New Left, Free Speech, Hippies, Woodstock, etc.

1. The Counterculture
Ch. 23.3
(pp. 777-781)

2. Counterculture: Notes
• Define/Explain
– Counterculture
– Sexual Revolution
– Woodstock
– Altamont
• What social changes were promoted by the
counterculture (make a list)?
• How did music both reflect & contribute to the
change of this era?

3. ‘50s vs. ‘60s

4. 1950s
• Conformity
• Nine-to-five jobs
• Corporate
world/businessmen
• Neatly dressed
• Flannel suits
• Military power
1960s
• “Flower Power”
• Long hair & outrageous
clothing
• Rejection of regimented life
• Bright colors & beads
• Rejection of restriction
• Challenged authority

5. The Beatles

6. A Time of Change
• Counterculture—Valued
youth, spontaneity, &
individuality
• Hippies
• Promoted peace, love,
& freedom
• New styles of dress,
music, & freer attitudes
towards sex
• Recreational use of
drugs
• “Generation Gap”
• Lack of understanding &
communication
between generations

7. A Time of Change
• Baby boom after WWII led to enormous
generation
• College attendance levels were increased
drastically
– College campuses bred change
• Culture catered to them
– Music producers, clothing designers, colleges,
even politicians

8. A Time of Change
• Student Movements & the New Left
• Various liberal groups began to identify w/
blacks’ struggle against oppressive controls &
laws
– Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
• 1st
meeting in Port Huron, Michigan, 1962
– Led by Tom Hayden
• Called for university decisions to be made through
participatory democracy
– Give students a voice
• Those who supported Hayden’s ideas were known as
the New Left

10. A Time of Change
• 1st
major protest took place on Berkeley
campus of U. of California, 1964
– Called their cause the “Free Speech Movement”
• By the mid-1960s protest spread across the
country
– Protested a variety of rules: drinking, dorm visits
by the opposite sex, political speech, greater voice
in gov’t of universities
• Only grew as Vietnam heightened

12. A Time of Change
• Eventually the SDS splintered
into various groups
– Most radical=“The
Weathermen”
• Embraced violence & vandalism in
attacks on American institutions
• Acts of the Weathermen
discredited the early idealism of
the New Left
– Bob Dylan, “Subterranean Homesick
Blues”

13. Counterculture
• Protests of New Left went hand in hand w/
new counterculture
– Rebellious styles of dress, music, drug use, & for
some communal living
– Hippies & flower children
• Embraced folk music of Bob Dylan & Joan Baez

14. Hippies in America
• Similar movement started in UK in 1964-1965
• Popularized in America in 1967
– Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park in January
• Protested new CA law that banned LSD
– Prelude to “Summer of Love”
• Hippie culture hub was Haight-Ashbury neighborhood
• Greenwich Village in NYC was also a hub

16. Sixties Style
• Women
– Long, free hair
– Loose fitting dresses
• Men
– Long hair, beards
– *Read sidebar on hair on
p. 779
– Rejection of the suit &
tie
– Blue jeans, cotton shirts,
simple garments
• Ponchos from S.
America
• Dashikis from Africa
• Jewelry made by Native
Americans
• Painted buses, cars, &
bodies
• Pop art reflected Hippie
culture
– Warhol & Lichtenstein

17. Sixties Style
• Op Art
– Andy Warhol
• Appeared they were
created by artists under
the influence of
psychedelic drugs
• Bright colors, optical
illusions

21. The Sexual Revolution
• Rejection of traditional
restrictions
• Sex should be separated
from ties to family life
• New living patterns;
communes, unmarried
couples
• Open discussion of
sexual subjects in
mainstream media
• 1962 bestseller, “Sex &
the Single Girl,” by
Helen Gurley Brown
• 1966 report on
scientific studies of
sexuality, “Human
Sexual Response,” by
William H. Masters and
Virginia E. Johnson
• 1972, “The Joy of Sex,”
by Alex Comfort

22. The Drug Scene
• Psychedelic drugs
• Cause brain to act
abnormally
• Hallucinations, altered
perceptions of reality
• Drug use was more
widespread, esp.
marijuana
• Researchers at Harvard
(Leary & Alpert)
involved students in
research using LSD

23. The Drug Scene
• Overdoses & addictions
• Janis Joplin, age 27,
1970
• Jim Morrison, age 27,
1971
• Jimi Hendrix, age 27,
1970

24. Music
• Revolution started by
Rock & Roll of ‘50s
• Revival of folk music
– Bob Dylan & Joan Baez
• British Invasion
– “Beatlemania” begins in
1964
– Rolling Stones
– The Who

25. Woodstock
• August of 1969
• Up to 500K spectators
• Rural up-state NY
• “3 Days of Peace &
Music”
• Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie,
Santana, CCR, Grateful
Dead, Janis Joplin, The
Who, Jefferson Airplane
• Crosby, Stills, Nash &
Young
• The Band, Jimi Hendrix
• Lots of rain
• Overcrowded, lack of
facilities, but peaceful

26. Altamont
• East of San Francisco
• December of 1969
• Rolling Stones, Santana,
Jefferson Airplane
• Crosby, Stills, Nash &
Young
• 300K+
• Hell’s Angels hired as
security
• Paid $500 of beer?
• Fights broke out
• 4 deaths, 4 births, lots
of injuries, lots of
property damage
• Soured “Love
Generation”
– Contradictory to “peace
& love” message

28. NOTES
• Define/Explain
– Counterculture
– Sexual Revolution
– Woodstock
– Altamont
• What social changes were promoted by the
counterculture (make a list)?
• How did music both reflect & contribute to the
change of this era?