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The Counterculture, Environmental & Consumer Movements

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.

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The Counterculture, Environmental & Consumer Movements

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

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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).

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. 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.”

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. Fire on Cuyahoga River, OH

  12. 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).

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