Essay The Hippie Movement of 1960s America

Why these people have to join counter culture movement? They have dissatisfaction and criticism of the mainstream culture and existing systems. Sympathy for the minorities and women, even the desire for peace are a common feature of these movements. I believe that many the participants of counter-cultural movement are also member of the New Left Movement.

Many disobeyed the authority such as Rosa Parks when she was asked to get off a bus because she was african american. Hugh Hefner struggled to control his emotions as he launched his magazine playboy. Jack Kerouac did not fit in with the group and he wrote a book called on the road, this was not the “normal” thing for kids to do, most would instead dance and listen to rock n roll music. Don't even think about sex was broken by many people in various ways. Gregory Pincus invented the pill which would rebel by influencing more people to have sex, with the idea in mind that they wouldn't get pregnant. Margaret Sanger popularized the term “birth control” and opened the first birth control clinic in the US. These all made a major impact on American culture as people today still discuss these and follow some of the

As World War Two came to a close, a new American culture was developing all across the United States. Families were moving away from crowded cities into spacious suburban towns to help create a better life for them during and after the baby boom of the post-war era. Teenagers were starting to become independent by listing to their own music and not wearing the same style of clothing as their parents. Aside from the progress of society that was made during this time period, many people still did not discuss controversial issues such as divorce and sexual relations between young people. While many historians regard the 1950s as a time of true conservatism at its finest, it could really be considered a time of true progression in the

Hippies represent the ideological, naive nature that children possess. They feel that with a little love and conectedness, peace and equality will abound. It is with this assumption that so many activists and reformers, inspired by the transformation that hippies cultivated, have found the will to persist in revolutionizing social and political policy. Their alternative lifestyles and radical beleifs were the shocking blow that American culture-- segregation, McCarthyism, unjust wars, censorship--needed to prove that some Americans still had the common sense to care for one another. The young people of the sixties counterculture movement were successful at awakening awareness on many causes that are being fought in modern

The hippie movements of the sixties were driven by a plethora of factors. There were many new technologies that were being introduced in this period, a war against Communism around the globe, internal struggles against several types of injustices, a growing drug culture, and several other important developments. To say the least, it was a volatile period in American history and many sub-cultures were actively seeking to carve out new paths that were starkly different than the traditional norms. These generations who rejected traditional culture helped carve out a new trajectory for the United States and the movements influences can still be felt to this day.

The counterculture and hippies are becoming extremely popular in our society today. The hippie culture focused on outward signs of nonconformity. The counterculture promoted rock music, free love, and the use of psychedelic drugs. Haight-Ashbury is the place is if you want to be a part of the culture, and go to San Francisco and be a part of love. The counterculture is about new ideas, and going against the social norms. The bright colors, feathers, leather, and hair. There are pop art and rock music. Go have fun, and be a part of the

The 1960’s were a time of radical change. It was a decade where people began to question authority, and time of confrontation. The decade's radicalism began with the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November of 1963. This event changed the country's idealistic views, and started an upheaval of civil rights movements. Baby boomers started a new perception, and formalized the act of resistance to war. There were also many of whom, turned violent and rebellious; in their effort to fight "the system."

The whole hippie culture all together was totally against social norms, what society wanted to see, how everyone else lived, and what they believed in. The hippie culture’s main moto was “make love, not war”. They were strongly against war and the Vietnam War, which was going on during the same time the hippie culture was popular. They thought that everyone should have acceptance of the universe. They wanted to see change in the world, global

Early on, women took the lead in the prison reform and temperance movement. Those movements quickly led to a growing abolitionist movement, under the leadership of Emma Willard, Susan B. Anthony, and Carrie Chapman Catt led all reform movements in energy and ambition. Although their “Declaration of Rights of Women” failed to gain women the right to vote, the momentum led to a change in many state laws regarding women’s issues. Although the abolition of slavery was not successful, William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe became wildly successful in gathering support. Idealistic communes such as found in New Harmony, Brook Farm, and Nauvoo spread the message reform, peace, and self-reliance for those seeking religious freedom. Since most of the incarcerated were the poor, this period of the “common man” sought to rectify all such moral ills. The reformers sought to equalize the social classes by providing a free and better education for the poor. This cause, espoused by Horace Mann and others, was instrumental in sparking the frame of education which would spread though the Untied States like wildfire. The populist movement comprised mainly of farmers met to discuss reform for the common agriculturalist. And although the immigrants fought against fierce prejudice from the nativists, they too found changes in public schools and modernized

The 1960s Hippie movement was a major point in the American history. In the 1960s a certain class of young people associated their lifestyles with the ideas of freedom, peace, and love. Hippies acted against white upper middle class lifestyle because they thought it was based on the wrong ideology. Hippies were against consumerism and American suburban life of the late 1950s and early 1960s was embodied in itself the idea of consumerism. Hippies, on the other hand, felt better about communal life with equal distribution of social goods. Traditional “bigger share” and consumerist greed as concepts of American society were despised by Hippies.

John Lennon of the famous rock band, The Beatles, once said, “If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace”. This quote essentially defines the 1960s and the counterculture movement in America. After WWII people had much more free time than they did during the war, and many people decided that they wanted to settle down and start a family. This caused a large boom in child birth. The children born during this boom are known as “baby-boomers”. “Due to the baby boom between 1945 and 1955, over half the population was under 30 years old” (The American Experience 1). During this time in American history, the children of the “baby boomer” generation started rebelling against the war in Vietnam and the

The people that would become associated with the new teenage counter-culture movement were known as the hippies. The movement began in the mid-sixties in the United States. The hippies often believed in peace and pleasure. They even ushered in a new music genre of psychedelic rock. The Grateful Dead as well as the Beatles was famous artists coming from the movement and genre. The hippies created their own communities where they criticized the mainstream society and middle class. One thing they revolutionized was sex. The sexual revolution moved from traditional ways of behaving to more promiscuous activities and pleasures. The norms of American sexual culture would change greatly. Hippies were promoters of free love in the sexual revolution. They taught that the power of sex and love should be a part of everyday teenage life. In some colleges, they started to make dorms coed; in which the males and females could come together freely. “A

The Hippie Movement changed the politics and the culture in America in the 1960s. When the nineteen fifties turned into the nineteen sixties, not much had changed, people were still extremely patriotic, the society of America seemed to work together, and the youth of America did not have much to worry about, except for how fast their car went or what kind of outfit they should wear to the Prom. After 1963, things started to slowly change in how America viewed its politics, culture, and social beliefs, and the group that was in charge of this change seemed to be the youth of America. The Civil Rights Movement, President Kennedy’s death, new music, the birth control pill, the growing illegal drug market, and

They wanted to change the way that women were represented and treated in American culture. Consciousness of what they could accomplish eventually led to the organization of huge public feminist protests for abortion rights, equal pay, and, eventually, the Equal Rights Amendment. There were many things that influenced people to fight for civil rights dating all the way back to slavery, but in the sixties people realized that they could actually make changes for the better. The Vietnam War was another major factor that caused the emergence of the counter culture. The horrifying images of the Tet Offensive and other atrocious pictures from the war caused many anti-war groups and leaders to emerge. Groups such as the Doves and Students for a Democratic Society rebelled against the war and fought for peace. One specific incident would be when Richard Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia and the need to draft 150,000 more U.S. soldiers. At Kent State University protestors launched a riot, which included fires, injuries, and even death. The environmentalists also reacted to the war in Vietnam. The use of napalm and Agent Orange outraged many people who saw forests and jungles be destroyed almost instantly. Environmentalists strived to end the war in hopes of saving the earth as well. The media was one of the main elements in the sixties that also influenced this counter culture. Media was still a rather new and growing concept in the

During the sixties, there was a huge generation gap between the parents, who became adults around World War II, and the children, baby-boomers, who came of age in the 1950s and 1960s. Due to the generation gap, the younger generation grew farther apart from their parents and the older age group. The younger people believed that the older generation was too inhibited and too materialistic. For the most part, the baby boomers simply refused to accept the world-view of the older generation without questioning it. They broke with the political persuasions of their