The hippie subculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s reshaped Western social norms around music, religion, sexuality, and political activism.
Key Facts
- Peak era
- Mid 1960s to early 1970s
- Origin city
- United States (Greenwich Village, Haight-Ashbury)
- Summer of Love
- 1967, West Coast United States
- Woodstock Festival
- 1969, East Coast United States
- Isle of Wight Festival crowd
- ~400,000 people, 1970
- Generation
- Youngest Silent Generation and oldest Baby Boomers
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Following World War II, a generation born in the 1940s and early 1950s came of age amid Cold War tensions, racial conflict, and the Vietnam War. Influenced by the Beat Generation's rejection of mainstream values and by African American jive culture, young Americans began questioning conformist social norms and seeking alternative ways of living.
Beginning in mid-1960s America and spreading globally, the hippie subculture formed intentional communities, embraced psychedelic music and drugs such as marijuana and LSD, championed the sexual revolution, and staged major cultural gatherings including the 1967 Human Be-In, the Monterey Pop Festival, the Summer of Love, and the 1969 Woodstock Festival. The movement spread to Mexico, New Zealand, the UK, Australia, Chile, and Eastern Europe.
Hippie culture permanently altered mainstream Western society, influencing popular music, film, television, literature, and fashion. Broader acceptance of religious and cultural diversity, Eastern philosophy, environmentalism, and civil liberties advocacy can be traced in part to hippie values. Many countercultural ideas that were once fringe have since been absorbed into mainstream social and political discourse.