in 1985. With Stonehenge banned as a festival site new age travellers gather at the annual
Glastonbury Festival to see hundreds of live dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other performances. Others argue that it has now become too much of a commercial event, and instead opt for smaller festivals such as
Beautiful Days or The
Big Green Gathering. In 2005, Glastonbury festival covered 900 acres (3.6 km²) and attracted 150,000 people.
Between 1976 and 1981, hippie music festivals were held on large farms around
Waihi and
Waikino in
New Zealand-
Aotearoa. Named ''
Nambassa'', the festivals focused on
peace,
love, and a balanced lifestyle, featuring
workshops and displays advocating
alternative lifestyles, clean and
sustainable energy, and unadulterated foods. Nambassa is also the tribal name of a trust that has championed sustainable ideas and demonstrated practical
counterculture and
alternative lifestyle methods since the early 1970s.
The
Oregon Country Fair began in 1969 as a benefit for an alternative school. Currently, the three-day festival features hand-made crafts, educational displays and costumed entertainment in a wooded setting near
Veneta, Oregon just west of
Eugene. Each year the festival becomes the third largest city in Lane County. Held annually in Manchester, Tennessee,
Bonnaroo has become a tradition for many music fans, since its sold-out premiere in 2002. Approximately 70-80,000 attend Bonnaroo yearly. The festival producers have made investments in their property, constructing vast telecommunications networks, potable water supplies, sanitation facilities, and safety features such as first aid shelters for every 200-300 fans. The
Burning Man festival began in 1986 at a San Francisco beach party. Now an annual gathering, the event is held in the
Black Rock Desert northeast of
Reno, Nevada. Though few participants would accept the "hippie" label, Burning Man is a contemporary expression of alternative community in the same spirit as early hippie events. The gathering becomes a temporary city (36,500 occupants in 2005), with elaborate encampments, displays and many
art cars. The
10,000 Lakes Festival is an annual three-day music festival in
Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. Also referred to as '10KLF' (K for thousand, LF for Lakes Festival), the festival began in 2003. Attendance in 2006 was around 18,000.
[69]
The annual
Starwood Festival, founded in 1981, offers performances and classes by a variety of hippy and counter-culture icons from musical guests like
Big Brother and the Holding Company,
Merl Saunders and
Babatunde Olatunji to speakers such as
Timothy Leary,
Paul Krassner,
Stephen Gaskin,
Harvey Wasserman and
Ralph Metzner.
Notes
1. . Hirsch describes hippies as: "Members of a cultural protest that began in the U.S. in the 1960s and affected Europe before fading in the 1970s...fundamentally a cultural rather than a political protest."
2. . Pendergast writes: "The Hippies made up the...nonpolitical subgroup of a larger group known as the counterculture...the counterculture included several distinct groups...One group, called the New Left...Another broad group called...the Civil Rights Movement...did not become a recognizable social group until after 1965...according to John C. McWilliams, author of ''The 1960s Cultural Revolution''."
3. Zablocki, Benjamin. "Hippies." ''World Book Online Reference Center''. 2006. Retrieved on 2006-10-12. "Hippies were members of a youth movement...from white middle-class families and ranged in age from 15 to 25 years old."
4. .
5. .
6. Yippie Abbie Hoffman envisioned a different society: "...where people share things, and we don't need money; where you have the machines for the people. A free society, that's really what it amounts to... a free society built on life; but life is not some ''Time Magazine'', hippie version of fagdom... we will attempt to build that society..." See: Swatez, Gerald. Miller, Kaye. (1970). ''Conventions: The Land Around Us'' Anagram Pictures. University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. Social Sciences Research Film Unit. qtd at ~16:48. The speaker is not explicitly identified, but it is thought to be Abbie Hoffman.
7. Come Together: John Lennon in His Time, , Jon, Wiener, University of Illinois Press, ,
8. .
9. Theme appears in contemporaneous interviews throughout Yablonsky (1968).
10. McCleary, 2004, pp. 50, 166, 323
11. . Timothy Miller notes that the counterculture was a "movement of seekers of meaning and value...the historic quest of any religion." Miller quotes Harvey Cox, William C. Shepard, Jefferson Poland, and Ralph J. Gleason in support of the view of the hippie movement as a new religion. See also Wes Nisker's ''The Big Bang, The Buddha, and the Baby Boom'': "At its core, however, hippie was a spiritual phenomenon, a big, unfocused, revival meeting." Nisker cites the ''San Francisco Oracle'', which described the Human Be-In as a "spiritual revolution".
12. August 28 - Bob Dylan turns The Beatles on to cannabis for the first time. See The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles, , Peter, Brown, NAL Trade, ,
13. Tony Blair: Child Of The Hippie Generation
14. .
15. Light My Fire: Rock Posters from the Summer of Love
16. .
17. Crying Wolof Jesse Sheidlower
18.
19. Words@Random. (1998, May 21) The Mavens' Word of the Day: Hippie. ''Random House, Inc.'' Retrieved on 2006-10-09.
20. NBC studios live radio program, the ''Jubilee'' show at Billy Berg's jazz club in Hollywood, CA, and recorded through the transcription service of the Armed Forces Radio Corps (AFRC), and available on the CD "Stan Kenton And Friends," 2006.
21. . "A few of the white men around Harlem, younger ones whom we called 'hippies', acted more Negro than Negroes. This particular one talked more 'hip' talk than we did."
22. .
23. Mecchi, 1991, 22 Dec 1966 column, pp 125-26. Chronicle columnist Arthur Hoppe also used the term; see "Take a Hippie to Lunch Today," S.F. Chronicle, 20 Jan 1967, p. 37.
24. San Francisco Chronicle, 18 Jan 1967 column, p. 27
25. The Hippies
26. Randall, Annie Janeiro. (2005). ''Music, Power, and Politics''. "The Power to Influence Minds". pp.66-67. Routledge. ISBN 0415943647.
27. Hippie Roots & The Perennial Subculture See also: .
28. The psychedelic posters that announced concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium and other San Francisco venues were heavily influenced by the artist Fidus, one of the original German hippies. For more about the influence of the Germans on America's hippies, see Kennedy and Ryan above.
29. Ginsberg, Cassady, and Plymell were at 1403 Gough St in 1963. A few years later, Charles Plymell helped publish the first issue of R. Crumb's Zap Comix, then moved to Ginsberg's commune in Cherry Valley, NY, in the early 1970s.
30. The History of The Jabberwock
31.
32. http://thinkexist.com/quotes/chandler_laughlin/, retrieved 16 January 200
33. The Red Dog Saloon And The Amazing Charlatans Andrew Lau
34. Got a Revolution! The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane, , Jeff, Tamarkin, Simon and Schuster, ,
35. .
36. Tamony, 1981, p.98
37. http://www.pranksterweb.org/trips.htm, retrieved 18 December 2006
38. Bill Ham Lights
39. .
40. . Perry writes that SFSC students rented cheap, Edwardian-Victorians in the Haight.
41.
42. The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s, , David, Farber, Columbia University Press, ,
43. The Portable Sixties Reader, , Ann, Charters, Penguin Classics, ,
44. Acid Dreams, , Martin A., Lee, Grove Press, ,
45. Miller, Timothy. (Dec. 11, 2004). California Communes in Historical Context. Keynote address at "The Commune: Histories, Legacies, and Prospects in Northern California". Hippie Museum.
46. Dudley, 2000, p. 254
47. Youth & Crime, , John, Muncie, SAGE Publications, ,
48. .
49. Turner (2006) cites Timothy Miller's 1999 book, ''The 60s Communes: Hippies and Beyond''.
50. Bates, Albert. (1995). J. Edgar Hoover and The Farm. ''The Farm''. Retrieved on 2006-10-06.
51. .
52. Bugliosi (1994) describes the popular view that the Manson case "sounded the death knell for hippies and all they symbolically represented," citing Joan Didion, Diane Sawyer, and ''Time''. Bugliosi admits that although the Manson murders "may have hastened" the end of the hippie era, the era was already in decline.
53. .
54. .
55. .
56.
57. http://www.greenleft.org.au/1997/278/16698, retrieved 24 March 2007
58. Scott's Story
59. Message From Scott
60. .
61. .
62. http://www.mrsharkey.com/busbarn/misctruk/gypsytrk.htm
63. The Hippies Were right!
64. Hey man, we’re all kind of hippies now. Far out
65. The Index of Leading Spiritual Indicators, , George, Barnia, Word Publishing, 1996,
66. Connikie, Yvonne. (1990). ''Fashions of a Decade: The 1960s''. Facts on File. ISBN 0-8160-2469-3
67. Pendergast, Sara. (2004) ''Fashion, Costume, and Culture''. Volume 5. Modern World Part II: 1946-2003. Thomson Gale. ISBN 0-7876-5417-5
68. 'The Pump House Gang' and 'The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test' Bryan
69. http://www.10klf.com
References
★ Binkley, Sam. (2002).
Hippies. ''St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture''. FindArticles.com.
★ .
★ Brand, Stewart. (Spring, 1995).
We Owe it All to the Hippies. ''Time''.
★ .
★ .
★ Gaskin, Stephen. (1970). ''Monday Night Class''. The Book Farm. ISBN 1-57067-181-8.
★ .
★ .
★ .
★ .
★
Kent, Stephen A. (2001). ''From slogans to mantras: social protest and religious conversion in the late Vietnam war era''.
Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-8156-2923-0
★ .
★
Markoff, John. (2006). ''
What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry''. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-303676-9
★ Marty, Myron A. (1997). Daily life in the United States, 1960-1990. Westport, CT: The Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-29554-9
★ McCleary, John. (2004) ''The Hippie Dictionary''. Ten Speed Press. ISBN 1-58008-547-4.
★ Mecchi, Irene. (1991). ''The Best of Herb Caen, 1960-75''. Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-8118-0020-2
★ .
★ .
★
Sanger, Andrew. (2005). ''LOVE'' - a novel of the hippy years. ISBN 978-1-4116-4900-2.
At Lulu.com.
★ .
★ .
★
Tamony, Peter. (Summer, 1981).
Tripping out from San Francisco. ''American Speech''. Vol. 56, No. 2. pp. 98-103.
★ .
★ .
★ .
★ .
★ .
★ Young, Shawn David. (2005). ''Hippies, Jesus Freaks, and Music''. Ann Arbor: Xanedu/Copley Original Works. ISBN 1-59399-201-7
Further reading
★ .
External links
★
The Hippies: Philosophy of a Subculture From ''Time'' magazine, July 7, 1967 (entire article scanned).
★
CBC Digital Archives - Hippie Society: The Youth Rebellion
★
The Psychedelic '60s: Literary Tradition and Social Change. Special Collections Department.
University of Virginia Library
★
WWW-VL: History: 1960s
★
CBS News' 1967 story on the Summer of Love, by Harry Reasoner (7 min.) - also features early
Grateful Dead interview and performance
★
Hippie influence on fashion
★
Hippies, Freaks and the Summer of Love
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