Flower child originated as a synonym for ''hippie'', especially among the idealistic young people who gathered in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

and the surrounding area during the

Summer of Love The Summer of Love was a major social phenomenon that occurred in San Francisco during the summer of 1967. As many as 100,000 people, mostly young people, hippies, beatniks, and 1960s counterculture figures, converged in San Francisco's Haig ...

in 1967. It was the custom of "flower children" to wear and distribute

flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

s or floral-themed decorations to symbolize ideals of universal belonging,

peace Peace is a state of harmony in the absence of hostility and violence, and everything that discusses achieving human welfare through justice and peaceful conditions. In a societal sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (suc ...

, and

love Love is a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment (psychology), attachment to a person, animal, or thing. It is expressed in many forms, encompassing a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most su ...

. The mass media picked up on the term and used it to refer in a broad sense to any hippie. Flower children were also associated with the

flower power Flower power was a slogan used during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a symbol of passive resistance and nonviolence. It is rooted in the Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, opposition movement to the Vietnam War. The ex ...

political movement, which originated in ideas written by

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

in 1965.

Origins

Day 8 Occupy Wall Street September 24 2011 Shankbone 24

The term originated in the mid-1960s in the wake of a film version of

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

's ''

The Time Machine ''The Time Machine'' is an 1895 dystopian post-apocalyptic science fiction novella by H. G. Wells about a Victorian scientist known as the Time Traveller who travels to the year 802,701. The work is generally credited with the popularizati ...

'' that depicted flower-bestowing, communal people of the future in a story characterized by antiwar themes. American political activists like

and

Abbie Hoffman Abbot Howard Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponent of the ...

advocated the giving of flowers as a means of peaceful protest. Images of flower-wielding protesters at the 1967 Pentagon March, such as

Marc Riboud Marc Riboud (; 24 June 1923 – 30 August 2016) was a French photographer, best known for his extensive reports on the Far East: ''The Three Banners of China'', ''Face of North Vietnam'', ''Visions of China'', and ''In China''. Early life and e ...

's image of Jan Rose Kasmir titled '' The Ultimate Confrontation: The Flower and the Bayonet'' and

Bernie Boston Bernie Boston (May 18, 1933 – January 22, 2008) was an American photographer most noted for his iconic ''Flower Power'' image. Life and career Boston was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in McLean, Virginia. During his time in high s ...

's Pulitzer Prize–nominated photograph ''

Flower Power Flower power was a slogan used during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a symbol of passive resistance and nonviolence. It is rooted in the Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, opposition movement to the Vietnam War. The ex ...

'',Bernie Boston
"Flower Power"
''The Washington Evening Star'', October 21, 1967 popularized the association of flowers with the counterculture movement of the 1970s.

Hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

s embraced the symbolism by dressing in clothing with embroidered flowers and vibrant colors, wearing flowers in their hair, and distributing flowers to the public, becoming known as flower children.

San Francisco

John Phillips of

The Mamas & the Papas The Mamas & the Papas were an American folk rock vocal group that recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968, with a brief reunion in 1971. The group was a defining force in the music scene of the counterculture of the 1960s. Formed in New York C ...

wrote the song "

San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" is an American pop song, written by John Phillips, and sung by Scott McKenzie. It was produced and released in May 1967 by Phillips and Lou Adler, who used it to promote their Monterey I ...

" for his friend

Scott McKenzie Scott McKenzie (born Philip Wallach Blondheim III; January 10, 1939 – August 18, 2012) was an American singer and songwriter who recorded the 1967 hit single and generational anthem " San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)". Ea ...

to promote the

Monterey Pop Festival The Monterey International Pop Festival was a three-day music festival held June 16-18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix Ex ...

that Phillips was helping to organize. Released on May 13, 1967, the song's lyrics urged visitors to

to "wear some flowers in your hair", in keeping with the festival's billing as "three days of music, love, and flowers". The song was a popular hit, reaching number 4 on the music chart in the United States and number 1 in the United Kingdom and most of Europe, and became an unofficial

anthem An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to sho ...

for hippies,

and the flower child concept.

Summer of Love

After the January 14, 1967

Human Be-In The Human Be-In was an event held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture an ...

organized by artist Michael Bowen (among other things, announcements told participants to bring flowers), as many as 100,000 young people from all over the world flocked to San Francisco's

Haight-Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called the Haight and the Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the countercultu ...

district,

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California *George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer to ...

, and other

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...

cities during the

in search of different value systems and experiences. After the

in June of 1967, the Summer of Love became a watershed event in the development of a worldwide

1960s counterculture The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon and political movement that developed in the Western world during the mid-20th century. It began in the early 1960s, and continued through the early 1970s. It is oft ...

when newly recruited flower children returned home at the end of the summer, taking with them new styles, ideas, and behaviors and introducing them in all major cities of the U.S. and western Europe.

Social analysis

In his book, ''

Prometheus Rising ''Prometheus Rising'' is a 1983 guidebook by Robert Anton Wilson. The book includes explanations of Timothy Leary eight-circuit model of consciousness, Alfred Korzybski general semantics, Aleister Crowley Thelema, and various other topics related ...

'', the philosopher

Robert Anton Wilson Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American writer, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson ...

suggested that the flower children could be viewed in

Jungian Analytical psychology (, sometimes translated as analytic psychology; also Jungian analysis) is a term referring to the psychological practices of Carl Jung. It was designed to distinguish it from Freud's psychoanalytic theories as their s ...

terms as a collective social symbol representing the mood of friendly weakness. In 1995, ''

The Sekhmet Hypothesis ''The Sekhmet Hypothesis'' was first published in book form in 1995 by Iain Spence. It suggested that pop trends of an atavistic nature could be analysed in relation to Timothy Leary, Dr. Timothy Leary's interpersonal circumplex model. It also sug ...

'' extended Wilson's idea into other pop cultural trends with other youth movements being compared to the moods of hostile weakness, friendly strength and hostile strength.Spence, Iain (2012). ''The Hare Hypothesis''. Bast's Blend. .

Origins

San Francisco

Summer of Love

Social analysis

See also

References

Further reading