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Dissertation Information for David McBride

NAME:
- David McBride

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (1998)

ADVISORS:
- Janice L. Reiff

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Eric H. Monkkonen
- George Lipsitz

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: On the fault line of mass culture and counterculture: A social history of the hippie counterculture in 1960s Los Angeles

Abstract: Historians of the 1960s have long recognized the counterculture's importance in realigning the contours of American culture. Previously isolated currents of bohemianism and the avant-garde exploded into popular consciousness, ultimately producing a more hedonistic culture with greater tolerance for cultural radicalism. Scholars have looked at the phenomenon from both national and, more rarely, local perspectives. Strangely, none have investigated the enormous Los Angeles scene, despite the fact that the city housed the mass culture industries responsible for popularizing "hip" values. There, hippies and agents of the industries intermixed freely, each venturing into the other's domain. Examining the Los Angeles counterculture, then, not only adds a much-needed study of an important local variant to the existing literature. It also offers unparalleled insights into how countercultural values filtered into the "mainstream" and reveals much about the dominant production system's adeptness at absorbing dissent.

As well as covering the broader issue of bohemianism's "massification," this dissertation presents a social history of Los Angeles hippies. The mostly white and middle-class local counterculture was one of the nation's largest, and existed in a region undergoing an unprecedented economic boom. Partly because of the scene's vibrancy, hippies were able to transform entire neighborhoods into refuges for cultural dissenters. In turn, such changes in the city's cultural and spatial constitution generated intense hostility, initiating a wave of bitter conflicts. Ultimately, the clashes portended a broader reaction, helping to fuel the rise of a resentful and increasingly popular "New Right."

The first of seven chapters contextualizes the counterculture, reviews the subject's historiography, and makes a case for Los Angeles' importance. Chapters Two and Three examine the local counterculture's social composition and ideology. The next three trace the counterculture's geographical expansion through the city and hippies' conflicts with authorities. The final two examine the counterculture's decline, arguing that both external repression and internal contradictions were equally important. The perpetual embattlement local hippies experienced shows that contrary to those who assign blame to the counterculture for ushering in an age of hyperconsumption and ersatz rebellion, in its time it offered both genuine opposition and lessons for succeeding progressive movements.

MPACT Scores for David McBride

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C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
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TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-10-08 21:37:09

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Students under David McBride

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None