Soical Evolution

Ginsberg and Burroughs grab the attention of their generation. Artists flock to New York, where the writers met. A different set follows the writers to San Francisco. These men however are not the settling kind. They are the modern day gypsies. They travel to where it's happening. This is the excuse used more often than not.

The reality is far less romantic. Burroughs is either outrunning drug charges or being subpoenaed for indecency. Ginsberg falls in love with San Francisco and fights his indecency charges from there. The others in the group are less than impressed by the bay area. A generation starts growing up on their works.

First the new genration encounters the Beatniks. The generation pre-Vietnam war has little identity. The Beatniks like the kids and vice-versa. Since the new generation is hip to the beatnik ways they are referred to as hip people or hipsters. This is shortened to hippy.( DISCovering U.S. History) This generation is not new or different they are merely the second generation of beatniks. The new generation is more optimistic. Instead of sitting in coffee houses talking about change they join groups and fight for social change. They accomplish what the beatniks would not. They make a counterculture.

It is said that the bible of the Hippies is 'On The Road'. The book covers four road trips. Mostly between New York and San Francisco. The offspring of the baby boomer generation see the text as a romantic adventure. Kerouac intends it to be a silly story for he and his friends. This is evidenced by his thin disguising of his fellow luminaries. Himself, Ginsberg, and Burroughs. The book highlights America's fascination with the road and automobile travel. Along the way we encounter hit-and-run romances, bop jazz, liquor, marijuana, all-night diners, and hitchhiking. (St James Press)

Critics blast the work. Going as far as to make Truman Capote quip that Kerouac's fiction was more typing than writing. Kerouac loves promoting the book. He tells stories of a 120 foot roll of teletype parchment, which is the backbone of the novel, typed mostly while high on Benzedrine.

Kerouac is the media darling of the beat movement. He is controversial without being offensive. Unlike his contemporaries he is not cited with indecency. His sexual exploits are tame compared with the sodomy that Burroughs and Ginsberg enjoy. He is revered by beatnik and hippie alike. Burroughs says of him, "Kerouac opened a million coffee bars and sold a million pairs of Levis to both sexes. Woodstock rises from his pages."(Hippy) .

Still he carries the title of both god and devil. While the hippies flock to San Francisco with the aid of his words, his words for them are not sweet. His last interview will be with Willaim F Buckley.


His death in 1969 at the age of 47 due to liver failure would begin the decline of both the beatniks and the hippies.





Source Citation: "Hippies and 1960s Counterculture." DISCovering U.S. History. Gale Research, 1997. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. http://ezp.tccd.edu:2055/servlet/HistRC/

Source Citation: "On the Road." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. 5 vols. St. James Press, 2000. Reproduced in History Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. http://ezp.tccd.edu:2055/servlet/HistRC/


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