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Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) -

The Summer of Love has its origins in the early 1960s and the Beat Generation, a literary movement that opposed economic materialism, militarism, and sexual repression. Poets and writers such as Jack Kerouac (pictured) and Allen Ginsburg were among its leading exponents.

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Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) -

The works of Kerouac and Ginsberg, together with William S. Burroughs, explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era.

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William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) -

William S. Burroughs was another primary figure of the Beat Generation. These free-spirited bohemians and others like them became progenitors of the hippie movement and the counterculture that followed.

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Human Be-In -

Beat Generation poets and writers numbered among the performers at the Human Be-In, held on January 14, 1967 at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The event focused on the key tenets of 1960's rebellion: communal living, ecological awareness, political decentralization, and a healthy hostility to bureaucracy. The Human Be-In was billed as a "Gathering of the Tribes," and attracted more than 20,000 people.

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Turn on, tune in, drop out -

One of the speakers at the Human Be-In was American psychologist and author Timothy Leary. It's here that he urged his audience to "turn on, tune in, and drop out." The slogan became one of the most famous phrases of the counterculture era. Most commentators consider the Human Be-In to be the starting point of what became the Summer of Love.

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Psychedelic sounds -

A host of local bands provided the entertainment at the Human Be-In, including Jefferson Airplane (pictured), the Grateful Dead, and Big Brother and the Holding Company. Psychedelic music, together with colorful fashion, would help define the Summer of Love.

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Elysian Park Love-In -

Three months later, the first 'love-in' was hosted at Elysian Park in Los Angeles. The event drew around 4,000 people, whom the media were now describing as hippies after the word hipster, used to characterize beatniks. This Easter Sunday celebration of peace and love featured live music and was mostly advertised by word of mouth.

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Peace and love -

The Elysian Park Love-in was filmed as a documentary by Les Blank and released in 1968 as 'God Respects Us When We Work, But Loves Us When We Dance.' It opened a window on what was yet to come.

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Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival -

The Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival was an event held on June 10 and 11, 1967, in Marin County. It was the first of a series of San Francisco–area cultural events that set the Summer of Love scene. Among the bands performing that weekend were The Doors (pictured), playing their first large gig.

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California, 1967 -

The Be-in, Love-in, and Fantasy Fair events placed California, and San Francisco in particular, firmly at the epicenter of the hippie movement.

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Flowers in your hair -

Released on May 13, 1967, 'San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)' by Scott McKenzie (1939–2012) was a huge hit and became a generational anthem for those who had turned on, tuned in, and dropped out. It served to promote the upcoming Monterey International Pop Festival and popularize the flower children of the Golden Gate City.

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Monterey International Pop Festival -

The Monterey International Pop Festival—considered the first professionally organized music festival—was a three-day gig held from June 16 to 18. The event embodied the theme of California as a focal point for the counterculture and featured a host of bands including the Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Who, plus artists like Janis Joplin (pictured).

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Haight-Ashbury -

Back in San Francisco, the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets was a beacon for thousands of hippies, thrill-seekers, and the simply-curious during the Summer of Love.

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Golden Gate Park -

Golden Gate Park provided a haven for young people seeking to mingle with like-minded individuals. Here, a man paints a woman's face while his friends take in some sun.

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Harrison jams in Haight-Ashbury -

One one occasion, Beatle George Harrison turned up in the park. He borrowed a guitar and began an impromptu jam, much to the delight of the surprised audience. He then spent an hour touring the neighborhood.

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Shopping in Haight-Ashbury -

Many boutiques in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhoods specialized in popular psychedelic posters, portraits, and album cover art. Shopping was a mind-bending, eye-opening experience.

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The Merry Pranksters -

Regular visitors to Haight-Ashbury were the Merry Pranksters. Friends and followers of author Ken Kesey, known for the book 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,' the troupe traveled across the United States in a psychedelic painted school bus.

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The San Francisco Mime troupe -

The San Francisco Mime troupe was founded in 1959 and often entertained the Haight-Ashbury crowds with their humorous outdoor routines. They used street theater to make social and political critiques. The Diggers were another, more radical, community-action group of activists and street theater actors who performed to an appreciative audience.

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Music at the Fillmore -

As well as at outdoor festivals, San Francisco's music scene played out in famous venues such as the Fillmore. In the mid-1960s, the auditorium became the focal point for psychedelic music, hosting many venerated acts including Cream, Pink Floyd, and the Grateful Dead.

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Grateful Dead -

In fact, San Francisco was home to some of the greatest and most influential bands in music history. The Grateful Dead were formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California, and practically made the city their home.

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Jimi Hendrix Experience -

The Monterey International Pop Festival provided Jimi Hendrix and his band with their first major American appearance. Their breakout album 'Are You Experienced?' was released in May 1967.

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The Doors -

The Doors were frequent guests of the Fillmore. But their first gig of note took place at the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival. Their eponymous debut album hit the record shops in January 1967.

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The Beatles -

Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic, the Beatles released the quintessential psychedelic album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' in May 1967 to worldwide acclaim. Trippy in looks and sound, the record bridged a cultural divide between popular music and high art, and appealed in equal measure to contemporary youth and the counterculture.

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Pink Floyd -

Also providing the soundtrack to the Summer of Love was another British band, Pink Floyd. The psychedelic sound sown throughout their debut album, 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,' was received with open-armed enthusiasm on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Cream -

British rock band Cream—Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton, and Ginger Baker—caught the attention of the counterculture crowd with their album 'Disraeli Gears,' released in November 1967. But by now the sun was beginning to set on the Summer of Love.

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The sun begins to set -

By the autumn of 1967, the hippie movement had become a commercialized media spectacle, a fact not lost on the flower people of San Francisco. Those who had briefly made Haight-Ashbury their home organized a mock funeral ceremony to announce the "Death of the Hippie."

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The hippie is dead. Long live the free man -

On October 6, 1967, in their determination to kill off their media image, the flower children of the Haight-Ashbury district held their own funeral procession. The cortege featured a "dead" hippie carried on a slab followed by a symbolic casket, and a sign saying "The Brotherhood of Free Men is Born." The hippies, seeing a change in themselves, successfully exorcised their own self.

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Against commercialization -

To demonstrate what they were talking about, a group of "free men" (which of course also included women) held up the traffic in Haight-Ashbury for several hours to protest against a bus company after it started bus sightseeing tours of the district.

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War and protest -

The end of the Summer of Love also saw twilight descend over the whole counterculture movement. The following year, 1968, saw political unrest take hold across the country. Violence spread: Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated within weeks of each other. And thousands turned their backs on the Vietnam War. Peace and love it was not. Pictured is a man speaking into a microphone as he disposes of his draft card at an anti-war demonstration in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco.

Sources: (JSTOR Daily) (Billboard) (Origins)

See also: Anti-war songs and other records about war

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