Counter Culture Timeline

Posted on The Hippie Museum website.


A brief history of the Counter Culture
by Phil Morningstar

1780

1780

1787 - Isaac T. Hopper, a Quaker, establishes a system to help fugitive slaves escape that becomes known as the Underground Railroad.

1789 - Declaration of The Rights of Man in Paris, France. 1790

1800

1810

1820

1824 - Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) is formed in london England.

1830

1831 - Birth of the American abolition movement, when The Liberator, a weekly paper published by William. L. Garrison. After the end of the Civil War in 1865, Garrison published his last issue (1,820 consecutive issues) .

1836 - Ralph Waldo Emerson's first book, Nature, was the bible of a new movement, " a new consciousness," as he put it. The book begins by inviting the new generation to leave the past behind, to "enjoy an original relation to the universe It ends by exhorting the reader to "build your own world

1840

1841 - Brook Farm , founded in 1841 by George Ripley, began as a Trans-cendentalist attempt to integrate the life of the mind with manual labor. Nathaniel Hawthorne spent a year there shoveling manure and working the fields

1848 - The first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. A Declaration of Sentiments calls for equal treatment of women and men.

1850

1851 - Henry David Thoreau declares that "in Wildness is the preservation of the World." Walden published in 1854

1855 - Walt Whitman published, at his own expense, a volume of 12 poems, ,Leaves of Grass in 1855. It was criticized because of love , Whitman's exaltation of the body and sexuality and also because of its innovation in verse form. That is, the use of free verse in long rhythmical lines with a natural, "organic" structure.

1859 - Charles Darwin 's Origin of Species published.

1860

1864 - The First International Workingmen's Association is founded in London, September 23, 1864

1865 - 13th Amendment to the Constitution bans slavery in US.

1866 - The word "" ecology" is coined by the German biologist Ernst Haeckel

1866 - Animals The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was formed.

1867 - Karl Marx writes Das Kapital . First English translation was in 1887.

1869: Wyoming Territorial legislature grants full voting rights to women.

1871 - Paris Commune declared after Franco-Prussian War

1872 - Congress passes an act to establish , Yellowstone National Park Wyoming - the first in the history of the nation and of the world.

1880

1890: Wyoming enters the Union as the first state granting full women's suffrage which had been included in the original formation of the territory in 1869.

1890 - First uprising at Wounded Knee . Native Americans of the Lakota Nation are massacred at Wounded Knee S. Dakota.

1892 - In San Francisco, John Muir and a group of associates meet to found the Sierra Club

1893 - Colorado is the first state to adopt an amendment granting women the right to vote

1895 - Buddy Bolden is generally considered to be the first bandleader to play the improvised music, which later became known as jazz.

1900

1905 - The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as "the Wobblies used in-your-face tactics attempting to achieve their goals of unionizing all workers and overthrowing capitalism.

1907 - One of the first how-to books with a "back to the land" orientation was Three Acres And Liberty by Bolton Hall.

1908 - The International Vegetarian Union (IVU) formed.

1909 - Foundation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

1910

1913 - William Temple Hornaday publishes Our Vanishing Wild Life , one of the first books wholly devoted to endangered wild animals.

1914 - "Father of the blues" William Christopher Handy publishes his most famous composition, "St. Louis Blues."

1915 - Liberty Hyde Bailey publishes The Holy Earth, establishing an ethic for the human/nature relationship. It directly influences 'Aldo Leopold s "land ethic" in the 1930s and '40s

1916 - Margaret Sanger opens the first U.S. birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, N.Y.

1917 - 'Emma Goldman' s criticism of mandatory conscription of young men into the military led to a two-year imprisonment, followed by her deportation in 1919.

1920

1920 - The 19th Amendment to the Constitution grants women the right to vote.

1920 - Trained as a doctor, William Carlos Williams maintained a medical practice throughout his life, while also writing poetry that would influence a generation of younger poets, especially , Alan Ginsberg. His first major work, Kora in Hell: Improvisations was published in 1920.

1923 -Three years after women won the right to vote, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is introduced in Congress by Senator Curtis and Representative Anthony. It is authored by Alice Paul, head of the National Women's Party, who led the suffrage campaign. Anthony is the nephew of suffragist Susan B. Anthony .

1924 - French poet and critic Surrealist Andre Breton published his Manifesto in Paris in 1924

1930

1931 -1939 - The Dust Bowl , an ecological and human disaster that took place in the southwestern Great Plains region of the United States.

1933 - Francis Perkins becomes the Secretary of Labor and the first woman named to a Cabinet position.

1938 - LSD-25 first synthesized by Albert Hoffman at Sandoz Labs, Bazel Switzerland

1940

1941 - Lester Young turned writer , Jack Kerouac the founding father of the "beat generation" on to his first marijuana cigarette. Jack was 19 years old.

1941 - Woody Guthrie joined the Almanac Singers, whose other members were Pete Seeger , Lee Hays , and Millard Lampell

1942 - Congress of Racial Equality founded in Chicago.

1944 - Vegan Society formed in U.K. to promote vegetarianism and animal rights.

1948 - Political satirist Lenny Bruce appears on the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts television show.

1948 - The first Fellowship of Intentional Communities is formed to promote altenative living situations.

1949 - George Orwell's Nineteen Eight-Four is published

1950

1951 - Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed uses term "rock 'n' roll" to promote rhythm and blues to white audiences

1954 - Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception published

1954 - Thurgood Marshall represented the NAACP in the Brown vs. Board of Education case.

1954 - Publication of Witchcraft Today gives rise to modern Wicca movement.

1955 - The U.S. Supreme Court declares that public schools must be desegregated "with all deliberate speed."

1955 - Bill Haley and the Comets become first major white band to use black rock 'n' roll forms, featuring heavy, danceable beat and repetitive patterns, "Rock Around the Clock" becomes huge hit.

1955 - Mrs. Rosa Parks an African-American seamstress, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for not letting a white bus rider take her seat.

1958 - Paul Krassner begins publication of The Realist, an underground satirical radical magazine.

1960

1960 - The American Vegan Society is formed.

1961 - the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) began the freedom rides to end segregation on buses.

1961 - Amnesty International founded to protect the rights of political prisnors.

1962, Sept. 30--The first convention of Cesar Chavez's National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) is convened in Fresno, Calif.

1963 - . On August 28, 1963, 250,000 men, women, and children assembled on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial. And the world was blessed to hear the famous "I have a Dream" speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King jr

1963 - Presiden John F. Kennedy is assinated in Dallas Texas Nov. 22.

1963 - Tolstoy Farm becomes the prototype, back to the land, "hippie" commune, with few rules and and open membership.

1964- Drop City commune/artists colony founded in Trinidad, Colorado.

1964 - Mario Savio gets up on a police car at Spoul Plaza at the UC campus in Berkeley, Ca. and sparks the Free Speech Movement.

1964 - The U.S. creates the Gulf of Tonkin incident as an excuse to escalate the war in Vietnam.

1964- Tim Leary writes The Psychedelic Experience

1964 - Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters began traveling around the country in a school bus painted psychedelic colors giving "Acid Tests. " Introducing people to the LSD experience.

1966 Spring-summer --A boycott of the struck DiGiorgio Fruit Corp. forces the giant grape grower to agree to an election among its workers. The company brings in the Teamsters Union to oppose Cesar's NFWA. The NFWA and the Filipino American AWOC merge to form the United Farm Workers and the union affiliates with the AFL-CIO, the national labor federation. DiGiorgio workers vote for the UFW

1966 - National Organization of Women NOW was established on June 30, 1966 in Washington, D.C.

1966 - The Supreme Court ruled that cities must begin to desegregate the schools immediately. In 1971, they approved busing as the primary method of integrating the schools

1966 - in the wake of the assassination of black leader Malcolm X and on the heels of the massive black, urban uprising in Watts, California. Huey P. Newton gathered a few of his longtime friends, including Bobby Seale and David Hilliard, and formed the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.

1966 - Lou Gottlieb declares his "Morning Star Ranch" Land, access to which is denied no one." And starts a legal battle with local authorities to keep Morning Star open land eventually deeding the land to God.

1966 - Mark Lane writes Rush to Judgement suggesting there was a conspiracy to assasinate president Kennedy.

1966 - October 30, -Acid Test Graduation

1967 - Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg of The Fugs, and some SF Diggers lead a mass crowd in the .Excorsism of the Pentagon

1967 - The Summer of Love!!!

1968 - Martin Luther King jr assasinated in memphis, Tenn., on April 4.

1968 - Robert Kennedy assasinated in Los Angeles, Ca., on June 4.

1968 - American Indian Movement starts foot patrol in Minneapolis in response to growing police violence.

1968 - Durring demonstartions at the Democratic National Convention several organizers are indicted and become known as the Chicago 7.

1969 - First Earth Day celebration.

1969 - Woodstock Festival in upper N.Y. draws 500,000 people. Along with 3 days of music, Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm create an atmosphere of love that transcends the crowd. Woodstock Nation declared.

1969- The Stonewall riots in NYC lead to the birth of the modern Gay Lesbian Bi Transgender movement.

1969 - The people of Berkeley, Ca. take an unused lot from UC and create People's Park.

1970

1970- May 4 , Kent State Massacre occurred when the Ohio National Guard opened fire durring an anti-war demonstration killing 4 students.

1970 - National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) formed.

1971 - The ERA is approved without amendments by the U.S. House of Representatives in a vote of 354-24

1971- Greenpeace began in 1971, when a small but determined group of activists boarded an aging 80-foot boat, slowly making their way through the cold North Pacific waters off Alaska. Their mission was to "bear witness" to the destructive nuclear weapons testing planned for Amchitka island. Little did they know they had just created what was to become the largest environmental movement in the world.

1971 - Ralph Nader founds the consumer protection group, .Public Citizen

1971 - , Stephen Gaskin and friends, found a large experiment in communal living calleda The Farm in Tennessee.

1972 - The Rainbow Family of Living Light holds the first Gathering of the Tribes at Strawberry Lake Colorado.

1972 - March 22: The Equal Rights Amendment is approved by the full Senate without changes - 84-8.

1973 - Second uprising at Wounded Knee S. Dak. occurs over harsh reservation conditions and broken treaties.

1973 - Bill Wheeler and the Ahimsa Church Ranch commune (Wheeler's Ranch)lose a decision in Appellate Court that spells the end of the open land movement. Bulldozers are used to destroy the homes.

1975 - Covenant of the Goddess is formed to help secure Pagan rights.

1979 - Earth First! was founded in 1979 in response to a lethargic, compromising, and increasingly corporate environmental community.

1980

1980 - Food Not Bombs is formed as a grassroots movement to feed the poor.

1980 - Reclaiming - a Community of people, a Tradition of Witchcraft and a religious organization. Reclaiming is a community of women and men working to unify spirit and politics. Our vision is rooted in the religion and magic of the Goddess - the Immanent Life Force

1980 - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is formed on the simple principle that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or use for entertainment.

1982 - June 30: ERA is stopped three states short of ratification. ERA supporters pledge "We'll Remember in November." An analysis of the ERA vote in the four key targeted states, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Oklahoma, shows the Republicans deserted ERA and Democratic support was not strong enough to pass the amendment; the analysis makes clear that the single most obvious problem was the gender and racial imbalance in the legislatures, with more than 2/3 of the women, all of the African Americans but less than 50% of the white men in the targeted legislatures casting pro-ERA votes in 1982. July: ERA is officially reintroduced in the United States Congress.

1986 - The second Fellowship of Intentional Communities is formed to provide a forum and resource information on alternative living situations.

1987 - Act Up formed as a direct action AIDS awareness/activist group.

1990

1995 - Dead Heads around the world mourn the passing of "Captain Trips", Jerry Garcia The other Grateful Dead band members carry on in new dead incarnations. Long live the Dead!

1996 - Proposition 215 is passed legalizing the medical use of cannabis in the state of California.

1996 - Kate Bornstein writes. Gender Outlaw

2000 - Y2K .... not

2001 - November 10, Ken Kesey died. (see Kesey Timeline by Rick Dodgson )

The Timeline is a work in progress. To volunteer to help, email hippiemuseum@imaginationwebsites.com