History of Hippies

History of Hippies There were many stereotypes concerning hippies they were thought of as being pot smoking, freeloading vagabonds, who were trying to save the world. As this small pocket of teenage rebellion rose out of the suburbs, inner cities, and countryside’s, there was a general feeling that the hippies were a product of drugs, and rock music this generalization could have never been more wrong. The hippie counterculture was more than just a product of drugs and music, but a result of the change that was sweeping the entire western world. These changes were brought about by various events in both the fifties and the sixties, such as the end of the "Golden Years" of the fifties, the changing economical state from the fifties to the sixties, the Black Panther Party, women moving into the work force, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy Jr., the war in Vietnam, the Kent State protest, and finally the
Woodstock Festival. During the fifties, the economic situation was in a constant state of growth. The United States were prospering and the government was clinging to the "golden years." The rise of the giant corporations had a profound effect on American life. A few hundred corporations controlled much of the nation's industrial and commercial assets and enjoyed a near monopoly in some areas. The mega corporations dominated the seats of economic and political power. They employed millions of workers, a large percentage of whom populated the suburbs that were growing across the country. The changing American economy also experienced dramatic shifts in the composition of the work force. Fewer workers went into traditional fields such as manufacturing, agriculture, and mining and more went into clerical, managerial, professional, and service fields. In 1956, for the first time in the nation's history, white collar workers outnumbered blue collar ones, "and by the end of the decade blue collar workers constituted only 45 percent of the