San Francisco and the Long 60s

The counter-cultural community of San Francisco in the 1960s generated ideologies and mythologies that continue to resonate more than fifty years later.

In 2011, Dr Sarah Hill was awarded an AHRC Fellowship to complete research on her large-scale project, a cultural history of popular music in San Francisco, 1965-1969.

This project considered received historical accounts of the time, the musical, visual and literary communications from the counterculture, and retrospective glances from members of the counter-cultural community over four decades.

It was an exploration of the ‘short 60s’ – the period of psychedelic experimentation (1965-1969) – and a consideration of the ‘long 60s’ – the perpetuation of the counter-cultural ideology beyond the confines of geographical and temporal space.

Output

The resulting monograph, San Francisco and the Long 60s, was published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2016.

"I can try to be true to the spirit of the project and be honest in recounting the experiences of the people who were generous enough to share their memories with me..."

Dr Hill wrote contemporaneously for the School’s research blog about the origins of her work on San Francisco and the Long 60s and her research journey. Read the archived post.