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Unlock This CourseIn the 1960s millions of young Americans began to question their colleges, their government and the whole way their parents lived. Several reasons came together.
After 1945 the birth rate shot up. This was the 'baby boom'. By the mid-1960s the first of these children were reaching college age. The number of college students rose from under 4 million in 1960 to about 8 million in 1970.
The USA was richer than ever. Most students came from comfortable homes and did not need to earn a living straight away. They had time to think about what was wrong with their country, and many felt that their parents cared too much about money and possessions.
The sit-ins and marches of black campaigners showed that peaceful protest could change the law. Many white students had gone South to help, for example in the Freedom Summer of 1964. They came back to college with new skills and a strong sense of right and wrong.
Television showed protests, and the violence used against them, in almost every home. President Kennedy had told Americans in 1961, 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.' His murder in 1963 left many young people shocked and less trusting.
Two more reasons mattered. Colleges treated students like children, as you will see at Berkeley. And from 1965 the war in Vietnam gave young people their biggest cause of all, which is covered in The Anti-Vietnam War Movement.
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The University of California at Berkeley had about 27,000 students. Clark Kerr, the president of the whole University of California, ran it like a giant business. Many students felt they were just numbers in a machine.
Why did it matter? Berkeley was the first great campus revolt of the 1960s. It showed that the sit-in, borrowed from the civil rights movement, worked for students too, and that students could beat those in charge. Protests soon spread to other colleges. Weinberg's remark that the movement did not trust anybody over 30 became a famous slogan and summed up the new mood. But there was a reaction as well. In 1966 Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California after promising to 'clean up the mess at Berkeley'.
SDS was set up in 1960 at the University of Michigan. In June 1962 about 60 members met at Port Huron, Michigan, and agreed a statement of their beliefs, written mainly by Tom Hayden. The Port Huron Statement began: 'We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit.'
SDS attacked racism, poverty in a rich country and the nuclear arms race. Its big idea was 'participatory democracy': ordinary people, including students, should have a real say in the decisions that shaped their lives.
Not all young rebels wanted to change the system. Some wanted to leave it. The hippies were the best known part of the counterculture. They 'dropped out' of study and work. They wore long hair, bright clothes and flowers, and many lived together in shared homes called communes. They rejected their parents' rules about money, careers, marriage and sex, and many used illegal drugs such as cannabis and LSD. Their slogans were 'peace and love' and 'make love, not war'.
What was their impact? Hippies had no leaders, no organisation and no demands, so they won no new laws. Drug use harmed many of them. Older Americans were shocked and angry, and this helped politicians who promised to bring back order. But their music, fashion and relaxed attitudes spread widely among the young, and by the early 1970s many of their ideas no longer seemed strange.
Don't treat students, SDS and hippies as one group. Student protesters and SDS were political: they wanted to change colleges and the country. Hippies mostly turned away from politics. Also remember that student protest began before the Vietnam War became the main issue. Berkeley in 1964 was about free speech on campus.
Extract A (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history book). From a modern history textbook.
The hippies of Haight-Ashbury liked to call themselves rebels, yet most were the comfortable children of the suburbs. They drifted into San Francisco in the summer of 1967, idled away their days in a haze of drugs and music, and left others to deal with the mess. They built nothing and changed no law. Within a few years most had quietly cut their hair and gone back to the careers their parents had planned for them.
What impression does the author give about the hippies? You must use Extract A to explain your answer. [6 marks]
The author gives the impression that the hippies were lazy, spoilt young people whose rebellion was not serious and achieved nothing. This is shown by the language. They only 'liked to call themselves rebels', which suggests they were pretending, and they are described as 'comfortable children', which makes them sound pampered and immature. Words such as 'drifted', 'idled' and 'haze' suggest people with no purpose or energy. The short, blunt sentence 'They built nothing and changed no law' stresses failure. The author also chooses to end with the hippies going back to 'the careers their parents had planned', which makes the movement look like a passing phase. Nothing is said about their lasting influence on music, fashion and attitudes, so the reader is left with a scornful picture.
What lifts this to the top level: it names one clear impression, proves it with short quotations, and explains what the author chose to stress and to leave out.
Look at the verbs the author picks. Here 'drifted' and 'idled' do most of the work. Quote two or three single words like these, say what each one suggests about the hippies, then finish with one thing the author left out. You don't need any facts of your own.