Hippie

Singer at a modern Hippie movement in Russia

A hippie or hippy is a member of a specific subgroup of the counterculture that began in the United States during the early 1960s, spread to other countries, and declined in the mid-1970s. Hippies, along with the New Left and the American Civil Rights Movement, are considered the three dissenting groups of the American 1960s counterculture.

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 Bohemians and the beatniks. Hippies rejected established institutions, criticized middle class values, opposed nuclear weapons (especially in the United Kingdom), opposed the Vietnam War (especially in the U.S.), embraced aspects of non-Judeo-Christian religions, championed sexual liberation, promoted the use of psychedelic drugs to expand one's consciousness, and created intentional communities. Hippies opposed political and social orthodoxy, choosing a gentle and nondoctrinaire ideology that favored peace, love, and personal freedom, perhaps best epitomized by The Beatles' song, All You Need is Love. 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". Noting that they were "seekers of meaning and value," some described hippies as a new religious movement.

After 1965, the hippie ethos influenced the The Beatles and others in the United Kingdom and Europe, and they in turn influenced their American counterparts. By 1968, self-described hippies had become a significant minority, representing just under 0.2 percent of the U.S. population. Hippie culture spread worldwide through a fusion of rock music, folk, blues, and psychedelic rock; it also found expression in literature, the dramatic arts, and the visual arts, including film, posters advertising rock concerts, and album covers. Eventually the hippie movement extended far beyond the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, appearing in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Mexico, Brazil and many other countries. .

Etymology

Main article: Hippie (etymology)

According to lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower, the principal American editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, the terms hipster and hippie derive from the word hip, whose origins are unknown. The term hipster was coined by Harry Gibson in 1940, 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". 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."

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. 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.

History

See also: History of subcultures in the 20th century and History of the United States (1964–1980)

Antecedents

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. Hippies were also influenced by the ideas of Jesus Christ, Hillel the Elder, Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, Krishna, Henry David Thoreau, Madame Blavatsky, Gandhi, and others.

In fin de siècle Europe (1890-1914), a back-to-nature movement began, inspired by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Goethe, Hermann Hesse, and Eduard Baltzer. Thousands of young Germans rejected the rapid trend toward urbanization and attempted to return to the natural, pagan, and spiritual life of their ancestors.

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.

Another influence were members of the Jamaican Rastafari movement who, while openly espousing Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia as God, also wore long hair (called dreadlocks), smoked cannabis as a sacrament, rejected the establishment (which they called Babylon) and espoused a back-to-nature and back-to-their-African-roots philosophy. Due to large scale immigration from Jamaica to the UK during the 1950s, this movement influenced the developing UK hippie movement, with contacts often formed when young whites would buy cannabis from black communities.

Beat generation

Main article: Beat generation

See also: San Francisco Renaissance

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 60s 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, helping him distribute LSD.

In 1963, Ginsberg was living in San Francisco with Neal Cassady and Charles Plymell at 1403 Gough St. (Charles Plymell a few years later 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). 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 1968 Democratic 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

Berkeley, California and The Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada

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. 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.

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.

Starting in June 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 the first primitive light shows combined to create a new sense of community. George Hunter of the Charlatans and Laughlin himself 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.

Psychedelic Rock in San Francisco, 1965–66

See also: San Francisco Sound

The Red Dog Experience

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. On October 16, 1965 the Family Dog hosted San Francisco's first psychedelic rock performance, dance and light show at Longshoreman's Hall, modeled on their experiences at the Red Dog Saloon. Two other events followed before year's end, one at California Hall and one at the Matrix.

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 21–23, 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. The big night, Saturday, January 22, saw the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company on stage, and 6,000 people arrived to imbibe punch spiked with LSD and witness one of the first fully-developed light shows of the era.

Fillmore Auditorium and Avalon Ballroom

By February 1966, the San Francisco psychedelic music scene was poised to come into full flower. 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.

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 Gleason put it, "They danced all night long, orgiastic, spontaneous and completely free form."

Haight-Ashbury

Main article: Haight-Ashbury

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.

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 "dropped out" after they started taking psychedelic drugs. These students joined the bands they loved and began living communally in the large, inexpensive Victorian apartments in the Haight.

Young Americans around the country began moving to San Francisco, and by June 1966, around 15,000 hippies had moved into the Haight.

Diggers

Main article: 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." The Diggers grew from two radical traditions thriving in the area during the mid-1960s: the bohemian underground art/theater scene, and the political movement encompassing the New Left, civil rights proponents and peace activists.

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.

Love Pageant Rally

Main article: Love Pageant Rally

On October 6 1966, the San Francisco hippies staged a gathering in the Golden Gate Park panhandle, called "The Love Pageant Rally." As explained by Allan Cohen, co-founder of the San Francisco Oracle, the purpose of the rally was two-fold — 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. Rather, people 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. Thousands of hits of LSD were distributed free at the rally, and the Grateful Dead played; its huge success drew many more curious seekers to the Haight-Ashbury district.

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 shutdown in 1967.

Drop City

Main article: 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 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 article: 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 16-18 introduced the rock music of the counterculture to a wide audience and marked the start of the "Summer of Love." 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 (75,000-100,000 by police estimates), 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."

While the Haight was the undisputed epicenter of a growing hippie culture, college campuses and cities throughout the United States and as far away as Sweden boasted a vibrant counterculture, including New York's East Village; Chicago's Old Town; Boston; Detroit; Lawrence, Kansas; Vancouver, Canada; and Paris.

New Communalism

See also: Back to the land

When the Summer of Love finally ended, thousands of hippies left San Francisco, a large minority of them heading back to the land, creating the largest number of intentional communities in the history of the United States. Those hippies formed alternative, egalitarian communes in northern California, Colorado, New Mexico, Tennessee, Canada, etc.

The Farm

Main article: 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 1500 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 1700 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 1200.

People's Park

Main article: 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

Main article: Woodstock Festival

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, 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 article: 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. The events at Altamont shocked many Americans, including those who had strongly identified with hippie culture. Another shock came in the form of the Tate and LaBianca murders committed in August 1969 by Charles Manson and his "family" of followers.

Charles Manson

Main article: Charles Manson

Charles Manson was a hard-core, institutionalized criminal who had been released from prison just in time for San Francisco's Summer of Love. With his long hair and the ability to charm a crowd with his guitar playing, his singing, and his rhetoric, Manson exhibited many of the outward manifestations of hippie identity. Yet Manson hardly exemplified the hippie ideals of peace, love, compassion and human fellowship; 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 the American public. Other factors, such as the proliferation of hard drugs and their associated dependency, also contributed to the decline.

Co-optation and decline in the mainstream

By the early 1970s, much of hippie style had been integrated into mainstream American society; hippie music and fashion had become mainstream. 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.

Outside the United States, hippie culture has remained visible as a counter cultural movement, especially in the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia.

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.

Hippies favored long hair for both genders and more facial hair for men than was common at the time. Hippies often wore brightly colored clothing; unusual styles, such as bell-bottom pants, vests, tie-dyed garments, dashikis, peasant blouses, long, full skirts; and non-Western inspired clothing with Native American, African and Latin American motifs. Much of hippie clothing was self-made in protest of corporate culture, and Hippies often purchased their clothes from flea markets and second-hand shops.

Favored accessories included Native American jewelry, head scarves, headbands, long beaded necklaces (for both men and women), cowboy boots and sandals.

Hippie women tended to wear little or no conventional makeup, preferring a more natural look; when makeup was worn it was generally for dramatic effect. Many white people associated with the American Civil Rights Movement and the 1960s counterculture, especially those with curly or "nappy" hair, wore their hair in afros in earnest imitation of African-Americans. "Long-hair" became a pejorative term among those who disliked hippies.

VW Van, 2005

Travel was a prominent feature of hippie culture, both travel within one's country of origin and international travel. 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

The peace symbol was developed in the UK as a logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and was embraced by U.S. anti-war protesters in the 1960s.

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 Convention protests. The degree of political involvement varied widely among hippies, from those who were completely apolitical to Yippies, the most politically active hippie sub-group. 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.

Some Americans, especially conservatives, military personnel, and veterans, saw hippie opposition to the war as a lack of commitment to the principles of American freedom in the Cold War battle against communism. They also felt that even non-violent public demonstrations against the Vietnam War were unpatriotic because they compromised the ability of the United States to prosecute the war. Many Leninist parties in the United States, including the PLP and CPUSA, also opposed or were at least skeptical of the hippie movement because it conflicted with their disciplined, puritanical standards and rigid dogma.

Scott McKenzie's 1967 rendition of John Phillips' song "San Francisco," 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 Memorial Wall. "San Francisco" became a freedom song worldwide, especially in Eastern European nations that suffered under Soviet-imposed communism. Other songs, such as Lloyd Marcus' "Welcome Home Brother," have given voice to Vietnam veterans who felt disrespected by hippies and who lamented that fellow Americans never properly honored them for their sacrifices in serving the nation.

Although hippies were sometimes accused of verbally attacking soldiers returning home from duty in Vietnam, or participating in the torching of ROTC buildings on college campuses, with the exception of a small radical fringe element, hippies did not verbally assault military personnel and did not condone acts of political violence. With the release of FBI records under the Freedom of Information Act, it has become clear that many such attacks were actually perpetrated by FBI COINTELPRO agents provocateurs operating on J. Edgar Hoover's instructions to discredit those who opposed the Vietnam War.

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.

Sexual attitudes

File:Nambassa 1978. Photographer unknown.jpg

Nambassa 1978.

Hippies regularly flouted societal prohibitions against interracial dating and marriage. They were early advocates for the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws that the Supreme Court of the United States declared unconstitutional in 1967 (Loving v. Virginia), but which remained on the books in some U.S. states until 2000, albeit unenforced.

With their emphasis on Free Love, hippies promoted many of the same counterculture beliefs that found early expression in the Beat Generation. Co-habitation among unmarried couples was the norm, open relationships were common, and both Beats and Hippies advocated for legal and societal acceptance of most forms of consensual sexual expression among adults.

With regard to homosexuality and bisexuality, the Beats had demonstrated early tolerance during an era when homosexual expression of any sort was still punishable by stiff prison sentences. Hippies generally espoused the same tolerant attitude.

Hippies, as in the movie Woodstock and the photo (left), were casual about open nudity.

Drugs

As did the Beats before them, most hippies used cannabis, which they considered pleasureful 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 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."

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."

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. Heroin, for example, was banned from the Stonehenge Free Festival.

Lifestyle

Any attempt to list the beliefs and preferences of a large group of people can be at best a generalization. Within any group, opinions and tastes will vary. Yet even among a group dedicated to non-conformity, many tendencies exist:

• The twin ideals of peace and love were and are paramount.
• Performing music casually, often with guitars, in private homes and outdoors in parks and music festivals
• Preference for any of the following types of music:
  • Psychedelic rock such as Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, early Pink Floyd, later Beatles, and Jefferson Airplane.
  • Blues such as Janis Joplin.
  • Traditional Eastern music, particularly from India, such as Ravi Shankar.
  • Rock music with eastern influences such as The Beatles.
  • Soulful funk such as Sly & The Family Stone.
  • Jam bands such as the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band.
  • Folk music such as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.
  • Folk rock such as The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield.
  • More recently, reggae.
  • Bluegrass (in the case of neo-hippies).
• Interracial dating and marriage, rejection of anti-miscegenation laws (e.g. apartheid South Africa).
• Free love, including open relationships and most consensual forms of sexual expression, except sex with children. Traditional legal constructs and religious teachings that prohibited non-procreative sex outside the bounds of marriage were widely flouted--premarital sex, extramarital sex, bisexuality and tolerance towards homosexuals. (See also: Sexual revolution).
• Communal living.
• Recreational drug use (as opposed to drug dependence), usually limited to psychedelic drugs such as cannabis, mescaline, salvia, psilocybin and LSD. Tendency to reject the Establishment's psychoactive drugs, which were and are legal, including alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and psychiatric drugs.
• A fondness for nudity--especially being nude (naturism), as opposed to objectifying nude performers and images.
• Use of incense.
• Belief in Eastern spiritual concepts, such as karma and reincarnation; interest in Hindu and Buddhist religious philosophies is common.
• Belief that spiritual advancement leads to increased psychic ability, e.g., the ability to see the human aura. A vegetarian lifestyle was often considered important in this regard because it was thought to cleanse the body of impurities and "negative vibrations".
• Belief that a corrupt Establishment was abusing Mother Earth led hippies to participate in recycling and support environmentalism.
• Belief in astrology, tarot and I Ching divination.
• A mellow outlook on life, and a belief that the temporal world is a manifestation of human thought and consciousness.
• Elements of Romanticism and Transcendentalist philosophy are evident in hippie music, prose and other artistic expressions.
• Rejection of the typical American diet and, instead, exploration of vegetarianism, fasting, natural food (including whole foods and organic food), more foods from the Third World, and many other alternatives.
• Less competitive forms of exercise, such as foot bag (Hacky Sack), frisbees, handstands, dancing, snake-dancing (martial art), surfing, devil sticks (though referred to as "spin sticks" so as to not make a reference to the devil), and cycling.
• Alternative ways of making a living, especially not supporting the military-industrial complex, capitalism, wage-slavery, "keeping up with the Joneses", etc. For most hippies, reduced incomes or poverty.
• Female equality. The second wave of feminism was simultaneous with the hippie movement. However, the relationship between hippies (especially hippie males) and feminism was complex and often confrontational.
• Raising children more lovingly and peacefully, often with less coercive schooling and with more freedom.
• Natural birth, breastfeeding, no circumcision.
• Alternative media, including underground newspapers, the hipper rock 'n' roll radio stations, campus and community radio, movies promoting hip subjects and attitudes (art films, non-U.S. films, etc.). Tendency to reject television and to entertain themselves.
• Acceptance of those who participate in any of the above, even if they themselves choose not to.

Travel

See also: Hippie trail

Hand-crafted Hippie Truck 1968

Hippie Truck Interior

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 enormous freedom of movement. People generally co-operated 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.

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.

Hippies in the media

Some films depict (with varying degrees of accuracy), or were influenced by the hippie ethos and lifestyle, among them Woodstock, Easy Rider, Hair, The Doors, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Crumb. In the 1997-2002 TV sitcom Dharma and Greg, Dharma's parents are hippies. In the show South Park, one of Eric Cartman's biggest hates is hippies, and one episode (Die Hippie, Die) was devoted to him stopping hippies from taking over South Park. The 1971 Indian movie Hare Rama Hare Krishna starring Dev Anand was also based on hippies, where the hero goes to find his sister lost among Hippies. In an episode of Stargate SG-1 (1969) the SG-1 team accidentally time-travels to the year 1969 and hitchhikes with a hippie couple to Washington, DC. In the 2005 press Victor Le Soir (Hippie Sylvain Wojak ) suplement newspaper article on the movement hippie Hippies Hip Hip Hip sylvain le flower surfeur An episode of Animaniacs, entitled Woodstock Slappy, demonstrates the reaction of Slappy Squirrel to the hippy Woodstock convention of 1969, and even features Skippy Squirrel embracing the Hippie culture.

Legacy

Since the 1960s, many aspects of the hippie counterculture have been assimilated by the mainstream. However, some of these societal changes are not necessarily direct results of the hippie culture.

Interracial dating and marriage have become common and generally accepted. Multiracial children of such unions, like Tiger Woods and Keanu Reeves, enjoy a certain cachet. 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, 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. A wide range of personal appearance options and clothing styles have become acceptable, all of which were uncommon before the hippie era. 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.

At the Rainbow World Gathering 2006 in Costa Rica

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 music, the blending of folk rock into newer forms including acid rock and heavy metal; in television and film, far greater visibility and influence, even in children's educational shows such as Mulligan Stew. College students during the 1970s became restless, anti-authoritarian activists on campuses around the globe, from Latin America to Burma, where radical students captured the coffin of U Thant in 1974.

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. Hippies may be found in bohemian enclaves around the world, or "touring" with the bands they love. Others have been following the hippie lifestyle since it began, though their ranks may include younger people who do not consider themselves "neo-hippies."

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 2003-2005 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 article: 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 alternative methods include drumming circles, community singing, meditation, yoga, and dance.)

Many of today's neo-hippies were part of the "Dead-head" and "Phish-head" communities, attending music and art festivals around the United States. Bands performing at these festivals are called "Jam Bands", since their songs contain long instrumentals similar to the original hippie bands of the 1960s. Psychedelic Trance music is also popular.

The biggest hippie jam fest is called The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. It is a four-day, multi-stage, summer camping festival held on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee, and it is reminiscent of the festivals of the 1960s, but with the demise of the Grateful Dead and Phish, the nomadic touring hippies are left without a seminal jam band to follow. Instead, the modern nomadic touring hippie can attend a growing series of summer festivals, such as Wakarusa, Langerado, Bonnaroo, etc.

Rainbow Family

Main article: Rainbow Family

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.

Stonehenge Free Festival

Main article: Stonehenge Free Festival

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 Free Festival at Stonehenge in 1974, especially Wally Hope, until the English Heritage legally banned the festival resulting in the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985.

Glastonbury Festival

Main article: Glastonbury Festival

Glastonbury Festival 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.

Nambassa

Main article: Nambassa

Hippies at the Nambassa 1981 Festival New Zealand

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.

Oregon Country Fair

Main article: Oregon Country Fair

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 fourth largest city in the state.

Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival

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.

Burning Man

Main article: Burning Man

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.

10KLF

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. See www.10klf.com

See also

• List of hippie-related topics

References

• Binkley, Sam. (2002). Hippies. St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture. FindArticles.com.
• Booth, Martin. (2004). Cannabis: A History. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-32220-8
• Brand, Stewart. (Spring, 1995). We Owe it All to the Hippies. Time.
• Bugliosi, Vincent. Gentry, Curt. (1994). Helter Skelter. V. W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 0-393-32223-8
• Dudley, William. (Ed.). (2000). The 1960s (America's decades). San Diego: Greenhaven Press.
• Gaskin, Stephen. (1970). Monday Night Class. The Book Farm. ISBN 1-57067-181-8.
• Heath, Joseph. Potter, Andrew. (2004). Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture. Collins. ISBN 0-06-074586-X
• Hirsch, E.D. (1993). The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-65597-8
• 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
• Kennedy, Gordon (1998) Children of the Sun Nivaria Press ISBN 0-9668898-0-0
• 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
• Pendergast, Tom. Pendergast, Sara. (Eds.). (2005). Sixties Counterculture: The Hippies and Beyond. The Sixties in America Reference Library. Vol. 1: Almanac. Detroit. 151-171. 4 vols. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Thomson Gale.
• Perry, Charles. (2005). The Haight-Ashbury: A History. Wenner Books; Reprint edition. ISBN 1-932958-55-X
• Stone, Skip. (2000). Hippies From A to Z: Their Sex, Drugs, Music and Impact on Society From the Sixties to the Present Hip Publishing. ISBN 1-930258-01-1 Also available FREE online here.
• Tamony, Peter. (Summer, 1981). Tripping out from San Francisco. American Speech. Vol. 56, No. 2. pp. 98-103.
• Time-Life Books. (1998). Turbulent Years: The 60s (Our American Century). ISBN 0-7835-5503-2
• Tompkins, Vincent. (Ed.). (2001). Hippies. American Decades. Vol. 7: 1960-1969. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 10 vols. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Thomson Gale.
• Turner, Fred. (2006). From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-81741-5
• Wolfe, Tom. (1981). The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York, Bantam.
• Yablonsky, Lewis. (1968)The Hippie Trip. Pegasus. ISBN 0-595-00116-5
• Young, Shawn David. (2005). Hippies, Jesus Freaks, and Music. Ann Arbor: Xanedu/Copley Original Works. ISBN 1-59399-201-7

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
• Harold Hill: A People's History - Seize the Time
• 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
• Alice Bay Laurel Author of hippie DIY bible Living on the Earth.