Selling to your own scene
Hippies are often remembered as people who rejected money. Yet a lively set of small businesses grew up around the movement, run by people from the scene and aimed at it. They sold books, posters, clothes, music and the equipment of psychedelic life. Some were idealistic, some were plainly commercial, and many were both. The shops raised a question that the movement never settled: can you build a different way of living and also run a shop?
The Psychedelic Shop
The most famous example was the Psychedelic Shop on Haight Street in San Francisco, which opened in January 1966. It was founded by the brothers Ron and Jay Thelin, and it sold books on mysticism, drugs and religion, along with posters, incense, jewellery and the other goods that went with the scene. It also served as a meeting place, a notice board and a place where people could sit and read.
The Thelins had ideas about community as well as sales. The shop was also linked to the wider Haight community, including the San Francisco Oracle and the lead-up to the Human Be-In in January 1967. Visitors sometimes described the atmosphere as more like a clubhouse than a store.
The shop closed in October 1967, after being open for under two years. By then, the Haight was overcrowded, and the Thelins were reportedly under pressure from several sides. The closure was part of the mood of the autumn, when a mock funeral called the Death of Hippie was staged in the neighbourhood in early October. The timing is a coincidence of mood rather than proof of a single cause.
Head shops, posters and boutiques
The Psychedelic Shop was one of the first, not the only one. Other stores in the Haight and in cities such as New York and Los Angeles sold pipes, rolling papers, posters, beads and imported goods. In time, “head shop” became the common name for such stores, and by the end of the decade they could be found in many college towns.
Posters were a major product. Concert posters in the psychedelic style became collectible, and psychedelic rock posters were sold in shops and by mail. In the East Bay, the Print Mint in Berkeley was a leading seller of posters and prints, and it later became known for underground comics as well. Other small firms produced buttons, T-shirts and light-show equipment.
Clothing was another area. Hippies often wore second-hand clothes, but a number of small boutiques opened to sell custom-made and imported pieces, and some local designers became known for their work. Boutique fashion in the Haight and on London’s King’s Road both fed on, and fed into, the clothing industry at large.
Coffeehouses, bookstores and publications
Many hippie businesses served the community more than they sought profit. Coffeehouses and small restaurants offered cheap food and a place to meet. Bookstores sold literature on spiritual and political subjects. Publications such as the underground press depended on a mix of sales and advertising from local shops, which made them partly commercial, too.
Business owners also organised. A group of Haight merchants formed an association to deal with city officials and to promote the neighbourhood. Accounts of how effective it was differ, and records of such small organisations are thin.
The Digger critique
The Diggers, a San Francisco group connected to street theatre and community action, argued that money itself was the problem. They ran a “free store,” served free meals in the Panhandle and urged the community to give things away. To them, a shop selling “psychedelic” goods looked like the commercial world in new clothes, and they criticised hippie merchants for profiting from a movement that was supposed to be different.
The disagreement was real but not always hostile. Some shop owners supported the Diggers, donated goods or food and sympathised with the view. Others thought that paying rent and bills required income and that the shops provided jobs and a cultural focus.
The wider tension
The tension reached beyond the Haight. The same people who disliked consumer culture needed ways to earn a living. Many chose to work at small enterprises owned by friends, or to sell crafts. At the same time, large companies began copying the style, and the arrival of tourists in 1967 turned a neighbourhood into an attraction. Some hippie entrepreneurs profited, while others were pushed out by rising rents and crowds.
What to take from it
The hippie businesses of 1967 were small, fragile and varied. They show that the counterculture was never fully outside the market, and also that many participants tried to build a different kind of commerce based on community, craft and shared taste. How well they managed it is a matter of opinion, but the shops gave the movement a physical presence on the street and preserved much of what we now know about its look and sound.