COUNTERCULTURE &
POPULAR CULTURE OF
THE 1960S
COUNTER CULTURE
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Reaction against the conservative government, social norms of the
1950s, the political conservatism of the Cold War period, and the US
Government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam
New Left
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Middle class college students
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
• Founded at the University of Michigan in 1960
• Organizational base for New Left
• Port Huron Statement
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Criticized the lack of individual freedoms
• Believed colleges were a natural base to promote social change
• Began protesting the lack of student freedoms
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Dress code, course requirements, and discrimination in sororities, fraternities,
and admissions
• Began student anti-war movement
COUNTER CULTURE
 New

Left
Free Speech Movement
• Organized at Berkeley in 1964
• Used sit-ins and taking over college buildings to
protest the war
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Young International Party (Yippies)
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Democratic National Convention in 1968
Chicago
Anti-war protest
Police brutality
COUNTERCULTURE

Hippies
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Middle class youth
Dress
• Jeans, tie-dyed shirts, sandals, beards, long hair
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Lifestyle choices
• Drugs
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Marijuana
LSD (Hallucinogenic)
• Music
• Communes
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Groups living together shaping responsibilities
• Haight-Ashbury (San Francisco)

Focal point
COUNTERCULTURE

Woodstock
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Aug. 15-18, 1969
Bethel, New York
500,000 people
32 music groups/artists
Camped outside
30 min wait for water
90 min wait for restrooms
2 deaths
2 births
Focal point of counterculture
POPULAR CULTURE
 Demographics
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Population-177,830,000
Average Salary-$4,743
Minimum Wage-$1.00 per hour
850,000 students enter college resulting in
emergency living quarters at most campuses
POPULAR CULTURE
 Architecture

Refinement of Modernism
• St. Louis Arch-Eero Saarinen
• Walter Gropius-Pan Am Building (Met Life)
 Art
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Influenced by desire to move into modern age
Artists wanted to inspire the viewer to leap
into the unknown or experience art in their
own way
Andy Warhol-leading name in pop art
POPULAR CULTURE
 Literature

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Expressed problems in society
Race relations
• To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee

Feminism
• The Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath
• The Feminine Mystique-Betty Friedan

Disillusionment
• Catch 22-Joseph Heller
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest-Ken Kesey
POPULAR CULTURE
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Music
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Rhythm & Blues (R & B)
African Americans
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Supremes
Aretha Franklin
James Brown
Jimi Hendrix
Folk Music
Counterculture
• Bob Dylan
• Joan Baez
• Peter, Paul & Mary
POPULAR CULTURE
 Music

Teenage influence
• Beach Boys
• Beatles
• Righteous Brothers

Acid/psychedelic Rock
• Influenced by drug use
• Jefferson Airplane
• Grateful Dead