How long did the hippie era last

Another counter culture tragedy happened at the Altamont Music Festival, when the Hells Angels who were hired as security for the festival needlessly killed a teenager while the Rolling Stones performed on stage. Combined, these events presented a warped image of the hippies in the eyes of common folk. The Vietnam War was a major issue that the hippies vehemently opposed.

Protesting the war was a mutual goal that held the movement together, but when it ended members started to dissipate. We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements. To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK".

Sign Up. Travel Guides. Videos Beyond Hollywood Hungerlust Pioneers of love. Why the Hippie Movement Declined. It looked like a first-grade primer. The hills were rolling and green, all soft and curved like the beautiful body of a young woman. The sky was perfectly blue. And the clouds were all puffy, you know? Pure and white and glowing. When they pulled into Berkeley, the hippies were everywhere—standing on every corner, lining every avenue. Joe had never seen anything like it.

In California, the flower-child style was at its apex. I found that really stimulating. It made a great subject for a photographer—even though, by any middle-class standards, these people were living totally miserable lives. Joe found a place to live and began spending his days out on the sidewalk.

Whenever I had money, my priorities were drugs, film, and food—in that order. There were two types of drug users on Telegraph Avenue. One group unapologetically shot heroin. The other group took mind-altering drugs but believed that opiates were a sinister way for The Man to keep poor people from climbing out of the ghetto.

One group of junior-high-aged girls, known as the Mini Mob, often showed up in Mickey Mouse t-shirts. Everything you need to learn in life is right here on the street.

A lot had changed in Berkeley since , when thousands of students—many of them wearing suits and ties—gathered at Sproul Plaza to champion civil rights and demand free speech. Now, college dropouts were congregating with misfits and runaways on the other side of Sather Gate. The outrage was still there, but the issues were murkier. While Joe was hanging out on Telegraph Avenue, his brother Paul published an anthology of underground newspaper diatribes called Fire!

Among other things, the book ridiculed the whole idea of higher education:. College is a fantasy in the suburban mind of Mr. Only the kids never saw the professor. And solar panels—Northern California hippie communes were the first people to have solar panels in They did it because they needed some hot water for washing dishes.

They were off the grid, and they didn't want anything to do with the utility company. Though some hippies remained committed to the lifestyle for the long haul, many others assimilated themselves into the mainstream culture they had once despised. Perhaps the most famous of these, Rorabaugh says, was Steve Jobs , founder of Apple. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!

Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Counterculture Prior to the Vietnam War In many ways, the hippies of the s descended from an earlier American counterculture: the Beat Generation. Recommended for you.