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The Beats and the 1950s

 

 Task Resources Evaluation 

 

Introduction

The 1950's represented, what W. H. Auden called, an "Age of Anxiety," between the victory of World War II and the specter of nuclear annihilation. The 1950s was also a time when many of the nation's younger generation began to challenge Conformity. The Beat Culture began at this time and continued with other countercultures and finally to the hippies of the 1960s.

According to John Clellon Holmes, Jack Kerouac's On the Road, the most important book of the Beat Generation, "described the experiences and attitudes of a restless group of young Americans .whose primary interests seemed to be fast cars, wild parties, modern jazz...and other miscellaneous kicks:

Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line the pearl would be handed to me (Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 1, Ch. 1).

What differentiated the characters in On The Road from the slum bred petty criminals was Kerouac's insistence that actually they were on a quest, and that the specific object of their quest was spiritual. Kerouac wanted visions:

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" ~ Jack Kerouac

The Beats weren’t looking for spirituality in church or school; following Emerson’s advice, the Beats looked for spirituality in Nature and themselves. Perhaps the quest of the Beats might be placed into a context of the vision of Ralph Waldo Emerson, when he gave an address to the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa society in which he claimed that character is higher than intellect, and experience counts more than book learning. Emerson told that august crowd to get out of school and experience life for themselves. Thoreau got it. And so did the Beats.

On the road, Kerouac and friends looked for a new American Identity, separate from those dead ideas inherited from Europe. Out in the vast landscape of the American continent, an individual, committed to self-reliance, novelty, and change, could make contact with the ultimate inspiration:

So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it... and tonight the stars'll be out (Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Part 5)

Historian Imre Saluszinsky has explored the connection between Emerson's call for a new American Identity and the Beat Generation and today's culture. For example, Emerson taught that spirituality can best be found in Nature:

 In fact the Beat idea of the American continent as the ultimate source of all inspiration comes from Emerson, who singlehandedly convinced the young American poets and thinkers of the 19th century that they could forget Europe and history, and forge an original relation to nature. And the radical individualism of the Existentialists, with its sense of all worldly power as corrupt and corrupting: that is also there in Emerson, who writes, "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members."

Contemporary cultural icon, Bob Dylan, has been perfectly open about his early influences: "I came out of the wilderness, and just naturally fell in with the Beat scene . . . it was Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso and Ferlinghetti . . . I got in at the tail end of that and it was magic."

Saluszinsky suggests that today's counter-culture goes back to "Emerson's chief lesson --- that memory and history are death to the creative spirit, which must be committed to novelty and change --- is evident everywhere in Dylan who saw immediately that one way of changing the times is simply to assert that they already are a-changin'...This spirit of Emerson and Hawthorne --- who looked West from New England and there, in the opposite direction to Europe, found a symbol of action and renewal ...Self-reliance is not in every respect a comforting or easy truth to live by: it teaches that we must compete and struggle endlessly, if we are to escape the limiting influence of others." As Dylan suggests:

Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you,
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you . . .
Strike another match, go start anew
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.

Your Task  

Break into groups of six and create a self-running, multimedia presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint of images of the counter culture of the 1950s, incorporating jazz, poetry and archival photography, painting and film. Included in your presentation will be major historical events and personalities as well as images of the 1950s. Be sure to include quotes. The presentation will become part of museum exhibit on the Beat counter-culture.

Make sure that you focus on just one writer or artist or muscian. Then use other media to supplement the presentation. For example, if you pick Thelonious Monk as your focus, then you can have a brief biographic description, but the majority of your presentation will blend music, photographs and video. You can use the paintings of the time to provide background texture to the presentation. The presentation can last between 4-5 minutes. Include a Works Cited page. Be creative, just like the Beats.

Process:

You will need to identify the role of the counter-culture in American History. References to Ralph Waldo Emerson's American Scholar speech, beat poetry and prose, and quotes by artists and musicians are required. Responsibility for the projects should be divided among group members including historical research and artistic research. The final goal of the group task will be to present a graphic history of the 1950s as viewed by American artists, writers, and musicians.

Steps

  • Divide into groups of six.
  • Assign responsibility for historical research and artistic research
  • Using listed resources, prepare a timeline of historical events using graphics to enhance the timeline.
  • Prepare a PowerPoint multimedia presentation.

    Evaluation

You will be evaluated on the following concepts:
* Historical accuracy and research
* Graphic Images
* Documentation
* Variety of Artists
* Presentation

Conclusion

We hope that "Images of the Fifties" will help make the students more aware of the artistic history of the America, along with the many great artists of the period.

 

The Beats in Popular Culture--Mostly Comic Interpretations
 

Audrey Hepburn Dance Scene in Funny Face
  Night Tide—Dennis Hopper Beatnik Jazz
 

Herman Munster as a Beatnik Poet
 

Beat Poetry B Movie Style (1950s) "I want to read a Beatnik poem."
 

Maynard G. Krebs—portable radio
 

Maynard G. Krebs –I’m Lost, Doomed
   

 

 

 General Information on New York

The Squares
  1. Documentary Showing How the Fifties Culture Gave Rise to the 60s Why did their fathers work so hard?  “Everything young boys saw at home and on TV showed them that they would be lucky enough to follow in their father’s footsteps...  While women could find fulfillment only as housewives... This is the way your life should be."
  2. "Life is a game that is played by rules" These were the rules.
  3. Being a Rebel

Marlon Brando--Rebel Actor

Television Shows of the 1950s
   

 Greenwich Village

 Music and the Village

Beat Hangouts

  • Ted Joan's beatnik birthday party, railroad flat, St. Mark's Place, July, 25, 1959.
  • The White Horse, 567 Hudson Street, a writer's beer tavern
  • The Artist's Club, 10th Street and Fourth Avenue (Feb. 15,1959, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso, Leroi Jones (now Amiri Baraka) read poetry)
  • Washington Square Park
  • Café Bizzare
  • Gaslight Café- MacDougal Street
  • San Remo Café - MacDougal Street
  • The Funeral of the Beat Generation, held Jan. 23, 1961 in Robert Cordier's railroad flat at 85 Christopher Street. Norman Mailer spoke there.
  • West Coast- San Fransico -
  • "Gateway to Beatnikland" North Beach
  • City Lights bookstore, Columbus Ave.
  • Co-Existence Bagel Shop

 

Comedy in the Village

Sound Files

 Jack Kerouac

 Museums

Other Beat Writers

Poetry

Art Resources

Popular Images from Magazines[e.g. the Squares]

Rebel Painters and Poets of the Beat Generation

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

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