The Beat Generation: The 1950's American Culture

Improved Essays
Often referred to as the beatniks, a parody of the USSR’s “Sputnik” (Enck), the Beat Generation stands in stark contrast to 1950’s American culture. With the rapid emergence of a post-WWII society - suburbs and consumerism, traditional family values and an exclusion of the extreme - entered the authors who rejected it. Their ideology, shocking to those of their time, ultimately led to the creation of a nation-wide literary movement.
The roots of this movement took place during 1944 near Columbia University, with the meeting of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs; the formation of this clique being fueled by a passion for writing, poetry, and a distaste for conformity (The Beat Page). Soon, this group would expand to include other names, such as Neal
…show more content…
Kerouac referred to his society as “a beat generation” to describe a collective feeling of weariness (Cellania). This was something he had originally heard from a homeless man by the name of Herbert Hunche, who described being beat as, “exhausted, at the bottom of the world, looking up or out, sleepless, wide-eyed, perceptive, rejected by society, on your own, streetwise” (Cellania). Holmes later went on to publish what is now considered to be the first introduction of this phrase to the public: a New York Times article entitled, “The Beat Generation” (Asher).
However, it was not until the publication of Ginsberg’s Howl that the Beats began to be truly recognized as a full-fledged movement (Asher). During a poetry reading at the Six Gallery in 1955, Ginsberg read aloud from Howl’s manuscript (Asher). This piqued the interest of a publisher within the crowd, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ferlinghetti, cofounder of City Lights publishing, later contacted Ginsberg by writing, "I greet you at the beginning of a great career. Please send manuscript”

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    “Oswaldo was flummoxed by the fact that his friend could be so quiet, almost embarrassed, about his academic acumen, yet so damn loud and proud of his status as a premier campus drug dealer.” (Hobbs 167). Within this quote from the unforgettable story “The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace,” written by Jeff Hobbs, lies an illustration of the influence of the Hip Hop Culture subgenres that has been located throughout many life stories in the past half century told by famous singers such as Eminem, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Kanye West, 50 cent, Dr. Dre and many others. The Hip Hop Culture is described as individuals being prone to detail the struggles of life in the course of a brutally honest point of opinion. In “The Short and Tragic Life…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    40 Min: Video: The Beat Generation- The Source; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6JqjCB_7_I *Letter will need to go home, informing parents of some strong language in the documentary and allowing the student to opt out of the video. Alternate Assignment is made available to any student that opts out.…

    • 1994 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Overarching Question: Why did people depart from traditionalist values to form the 1960s counterculture movement, and how did this impact what was viewed as “acceptable behavior” in the United States? The counterculture movement occurred during the 1960s (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, 2017): “Hippie” is from hip, meaning following the latest fashion. Hippies are associated with rainbow colors, peace signs, and drug use.…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The “Beat Generation” included authors who wrote many great essay’s, short stories, and poems. Although this starting group was small, they had an incredible impact on literature. The four people who are the “founders” of this movement are Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal…

    • 993 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hip Hop 1900s

    • 1431 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Music in the 1900s was very popular/influential and produced many talented artists. The genres of music known at the time was hip hop, rap, jazz, classical, and rock and roll. Music at this time broke boundaries and brought people together who bonded over a single genre of music. Great musicians erupted during this time. Music did not belong to a single race/gender of people, but a multitude of people.…

    • 1431 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Woodstock The 1960’s marked a huge turning point in American history. Music continued to become more and more influential in everyday life. By the mid 1960’s, young Americans began to feel progressively more frustrated by the society they were being brought up in. The youth had to witness women be suppressed and discredited strictly based on gender.…

    • 1883 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the mid-1950s, the beat generation was a group of cultural libertinism from San Francisco that gained attention from New York writers. The beat generation gained notoriety in 1956 with the publication of Jack Kerwac “on the road” which was a formless novel and Allen Ginsberg, “Howl and Other Poems.” The 1960s in California emerged a new generation of contemporary American literary writers. The California writers focused on the literary style and “concerns of the beat generation, but also reflected their own time period.” (pg. 419)…

    • 1161 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    All Shook Up Analysis

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages

    “All Shook Up” by Glenn Altschuler exhibits how Rock ‘n Roll irritated, inspired, and sparked change in American culture. Music has played a critical role in civilization since its creation. As humans have progressed and evolved so has music. There has been a constant transformation in melodic styles, sounds, and the ways people perform. Rock ‘n Roll gets its origins from the early days of jazz, rhythm and blues, folk, country, and pop.…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One reading that interested me was the first chapter of “Understanding Black American Aspects In Hip Hop Cinema” by Tani Sanchez. This reading made me understand more about the past and how hip hop music was born. It provided so much information about the history of it all. It explained how music radiates through people to better the world. Within that first chapter of “Understanding Black American Aspects In Hip Hip Cinema”, it focused on the aspect of importance of hip hop music, where it developed, and who it affected while also touching on politics instead of focusing on the negative.…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Swing music gained popularity in the 1930’s and “helped boost the careers of black and white bandleaders, but it also led to a creative slump that disheartened many younger black musicians” (pg. 425). Eventually bebop would become the music of the war decade and create or lead to more transformation of music including Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop or rap became widely known towards the end of the 20th century, speaking in rhyme, musicians sing about life stories, unlawful treatment of African Americans and violence. The rap group “Niggaz wit Attitude” in the 1980’s was a huge success and thus the creation of gangsta rap was evolved. By 2000, “hip-hop had become a global cultural force and the source of astonishing profits for men such as Simmons and Combs-and for white-owned business and music companies” (pg.…

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Glory Sparknotes

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Craig Watkins, Gaye Theresa Johnson, and Robin D.G. Kelley to understand why music is such an inclusive and meaningful expression for African Americans. This paper will attempt to understand how black music came to be, the urban situations that created a need for music, how hip hop, rap, and rock ‘n’ roll demonstrated blacks representation of urban situations, and how blacks represent problems facing African Americans in society and in cities. In order to understand why music, and hip hop more specifically, is heralded as a uniquely black form of expression, it is important to understand the construction of city life that awoke a desire for self and cultural expression through the art of music. This paper will link social and urban conditions that created unique circumstances, like increased violence and crime, and suburbanization, for the birth of hip hop culture. This paper will examine several important themes of hip hop: how it was formed, what hip hop culture is, patterns in rock ‘n’ roll, deconstruction of the urban environment, hip hop politics, and whiteness.…

    • 1072 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The 1950s was an important era in United States history as it welcomed new beliefs, perspectives, inventions and styles. It also marked the end of World War II shifting the country’s focus to the fight against communism and the Cold War. Domestically, the country’s gender roles stiffened as men tended to have jobs outside the house while women tended to work at home. Popular culture was also an important factor during the 1950s as it shaped how the decade would be perceived in the future. Depending on the topic or issue, popular culture either did or didn’t portray the reality of what was going on during the 1950s.…

    • 1095 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The booming growth of the economy shows that the 1950’s best characterizes American culture. Unlike other times in history, availability of employment was plentiful for many American soldiers after World War II because of the 1944 GI Bill of Rights. “The 1944 GI Bill of Rights helped cause the boom. It gave loans to returning veterans for education and training. It provided federal loan guarantees so they could buy homes, farms and businesses.…

    • 1274 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Bob Dylan Lyricism Essay

    • 1206 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Bob Dylan’s Lyricism: A Countercultural Perspective Abstract: Bob Dylan, a songwriter, poet and a 2017 Nobel laureate in literature is often portrayed as the guiding spirit of the sixties counterculture. Dylan’s politically committed songs in the 1960’s articulated a vision of society that was radically different from the existing political realities. The paper highlights the cultural resonance of Dylan’s radical lyricism amidst the countercultural era. It depicts the close affiliations that existed between Dylan’s songs and liberation movements of the times.…

    • 1206 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The purpose of this research paper is to compare and evaluate youth subcultures between Britain and the United States in the 1950’s. At the time, a post-war economic shift resulted in the manifestation of many subcultures. Thanks to an expanding market of consumerism and a decline in post-war rationing after World War II, young people had the money to spend on fashion and entertainment. The two main subcultures we will analyze in this report are the Teddy boys of Britain, and the “punks” of American society. With the development of rock n roll music and a desire to rebel against the common order, both subcultures were characterized by anti-establishment views and a distinctive style that older generations found aggressive and threatening.…

    • 1498 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays