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Counterculture movement
Counterculture of the 1950s
The impact of woodstock
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Peace and music over powered the 600-acre dairy farm in the town of Bethel, New York 46 years ago. The Woodstock Music and Art Fair was a festival known as an “Aquarian Exposition of three days.” For an audience of 400,000 people, 32 acts performed outdoors. Woodstock was a crucial moment in music history as it changed the world of rock ‘n’ roll. The festival connected the 1960s counterculture generation through the power of music. Art and new ideas were the main historical force that changed society August 15th through the 17th in 1969, leaving a powerful influence on the Western world between the late 1960s and mid 1970s.
Hippies, also known as the counterculture, were longhaired people who wore bright colors and held up peace signs. The counterculture came to be in the early 1960s. They lived mostly in hippie districts located in San Francisco, New York City, and Old Town Chicago. Gardens, head shops, and music
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venues were located within these districts providing a cheap and different ways of living. Within the districts, the economic history force began to change in these parts of the United States because hippies wanted a lower and simpler cost of living. The generation encouraged the experimental use of psychedelic drugs and music for a different way of thinking. Folksy music by Bob Dylan and the Beatles were some of the many artists the generation enjoyed. Drugs and music were influencing the hippies’ ideas of life and the way they viewed art. One of the biggest ideas the counterculture expressed was free love. Free love was a way to fight against the societal problems with gender inequality, war, and racial discrimination. Personal identities began to change in the 1960s, especially within the counterculture. Gender roles did not have a large distinction between men and women, and racial discrimination wasn’t on any of their minds. “The New Age of Aquarius” was also on the rise. The people of this culture conformed to Buddhism, Confucianism and Western spiritualism. Religion and philosophy took a large turn during this time in the rise of the counterculture as Christianity began to decline. Overall, the counterculture was one of the first generations within the United States to completely change part of the American culture, and brought fourth new thoughts on how to live life. As the 1960’s progressed, tension in American society sprung due to the Vietnam War. The middle-class youth made up the majority of the counterculture, so they had down time to focus their attention on political issues in the United States. The counterculture didn’t agree with the cultural standards of the United States and those older than them. Problems were specifically focused on the initial support people had in the United States for the Vietnam War. The politics and government history force held a high influence during this time of change. The Vietnam War hurt the young adult population and families of those who enlisted. Some Americans found the movement to reflect American ideals of free speech and equality, while others thought of it to reflect pointless rebellious acts and very unpatriotic. In the end, authorities ended political gatherings and the counterculture started to collapsed once civil rights, liberties, equality, and the end of the Vietnam War were complete. During the rise of the counterculture, one of the most peaceful and grooviest events in music history took place, Woodstock. John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfield, and Michael Lang wanted to hold the rock ‘n’ roll festival to raise money to construct a recording studio near the town of Woodstock, New York. Roberts and Rosenman financed the festival, while Land promoted the concert since he had organized a smaller festival, Miami Pop, the year before. Roberts and Rosenman were entrepreneurs and were in the process of building a large audio recording studio in Manhattan. Land and Kornfeld were also involved with the recording studio and were advised by their lawyer, Miles Lourie, to recommend a similar, but smaller studio in Woodstock, New York. Roberts and Rosenman were interested in the “Studio-in-the-Woods” proposal and decided to organize a concert featuring the kind of artists known to the Woodstock area for funding. So, the idea for Woodstock was created in January of 1969, but there was much preparation needed to be planned. There wasn’t a proper size venue in the town of Woodstock, so the festival was held at Max Yasgur’s 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York. Kornfeld’s cousin, Lenore, was neighbors with the nephew of Yasgur. Kornfeld asked Lenore to give Yasgur’s nephew his number to get in contact about holding the festival at his farm. Yasgur agreed, and his dairy farm became the most important location in music history. Roberts, Rosenman, Kornfield, and Lang wanted the event to be three days of peace, which is a similar idea of how people like Gandhi organized events and protested for change. By the weekend of the event, a total of 186,000 tickets were sold and no more than 200,000 people were expected to show. Once Friday night had arrived, thousand of people wanted to enter the farm. Since the crowd was doubled than what was expected, promoters decided to make the concert free. The roads around the town of Bethel were packed with eight miles of traffic. After Woodstock, Yasgur was sued by his neighbors for property damages caused by Woodstock, and his property also faced large damages. Less than a year after the festival, he received a 50,000-dollar settlement and sold his farm two years later. Max Yasgur died at age 53 due to a heart attack. His specific role in Woodstock earned him a full-page obituary in Rolling Stone Magazine, which was “very uncommon and an honor for a non-musician.” It was a rainy weekend during Woodstock, but that didn’t stop the weekend of music and peace.
The crowd was filled with 400,000 people who were part of the counterculture generation. They watched 32 artists perform over the three-day weekend. Janis Joplin, Santana, Grateful Dead, and Jimi Hendrix were some of the many who played for the massive crowd. Muddy roads and fields caused facilities to not be accessible or provide sanitation and first aid to the large amount of concertgoers. On Sunday, August 17th, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller called Roberts and told him he wanted to order “10,000 New York State National Guard troops to the Woodstock festival.” Roberts was able to convince Rockefeller not to order in the troops, but the Sullivan County entered a state of emergency and had the nearby Air Force Base help airlift the performers out of the grounds. Jimi Hendrix was the last performer and didn’t go on stage until Monday morning at 8:30. The audience was now only 30,000 people who wanted to catch a glimpse of Hendrix before leaving
Woodstock. The sound of the concert was put together by an engineer named Billy Hanley. He had built special speaker columns to be placed on the hills. There were also “16 loudspeaker array towers going up the 70-foot hill.” The speaker set up was created to provide sound for 150,000 to 200,00 people, but double the expected amount showed up to Woodstock. Systems used for concerts similar to the Woodstock’s set up are referred to as “the Woodstock Bins.” Few reporters from outside the area were able to be at the concert. The media that covered the first few days of the festival focused on the problems of the concert. One headline reads “Hippies Mired in a Sea of Mud.” Toward the, end more positive coverage was produced because parents of concertgoers told the media their reporting was misleading based on their children’s phone calls. A documentary directed by Michael Wadleigh was filmed during the weekend and titled “Woodstock.” Kornfeld went to Fred Weintraub, a Warner Bros executive, and asked for money to film the Woodstock festival. Weintraub put his job on the line and gave Kornfeld 100,000 dollars to make the documentary. The Woodstock documentary ended up helping save the Warner Bros who at the time was about to go out of business. A crew of about 100 people from the New York film scene gathered up and were told they would be paid double-or-nothing. Double-or-nothing meant the crew would receive double the pay if the film was a success. The focus of the film was about the hippies and music performed at Woodstock. Their feelings about the festival and their thoughts on the Vietnam War were explored. The documentary “Woodstock” was released in 1970 and received an Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The Academy Award was the success the crew had hoped for. Overall, the festival was peaceful given the large amount of people who went. Woodstock met the expectations of the counterculture generation, which was a sense of social peace, quality music, bohemian fashion, and positive attitudes. There could have been potential for disaster and catastrophe, but the crowd spent three days with music and peace on their minds. The counterculture generation wanted to turn the problems of America into hope for a brighter and peaceful future. Around 80 lawsuits were filed against Woodstock, mainly by the farmers in the area. The documentary “Woodstock” financed the settlements and paid off the 1.4 million-dollars of debt. In 1984, a plaque was presented at the farm to celebrate the rock ‘n’ roll festival. Today, the field and stage area remain, and a concert hall was built in 2009 on a hill within the grounds. The fields of Max Yasgur’s farm are still visited by people. For many, the festival was seen as a victory of peace and love.
The Woodstock Music & Art Festival took place on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, August 15th, 16th, and 17th, 1969. As you can imagine, a concert like Woodstock would have had to be planned very carefully. It didn’t just happen.
...g force. One thing that I am certain of is that Woodstock, like any icon, should have never been duplicated. They attempted this in 1994 and again in 1999. Sequels never measure up to the original. People even try to imitate icons with no success. Madonna and Anna Nicole Smith both tried to be Marilyn Monroe, but there is only one Marilyn. To be able to recreate Woodstock, you would also have to be able to recreate Vietnam, The Civil Rights Movement, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The fact that Woodstock can’t be copied is what makes it an Icon. I only wish that I could have been there.
The muddiest four days in history were celebrated in a drug-induced haze in Sullivan County, New York (Tiber 1). Music soared through the air and into the ears of the more than 450,000 hippies that were crowded into Max Yasgur's pasture. "What we had here was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence," said Bethel town historian Bert Feldmen. "Dickens said it first: 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times'. It's an amalgam that will never be reproduced again" (Tiber 1). It also closed the New York State Thruway and created one of the nation's worst traffic jams (Tiber 1). Woodstock, with its rocky beginnings, epitomized the culture of that era through music, drug use, and the thousands of hippies who attended, leaving behind a legacy for future generations.
In 1961, previous to the outbreak of Occupy Wall Streets of Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park was filled with three–thousand young beatnik protestors. Playing instruments and singing folk music symbolized the starvation that these young folks wanted of freedom and equality for America. Protestors demonstrated mixed cultures, individualistic beliefs that went against the status quo of America after the post-war years. The Beatnik Riot involved young traditional Americans fighting not just for the musical crisis of that time, but for the social, racial, and cultural segregations that were brought on by the years of war.
The Woodstock festival descended on Bethel, New York promising three days of peace and music. Event organizers anticipated 15,000 people would attend but were overwhelmed by the 300,000 people that flooded this rural area of New York state from August 15 -17, 1969. While these facts are well known and indisputable, the festival itself has proven to be a controversial endeavor. What began as a small business venture was soon brimming with the controversy of an entire decade. It becomes clear when examining the strikingly different accounts of the festival that reactions varied depending on the fundamental values and personal circumstances specific to each observer and to the underlying motives of the historian describing the event.
Along with the peak of several movements music began to reach a point of climax. Rock specifically began to flourish in the 1960’s, while expressing the voice of the liberated generation. It is the power of such trends that overall lead to what is known as the greatest music festival of all time: Woodstock Music and Art Fair. The festival started on August 15, 1969 on Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York. Appealing to the time period, Woodstock was designed to be Three Days of Peace and Music. However, many argue that it was more than just a musical art fair of peace, but a historically significant event that shifted American culture. While some regard Woodstock as the beginning of a cultural advancement and the end of a naïve era, others view it as ridiculous hippy festival infested with illegal drug usage. Woodstock cost over $2.4 million and attracted over 450,000 people (Tiber, 1). Despite the debate of whether Woodstock produced a positive or negative effect, it is clear that a note worthy impact was made. When discussing the overall impact of Woodstock it is important to look at the influences and creative plan and the positive and negative effects produced from the festival.
Zeinab Atwa Senior English/ Pd. 3 Ms. Ruiz Dec. 5/ 2017. History of the hippie movement The movement that began during the counterculture era in the 1960s, also known as the youth movement, rebelled against the conformity of American life. The main goal the hippie movement was trying to accomplish was being able to change views and ideas politically, socially, and culturally. However, they mainly aimed at changing cultural and everyday values.
More than any other countercultural group, hippies reflected a deep discontent with technocracy- society’s reliance on scientific experts who ruled coldly and dispassionately and who wielded enormous power. Hippies said good-bye to that and hello to the mystical spirit, oneness with the universe- life as passion, passion as life, harmony, and understanding. The...
Many large concerts occurred throughout America in the summer of 1969, but none were as well known and symbolic as Woodstock. Its message was clear; three days of Peace and Music. Its impact on America’s culture and society as well as its youth will not be forgotten for many years to come.
During the sixties Americans saw the rise of the counterculture. The counterculture, which was a group of movements focused on achieving personal and cultural liberation, was embraced by the decade’s young Americans. Because many Americans were members of the different movements in the counterculture, the counterculture influenced American society. As a result of the achievements the counterculture movements made, the United States in the 1960s became a more open, more tolerant, and freer country.
Unlike the society before this movement, the hippie did not try to change America through violence, the hippie tried to change things through peace and love. The Hippie Movement was a moment during the mid 1960s through the early 1070s where sex, drugs and Rock-n-Roll, was at the forefront of mainstream society. No one really knows the true definition of a Hippie, but a formal definition describes the hippie as one who does not conform to social standards, advocating a liberal attitude and lifestyle. Phoebe Thompson wrote, “Being a hippie is a choice of philosophy. Hippies are generally antithetical to structured hierarchies, such as church, government, and social castes. The ultimate goal of the hippie movement is peace, attainable only through love and toleration of the earth and each other. Finally, a hippie needs freedom, both physical freedom to experience life and mental freeness to remain open-minded” (Thompson12-13). Many questions are asked when trying to figure out how this movement reached so many of America’s youth, and what qualities defined a hippie as a hippie?
Hippies were often portrayed as criminals, subversive to the morals and best interest of the public. Although misunderstood, the hippie had a great impact throughout the country, still surviving today in American culture. The term “hippie” itself became a universal term in the late 1960s. It originated in a 1967 article in Ramparts, entitled “The Social History of the Hippies.” Afterward, the name was captured by the mass media as a label for the people of the new movement.
When people hear the term hippie, they think of men and woman in loose clothing with flowers weaved in their hair. Although these men and women did in fact wear these things, they left a significant impact on society. Hippies were a part of the Counterculture movement, which basic ideals were to reject the ideas of mainstream society. The movement itself began with the protesting of the Vietnam War. Eventually, the movement was more than just protesting the war. Hippies promoted the use of recreational drugs, religious tolerance; they also changed society’s views and attitudes about lifestyle and social behavior. The Counterculture movement was the most influential era in the 20th century because the people of this time changed society’s outlook, and broached the topics of drugs, fashion, and sexual freedom.
The sixties was a decade of liberation and revolution, a time of great change and exciting exploration for the generations to come. It was a time of anti-war protests, free love, sit-ins, naked hippie chicks and mind-altering drugs. In big cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Paris, there was a passionate exchange of ideas, fiery protests against the Vietnam War, and a time for love, peace and equality. The coming together of like-minded people from around the world was spontaneous and unstoppable. This group of people, which included writers, musicians, thinkers and tokers, came to be known as the popular counterculture, better known as hippies. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius in the late sixties was more than just a musical orgy. It was a time of spiritual missions to fight for change and everything they believed in. Freedom, love, justice, equality and peace were at the very forefront of this movement (West, 2008). Some wore beads. Some had long hair. Some wore tie-dye and others wore turtle-neck sweaters. The Hippie generation was a wild bunch, to say the least, that opened the cookie jar of possibilities politically, sexually, spiritually and socially to forever be known as one of the most memorable social movements of all time (Hippie Generation, 2003).
San Francisco was originally a port known for sailors stopping to do drugs, drink, and use prostitutes. In 1921, attempts were made to make the city more inviting and less of a pleasure-filling city (Hoshyns 11). Later, in the 1950s, counterculture called the Beats formed. They paved the way for the hippies by smoking weed and listening to jazz music (Sixties). The hippies took the Beats’ ideas and changed them to fit different standards. Haight-Ashbury was the beginning of the hippie movement and it changed the county with its music, community, and loving atmosphere.