The Counterculture, Environmental & Consumer Movements Ch. 23, Sec 3, 4

Counterculture In 60s, many adopted values that ran against the mainstream culture. Counterculture. Valued youth, spontaneous behavior, individuality. Promoted peace, love, and freedom. Casual, free attitudes toward sex & drugs. Very different tastes in clothes & music. Didn’t understand older generations, older generations didn’t understand them AT ALL. Led to generation gap. Lack of communication & understanding between generations.

Baby Boom generation was so large, they changed US culture. Music, clothing producers rushed to meet their demands. Colleges changed courses & rules to please them. Politicians pandered to them for votes. Styles changed dramatically in counterculture. Men & women wore long, loose hair; men grew beards, mustaches. Adopted clothes from “working classes”, native groups around the world. Painted cars & bodies in bright designs.

Art influenced by counterculture. Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Pop Art, Op Art. Attitudes on sex led to sexual revolution. Sex not tied to marriage, families; cohabitation. Communal living-EVERYTHING shared. Homosexuality acceptable. Led to more discussion on sex in mainstream US. Drugs widely accepted, used in counterculture. Marijuana popular. Timothy Leary advocated use of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).

LSD caused severe hallucinations, “trips”. LSD seen as a way to “broaden the mind”, learn secrets of the universe. In reality, drug use killed LOTS of people in 1960s. Countless hippies, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix. Hippies really liked rock music, folk music. 1964-”British Invasion”-Beatles, Rolling Stones first toured USA. Music was a unifying factor for hippies.

August 1969-Woodstock Art & Music Fair. Held in pasture in Bethel, New York; 400,000 came. Producers expected maybe 100-150,000; shortages of water, toilets, food, hot & rainy. Big name music acts. Sex & drugs done openly. No run-ins with police, peaceful. Older generations often disgusted with hippie behavior, especially at Woodstock. Many, even younger mainstream Americans, hated open sexuality, drug use. Saw hippies as childish, refusing to grow up.

Most hippies came from upper- and middle-class families. December 1969-rolling Stones played concert at Altamont Speedway in CA. 300,000 attended. Hired Hell’s Angels for security. Beat a black man to death when he moved toward stage with a gun. Seen as the “end of the 60s”. Most hippies came from upper- and middle-class families. In mid to late 70s, most hippies “got a haircut and got a real job.”

Environmental Movement Began in 1962 with Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. Naturalist; predicted that spraying pesticides like DDT would kill all insects, would lead to death of all birds & wildlife, would kill people. Carson’s book caused outcry against DDT; led to US banning DDT. Other chemicals & pesticides came under more strict regulations. Silent Spring is now believed to have led to death of millions in Africa, South America. US would not give $$ to countries using DDT. DDT very effective at killing mosquitoes, which spread malaria, yellow fever. DDT had very little actual effect on environment.

1960’s protests against nuclear weapons, power plants. 1950s & early 1960s saw widespread development of nuclear power plants. Safe, little air pollution; water discharged into nearby rivers was hot, raising water temps, sometimes killing fish & plants. 1960’s protests against nuclear weapons, power plants. Led gov’t to create Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to oversee safety regulations in power plants. Environmental organizations began growing across USA. April 22, 1970-first Earth Day organized. To raise awareness of environmental issues.

Gov’t responded to concerns. 1970-Nixon created Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to monitor air, water pollution. Gave them power to enforce regulations with fines, lawsuits. 1970-Congress passed Clean Air Act. Controlled emissions in cars, factories. Led to scrubbers in smokestacks, catalytic converters in cars. 1972-Congress passed Clean Water Act. Regulated discharge of industrial, municipal wastewater. Built better sewage-treatment plants.

Fire on Cuyahoga River, OH

Consumer Movement Begun by Ralph Nader. Wrote Unsafe at Any Speed, about car industry. Claimed many cars had tendency to roll over, burn in crashes, no safety devices. Claimed auto industry knew, didn’t care. Led to Congress passing National Traffic & Motor Vehicle Safety Act. Set highway speed limit at 55, mandated seatbelts. Also investigated meatpacking, baby food, etc. Led to better consumer oversight of production of goods (safer, cleaner, etc).