Who the hippies were
“Hippie” was a label applied, mostly by outsiders, to young people in the mid-1960s who rejected much of conventional American life: the corporate career, suburban conformity, rigid dress and manners, and, for many, the Vietnam War. The word is generally traced to “hipster”, a term from jazz and Beat circles. A San Francisco newspaper writer, Michael Fallon, is often credited with using “hippies” in print in 1965 to describe the young crowd around the city’s Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood.
There was never a membership list or a single organisation. People who were called hippies ranged from committed spiritual seekers and communal farmers to weekend visitors who simply liked the music and the clothes. Historians therefore tend to speak of a loose subculture within the wider American counterculture rather than a unified movement.
Origins in the Beats and the Bay Area
The hippies drew on the Beat writers of the 1950s. Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” (1956) and Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road” (1957) celebrated spontaneity, travel and spiritual searching, and the City Lights bookshop in San Francisco’s North Beach was a gathering place. Many of the young people who arrived in the following decade had read these books.
The Bay Area supplied the other ingredients. The University of California at Berkeley was the scene of the Free Speech Movement in 1964. The writer Ken Kesey and his friends, the Merry Pranksters, held LSD-fuelled “Acid Test” parties in 1965 and 1966, and bands that would become the Grateful Dead played at them. Dance halls such as the Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom began promoting concerts with hand-drawn posters. The music that came out of this world is often called the San Francisco Sound.
Shared values
Hippies did not agree on everything, but several themes recur:
- Anti-materialism. Many deliberately chose modest jobs, secondhand clothes or none at all, and criticised consumerism.
- Community and sharing. Ideals of communal living, free food and open doors were common, though practice varied widely.
- Peace. Opposition to the Vietnam War was widespread, and the Selective Service draft was a pressing personal concern for young men.
- Personal freedom. This covered sexuality, appearance, work and religion. Interest in Eastern spirituality, meditation and astrology was common.
- Nature and simplicity. Back-to-the-land ideas and natural foods appealed to many.
Dress and drugs
Long hair, beads, bell-bottoms, tie-dye, Indian-print cloth and military surplus jackets became the visible signs, and hippie fashion was often as much a statement of difference as a matter of taste. These items were cheap and easy to find, which suited the anti-consumer message.
Drugs were central to how the hippies were perceived. Marijuana was widely used, and psychedelic experimentation with LSD and other hallucinogens was treated by many as a route to insight. LSD was legal in the United States until California banned it in October 1966, and other states and the federal government followed. It is worth being clear that drug use varied from person to person, and that harder drugs and the dangers of overdose, addiction and bad reactions became a serious problem in the Haight by 1967 and afterwards.
A timeline, roughly 1965 to the early 1970s
Dates for a loose cultural phenomenon are approximate, but a reasoned outline looks like this:
- 1965. The Acid Tests and the first Family Dog dance concerts. The word “hippie” begins to appear in San Francisco newspapers.
- 1966. The Haight-Ashbury district fills with young newcomers. The Diggers start giving away food. California makes LSD illegal in October.
- January 1967. The Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park draws a large crowd, and the slogan “turn on, tune in, drop out” is heard.
- Summer 1967. Heavy national media coverage brings many young visitors during what became known as the Summer of Love. The Monterey Pop Festival in June showed how popular the music had become.
- October 1967. Residents stage a mock funeral called “Death of Hippie” in the Haight, as locals tried to end the media-created image. That month demonstrators also flocked to the Pentagon in Washington.
- 1968. A year of assassinations, urban unrest and political upheaval. The Haight declined; many hippies moved to rural areas or other cities.
- 1969. The Woodstock festival in August, the Manson murders the same month and the violence at Altamont in December. These events are often seen as showing both the hope and the dark side of the era.
- Early 1970s. Communes and shops continued, but the media attention faded as the war wound down and the style was absorbed into mainstream fashion and music.
Reactions at the time
Responses to the hippies were sharply divided. Supporters saw a generation questioning a materialistic and militarised society. Critics, including many parents, employers, police officers and politicians, saw idleness, drug abuse and disrespect for country and family. Some in the civil rights and antiwar movements also had doubts, arguing that dropping out was a luxury and that political change needed organisation. These disagreements shaped how the hippies were portrayed, and they explain why the same people could be described as idealists or as a menace depending on who was speaking.
What the label hides
The word “hippie” covered a wide range of people, and it is helpful to keep several distinctions in mind. Many people who adopted the clothes and music in 1967 held ordinary jobs or were still at school, and went home after a weekend. The people most committed to the lifestyle were a minority, and a large share of them were white and from middle-class backgrounds. The scene was also not confined to San Francisco; versions developed in New York’s East Village, Los Angeles, London, Amsterdam and many college towns, each with local features.
Why it matters
The hippies did not end the war, and their utopian communities mostly proved short-lived. Their influence was more diffuse: casual dress, long hair on men, natural foods, interest in yoga and meditation, and a more questioning attitude toward authority all moved from the margins into everyday life. How much of that can be credited to hippies themselves, as opposed to wider social change among the baby boomers, is something historians still debate.