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Emergence phase
The hippie movement started to emerge, grew to include hundreds of thousands of young Americans across the country and started to reach its height during the period of escalation of American involvement in the Vietnam War. It was a reformative social movement which aimed to change the rigidity and commercialism of middle-class society. -
The first official engagement of American troops in the Vietnam War
Two battalions of U.S. Marines landed on beaches of Da Nang. Over the next few years, as the United States increased its involvement in this conflict, hundreds of thousands of Americans joined in mass protests across the country which helped the popularization of hippies. -
Numerous anti-war protests across the US
These protests started growing around the middle of the decade, and continued to last until the decline of the hippie movement. The vast majority of hippies were young, white, middle-class men and women who felt alienated from mainstream middle-class society and resented the pressure to conform to the “normal” standards of appearance, employment or lifestyle. -
The 'Summer of Love'
The summer of 1967, or the "summer of love", is often referred to as one of the most important social and political gatherings in recent American history. During that famous summer, more than 100,000 hippies gathered in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. It was the cultural center of the hippie movement where free love, drug use and communal living became the norm. -
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Coalescence phase
In some ways, the Summer of Love also marked the beginning of the coalescence period for the hippie movement, as drugs, homelessness and crime had infested Haight-Ashbury, while at the same time more and more people joined the movement which seemed to be stronger than ever. The movement also caught the eye of contemporary media. -
Woodstock Festival
The original Woodstock Festival in August 1969 was the pinnacle of years of experimentation and changing social practices. The Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a four-day festival comprised of 400,000 people on a dairy farm in rural New York State. A multitude of famous artists including Jimi Hendrix and Crosby, Stills & Nash performed at the concert. -
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Bureaucratization phase
Some hippie communes, for example, started to have rules, regulations, and administrative structures governing their operations, marking a shift from the more spontaneous and unstructured beginnings of the movement. This phase also saw the commercialization of certain aspects of hippie culture. -
Tragedy at the 1969 Altamont Free Concert
The Hells Angels (who were hired as security for the festival) needlessly killed a teenager while the Rolling Stones performed on stage.Events like this presented a warped image of the hippies in the eyes of common folk. -
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Decline phase
After momentarily dabbling with hippie ideals, those who survived the movement matured and headed in pursuit of ‘normal’ vocations. By the early 1970s, many came to realize that the optimistic idealism of the counter culture was not practical, and moved onto jobs in the ‘real’ world. -
End of the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was one of the main issues that the hippies vehemently opposed. By the 1970s, however, the war had gradually died down and finally, by 1975 (when the war ended), one of the main factors in the hippies' legitimacy had ceased to exist. Protesting the war was a common goal that held the movement together, but when it ended, members began to drift apart.
