Flower Power - Cultural Legacy

Cultural Legacy

The iconic center of the Flower Power movement was the Haight Ashbury district in San Francisco, California. By the mid-1960s, the area, marked by the intersection of Haight and Ashbury Streets, had become a focal point for psychedelic rock music. Musicians and bands like Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin all lived a short distance from the famous intersection. During the 1967 Summer of Love, thousands of hippies gathered there, popularized by hit songs such as "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)". A July 7, 1967, Time magazine cover story on "The Hippies: Philosophy of a Subculture," and an August CBS News television report on "The Hippie Temptation" as well as other major media interest exposed the hippie subculture to national attention and popularized the Flower Power movement across the country and around the world.

The avante garde art of Milton Glaser, Heinz Edelmann, and Peter Max became synonymous with the flower power generation. Edelman's illustration style was best known in his art designs for The Beatles' 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine. Glaser, the founder of Push Pin Studios, also developed the loose psychedelic graphic design, seen for example in his seminal 1966 poster illustration of Bob Dylan with paisley hair. It was the posters by pop artist Peter Max, with their vivid fluid designs painted in Day-Glo colors, which became visual icons of flower power. Max's cover story in Life magazine (September 1969) as well as appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Ed Sullivan Show, further established "flower power" style art into mainstream culture.