Hippies

Though the dictionary defines a hippie as anyone who rejects the conventional customs of society, in America the hippies were the product of the countercultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The word "hippie" is derived from "hipster," which was once a synonym for "beatnik." The beatniks (see entry under 1950s—Print Culture in volume 3) of the 1950s were the spiritual ancestors of the hippies, who bloomed as the flower children of the 1960s and 1970s. Both groups shared intellectual curiosity, disdain for conventional customs and morals, affinity for recreational drugs, and tastes in music, literature, and philosophy that put them outside the mainstream.

Although the term was sometimes applied too broadly (especially by the "straights," whose world the hippies scorned), hippies tended to be gentle people who embraced colorful clothing, nonpossessive sexual relationships, the use of marijuana (see entry under 1960s—The Way We Lived in volume 4) and LSD, communal living, and a "live for today" philosophy. They generally rejected materialism, the Vietnam War (1954–75), the success ethic, and authority of all types. Their musical tastes favored the Grateful Dead (see entry under 1960s—Music in volume 4), Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin (1943–1970), and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar (1920–). (A sitar is a complex, difficult-to-play classical Indian instrument.) They were the core of what became known as the "counterculture."

The "straight" world was interested in the hippies from the beginning. There were bus tours of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, billed as "the only place you can visit a foreign country without leaving the United States."

Hippie images and references permeated the popular culture of the United States from the mid-1960s until the early 1970s. The most popular band in the world, the Beatles (see entry under 1960s—Music in volume 4), "went hippie" with their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album in 1967. "Psychedelic" art and music supposedly allowed one to experience

the "mind-blowing" qualities of LSD without taking the drug itself. On Broadway (see entry under 1900s—Film and Theater in volume 1), the musical Hair (see entry under 1960s—Film and Theater in volume 4) opened in 1968 to celebrate the hippie lifestyle with music, dance, and a show-stopping scene in which the entire cast stood naked onstage. Hippies appeared in films ranging from The President's Analyst (1967) to I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968) to Easy Rider (1969). They also became a frequent subject for humor on the popular TV show, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In (1968–73; see entry under 1960s—TV and Radio in volume 4).

The hippie culture gradually faded, as did the era that inspired it. But hippie images and references continued to appear. The characters of Cheech and Chong (Tommy Chong, 1938–; Cheech Marin, 1946–) were pothead hippie throwbacks in films like Up in Smoke (1978) and Still Smokin' (1983). The Grateful Dead (1965–95) still had a dedicated following that included many aging hippies, until the band broke up following the death of Jerry Garcia (1942–1995). In the 1990s and 2000s, the TV sitcom Dharma and Greg could always get an easy laugh with a reference to Dharma's "hippie parents." As the Grateful Dead used to sing, "What a long, strange trip it's been."

—Justin Gustainis

For More Information

Bisbort, Alan, and Parke Puterbaugh. Groovy, Man: Tripping through the Psychedelic Years. Los Angeles: General Publishing Group, 1998.

Brand, Stewart. "We Owe It All to the Hippies." Time (Special Issue, Spring 1995).

Hippies on the Web.http://www.rockument.com/links.html (accessed March 21, 2002).

Miller, Timothy. The Hippies and American Values. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991.

Stern, Jane, and Michael Stern. Sixties People. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.