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 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 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 Allen Ginsberg 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's image of Jan Rose Kasmir titled '' The Ultimate Confrontation: The Flower and the Bayonet'' and Bernie Boston'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 wrote the song " San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" for his friend Scott McKenzie 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 district, Berkeley, 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 Summer of Love 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'', 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 terms as a collective social symbol representing the mood of friendly weakness. In 1995, '' The Sekhmet Hypothesis'' 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