10th American History Unit V A Nation Facing Challenges

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10th American HistoryUnit V A Nation Facing
Challenges

• Chapter 20 Section 3
• Culture and Counterculture

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1960s Almanac - 54 min.
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Overview of the 1960s 103 min.
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Culture and Counterculture

• The Main Idea
• The counterculture that emerged in the 1960s and
  1970s left a lasting impact on American life.
• Reading Focus
• What led to the rise of the counterculture?
• What was life like in the counterculture?
• How did mainstream American society react to the
  counterculture?
• What legacy did the counterculture leave behind?

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The Rise of the Counterculture

• The counterculture of the 1960s was a rebellion
  of teens and young adults against mainstream
  American society.
• Young Americans believed that societys values
  were hollow and its priorities were misplaced.
• They called the mainstream the Establishment.
• They wanted to create an alternative culture
  based on peace and love.

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"On the Bus" Ken Kesey and the Counterculture of
the 1960s - 120
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Where did the counterculture come from?
The number of teens and young adults in the
United States rose dramatically in the 1960s.
These young people were living in turbulent
times threat of nuclear war, racial
discrimination and segregation, the Vietnam War,
and environmental pollution.
Rebellion against the dominant culture was not
new. The Beat generation of the 1950s questioned
traditional values, challenged authority, and
experimented with non-conformist lifestyles.
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Rising Student Activism

• Students on college campuses began rebelling
  against school policies they considered
  restrictive, unjust, or not relevant.
• At the University of California at Berkeley
  students protested when school officials banned
  speech making and political organizing at the
  entrances to the campus.
• The events at Berkeley marked the beginning of
  the Free Speech Movement, which swept campuses
  across the nation.
• The students used the tactics of civil
  disobedience to protest injustices.
• Mainstream Americans were shocked as they
  expected young people not to question authority.

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Life in the counterculture

• Counterculture
• Thousands of teens and young adults left school,
  jobs, and traditional home life.
• Rejected materialism and the work ethic of the
  older generation
• Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco

• Hippie Culture
• Sought new experiences
• Eastern religions, astrology, the occult, and
  illegal drugs
• Casual and colorful clothes
• Men began wearing longer hair, beards, or Afros.
• Flower children

• Decline
• Height of hippie movement was summer of 1967
  (Summer of Love)
• Freedoms often led to problems with addiction
• No means of supporting themselves
• Lack of rules led to conflicts

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Mainstream Reactions to the Counterculture
Some observers of the counterculture were put off
by the unkempt appearance of hippies.
On a deeper level, many mainstream Americans
objected to the unconventional values of the
counterculture. They saw hippies as
disrespectful, uncivilized, and threatening.
To many in the Establishment, it appeared that
society was unraveling. The television show All
in the Family highlighted the older generations
distrust of the counterculture and the younger
generations desire to change society.
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Legacy of the Counterculture

• Attitudes
• Americans became more casual in the way they
  dressed and more open-minded about lifestyles and
  social behavior.
• Attitudes about sexual behavior loosened.
• People explored topics that were once taboo.

• Art and Film
• New style called pop art emerged.
• Aimed to appeal to popular tastes
• Andy Warhol led the movement.
• Film broadened its subject matter as censorship
  rules relaxed.
• Film industry adopted a rating system.

• Music
• The Beatles brought new techniques and ideas to
  rock and roll.
• Bob Dylan wrote political songs and became the
  spokesperson for his generation.
• Woodstock Music and Art Fair was the celebration
  of an era.

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The Woodstock Generation - 231
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Woodstock 1969

• No where was counterculture so celebrated as at
  the mass music festivals of the late sixties,
  culminating in the Woodstock festival in 1969. A
  ticket for one day cost 6-8 a 3-day ticket
  18-24.
• Three days of Peace and Music." August 15, 16,
  and 17, 1969.
• 450,000 kids
• 100 miles from New York City
• In a matter of minutes, the festival became a
  free event
• People parked their cars as far as 20 miles away.
  Once you arrived, you had to stay there was
  nowhere to go. There was no place to sleep, no
  place to bathe, no place to eat... no place to
  nothin'.

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Woodstock 1969

• Woodstock hoped to draw a crowd of 150,000 for a
  celebration of a communal spirit and to hear some
  of the most popular rock acts of the day.
• The festival started on Friday, August 15, 1969,
  and the crowds quickly grew to number over
  450,000, causing massive traffic jams, logistical
  nightmares, shortages of food and medical
  supplies, and potential problems of crowd
  control.
• On Saturday, the gates were opened to accommodate
  the many thousands who arrived without tickets.
  The music was almost nonstop, the rains came,
  drug use was widespread, sanitary conditions were
  primitive, bad acid trips were a constant
  problem, yet somehow it all worked out.
• Richie Havens Country Joe McDonald Jimi
  Hendrix John Sebastian Crosby, Stills, Nash
  Young Melanie Arlo Guthrie CCR, Janis Joplin
  Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead.
• A few months later, a similar gathering was held
  at a racetrack in Altamont, California, and
  turned ugly when members of the Hell's Angels
  attacked and killed a man near the stage where
  the Rolling Stones were performing.

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Rebellion and the Counterculture

• Problems- escalating war in Vietnam, the
  incomplete success of the Great Society and the
  civil rights movement.
• The pursuit of sex, drugs, and rock and roll
  became the preoccupation- Tune in, turn on and
  drop out. Communes arose.
• The counter-culture lifestyle stressedfreedom,p
  eace,love tolerance,getting back to
  nature,the power of the group. You're either on
  the bus or off the bus. Do your own thing,
  Tell it like it is, and experimentation with
  drugs and more extensive sexual activity.
  Better living through chemistry.
• San Francisco was a major hub. Young people
  across the country emulated aspects of the hippie
  lifestyle.
• The hippie lifestyle appeared on television, in
  the movies, and on Broadway.
• Americans became fascinated with everything from
  East Asian clothing to Hindu mysticism. Among the
  most eager consumers of mysticism were the
  residents of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco.
• The hippie counterculture came with a uniform
  long hair, tie-dyed shirts, jeans, protest
  buttons, long flowered skirts. Just as the hippie
  look was considerably more relaxed than
  prevailing standards, hippie sexual mores were
  generally looser than those of the general
  populace. Nevertheless, their actions made an
  impact on the larger society, changing the role
  of sex in American society. A hippie is someone
  who dresses like Tarzan, has hair like Jane, and
  smells like Cheetah."--California governor
  Ronald Reagan

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Rebellion and the Counterculture

• The Supreme Court decided in 1962 that prayer in
  the public schools was unconstitutional.
• As the 1960's progressed, many young people
  turned from mainstream Protestant religions to
  mystic eastern religions such as Transcendental
  Meditation (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) or Zen
  Buddhism.
• Respect for authority declined among the youth,
  and crime rates soared to nine times the rate of
  the 1950's.
• Marijuana use soared. Respected figures such as
  Timothy Leary encouraged the use of LSD as a
  mind-opening drug.
• A number dropped out into communal living. One
  dictionary definition of a classic commune is 'a
  relatively small, often rural, community whose
  members share common interests, work and income
  and often own property collectively'. But the
  commune idea can take many forms

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Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) Psychedelic
Drugs and the Counterculture 350