Bohemia by the Bay Bohemian Era Reborn The Bohemian movement did not die in the first half of the 20th Century, it just went underground WWI WWII Depression Korean War After decades of war, the American youth were searching for something more than conformity, they wanted change. Following the American Jazz Age in the 1920s the concept of Bohemianism remained a cultural fixture throughout the early 20th century, being taken up by each new wave of ‘down and out’ young artists and writers, most notably those of the Beat Generation (William S Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac). Beat Generation The generation is now known as the Beat Movement, but it originated with a few writers in New York City in the 1950's. It was a literary movement which emulated many of the ideals of the Bohemians of 19th Century Paris. Here's how: • The beat writers went against the ideals of the mainstream culture, both in their lifestyles and literature. • As with 19th Century Bohemians, the dominant culture was initially ambivalent toward the beats, but it later became "hip." Just like the bohemians of the 19th century, the beats brought their art right into the social arena with them. Beat Culture: A Later Manifestation of Bohemia The members of the Beat Generation developed a reputation as new bohemian hedonists, who celebrated non-conformity and spontaneous creativity. They spoke a lingo that had been collected by jazzman Cab Calloway in his 'Hepster's Dictionary' of the Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase ‘Beat Generation” previous decade. Living in in 1948 to characterize the underground, anti-conformist, modest 'pads' and on little youth movement. First it meant ‘beaten down’, then it 'bread,' these 'cats and was altered to be ‘upbeat’ and then musically ‘on the kittens' found expression in beat’. art on musical 'axes.' San Francisco Renaissance In 1947 the war ended, so of course San Francisco hosts the first Poetry Festival…ever. This festival draws attention from writers from all over the world. The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco, which brought it to prominence as the hub of the American poetry avant-garde. Over the next decade San Francisco would attract creatives from all the arts that came to catch the rhythm of the Bohemian Beat. Source Material By Peter Hartlaub, Chronicle, 2015 Bohemian North Beach City Lights Books: A literary meeting-place since 1953, and the first all-paperback bookstore in the U.S., legendary home of the beatniks, publisher of Allen Ginsberg's HOWL, and owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Nancy Peters. San Francisco’s North Beach carried deep immigrant, bohemian, and nightlife traditions. The neighborhood bordered the old, well- known Chinatown and Barbary Coast entertainment areas. North Beach’s tolerant bar and cafe scene, ethnic heterogeneity, and physical isolation from the rest of the city, combined with the area’s low rents, attracted artists to the neighborhood’s southern edge at the end of the nineteenth century. Its Bohemian scene flourished through the post-war period and was augmented by the opening of the California School of Fine Arts . A new beat movement began coalescing in 1953 and 1954 when writers and poets such as Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Gary Snyder arrived on North Beach’s already thriving literary scene. Many beat artists felt that the North Beach community supported their creative work and bohemian lifestyle. Source Material By Peter Hartlaub, Chronicle, 2015 Beats Beats Feets to Beach (North) New York City had been the cultural centerpiece for decades. The Bohemian enclave of Greenwich Village was the heart of the Beat Movement. But, when the nucleus of the Beats migrated to San Francisco, the movement fostered many new social factions that made the Bay Area the heart of counter culture for decades to come. Counter Culture Pivot Point What happened in 1957 that turned a conservative San Francisco into the epicenter for Counter Culture movements? On Oct. 3, 1957, when a judge handed down the verdict for perhaps the most important misdemeanor case in the history for the city.…for California?…for Progressives?… Judge Clayton W. Horn scolded the police in English and French before declaring that Allen Ginsberg’s poetry tour de force “Howl” was not an obscenity. This decision unleashed poets, writers, and creatives to express themselves without fear of ‘the establishment’. When reports of SF Customs Agents confiscating 500 copies or Howl bound for The Bay Area was now the London… epicenter for freedom, change, …sales exploded. and progressive thinking. Source Material By Peter Hartlaub, Chronicle, 2015 ‘bible of the beat generation’ The year following Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’, Jack Kerouac published a travel chronicle that captured the wild youthful spirit of the Beat Movement. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonists living life against a backdrop of jazz, poetry, and drug use. Wikipedia The Beatles spelled their name with an "a" partly as a Beat Generation reference Remember way back to 1960 when you were part of a new generation that had a desperate hunger for experiences that are passionate, exuberant and alive. You were a post war teen looking for direction, looking for an ‘identity’. Lawrence Ferlinghetti in front of City Lights Books & Publishing Finding books about the mysteries of life and 20 somethings that tell you about the world beyond your living room, are cherished guides for your upcoming You are what you read ! ‘road trip of life’. "And I ended up in San Francisco, right in North Beach, 'cause I knew it was the bohemian section," says Ruth Weiss, (Godmother of the Beats). "I mean, Steinbeck and Saroyan...used to hang out at the Black Cat”, all the poets went there. "Beatniks" The term "Beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen of the San The Black Cat was Francisco Chronicle in 1958, a combo on the name of the recent distinguished as a bohemian Russian satellite Sputnik and Beat Generation. This suggested hang-out (it billed itself as that beatniks were (1) "far out of the mainstream of society" and Bohemia of the Barbary (2) "possibly pro-Communist.” Caen's term stuck and became Coast). It provided the the popular label associated with a new stereotype. backdrop for part of Jack Kerouac’s book On the Road. During the 1960s, aspects of the Beat movement metamorphosed into the counterculture of the 1960s, accompanied by a shift in terminology from "beatnik" to "hippie". Many of the original Beats remained active participants, notably Allen Ginsberg, who became a fixture of the anti-war movement. source: Wikipedia Bohemian Movements Evolution Civil Rights The Beat Generation would ‘mind expanding’ drugs soon be transformed by Anti-War Hippie Beat waves or powerful Boomer Generation Movement Movement social change that would make the 1960’s the most The ‘Draft’ pivotal decade in American history. the pill, ‘free love’ Many people view the 1960's as the era of radical change and revolution in America. Women, blacks, students, homosexuals -- they all spoke out powerfully in that decade. But the seeds of these movements were planted much earlier, with the beats. The next article in this series will examine the Hippie Movement..