american history tv products are now available at the new c-span online store. go to c-spanstore.org to see what's new for american history tv and check out all of the c-span products. next, historian david farber looks at the 50th anniversary of the woodstock music festival. a three-day rock concert that attracted half a million people to a dairy farm in upstate new york. he's the author of "the age of great dreams: america in the 1960s." and he joined american history tv and "washington journal" for this interview. but first, part of a 1969 abc report about the impact the massive crowd had on the small new york town known as bethel. last night the traffic was i immense, but somehow between

dark and dawn when the music th finally stopped, they e disappeared across the country.y although thousands remained on the rented 600-acre dairy farm pitching in on cleanup detail or just waiting out the crowd. the festival site is nestled in the heart of the catskills resort area. the biggest town nearby is monticello. and the toin townspeople, quite frankly, were terrified of the prospect of the hippy arrival. before it was over something happened in monticello. residents and resorts freely emptied their cupboards for the kids. merchants were stunned by their politeness. >> polite. that's what i can say about them. polite kids. >> you didn't sell too many oo > shoes. >> no, not too many, but they were happy here. i thierful >> i think they are really a wonderful group of kids.have neg i never met so many kids in such large numbers that were so polite, so patient, so courteous and understanding under these conditions that we had here in the last three days. >> certainly in the beginning there was a great deal of men ad

apprehension, but right now i can say that the attitude of the town has changed toward these young men and women. >> they took a lot of aggravation and inconvenience that the average adult wouldn't take. >> unfortunately, because much of the press coverage was so jaundiced in its reports of whar happened here, not many people in the country will have learnew what monticello learned.ere suffice it to say it was not a disaster area. there were 450,000 young people here. an instant big city, really, with no conveniences, few police, but no violence, not even arguments in the midst of a 12-hour traffic jam. >> abc news coverage from august of 1969. joining us from lawrence, kansas, is david farber, professor of history at the university of kansas. we appreciate you being with us. let's talk about what happened t in bethel, pennsylvania, 50 y. miles from new york city. what was woodstock?

>> i think woodstock was a surprise to the entire nation. it started one way and it ended in a very different way. it started as three days of peace and music. it was going to be a for-profit music festival starring some of the biggest names in rock 'n' roll. it was like many other festivals that had preceded it in the minds of the promoters. but two days in it became something quite different, a free concert, a free concert in which some 450,000 people showed up, almost all of them young people who had to make do with what they had, who triumphed over rain, crowds, gridlock, lack of food and had an amazing time and showed the nation what young people were capable of. >> why was this dairy farm in new york selected for the site?o >> well, so much about woodstock, that dairy farm in new york outside of bethel was h not supposed to be what was happening with woodstock. the festival was first maybe going to be up in the woodstock area.oo far f

then it was going to be down in a neighborhood not too far from woodstock. permits weren't given. townspeople decried what was happening, and with less than a month to go, max yasgar, a daird farmer in new york said, all ge, right, promotors, i'm going to let you use my farm. and with one month to go, they had to build a stage, build sound systems, lighting, figure out how to create fences and really in a spontaneous way created the woodstock music festival. >> what did the neighbors think of max yasgar? >> i think a lot of people in that vicinity were not sure what to make of what was going to happen at max yasgar's dairy farm in new york city, outside e of new york city. there was a lot of concern. there was a lot of fear. there was a sense of what the unknown could bring. i think a lot of neighbors were furious with max for agreeing to do this. but over time i think most of those townspeople, most of the community residents, were won over, but certainly not at the

beginning. >> our guest is david farber. we'll get to your calls in just a moment, but first, some more background on what happened at woodstock, a place that became one of the iconic moments of the 1960s counterculture movement. >> the organizers of the festival's original plan was to have it in woodstock which is about 60 miles northeast of here. and woodstock, new york, was a bohemian community and a lot of musicians lived there off and on, including bob dylan, the band, richie havens, van morrison. the organizers called their company woodstock ventures, andd they started looking for a place for their festival.l. they couldn't find a place in woodstock that was large enough. they found a property that might have worked in a town womhich i down the road from woodstock. that fell through. they found an industrial park in

the town of wallkill. they started advertising.foun they built a d thstage.t they everything was going smoothly e until the50,0 locals caught winf what they were doing and it wasn't going to be a wal 50,000-person folk festival, after all, what they were promised. and the town of wallkill basically rewrote its laws to at outlaw the festival. lef pro and that left woodstock ventures with about four weeks to find another location. when they came to this property, it was a perfect shape, perfect size, for the type of rock festival that they wanted to have, and the rest is history. >> some background on woodstock. david farber, as you look at the names of the people who performed, ar low guthrie, the grateful dead, janis joplin, jefferson airplane, what brought all of these musicians to this location?

>> yeah, it was a real hall of fame roster. so many of these people are names we still know so well today. this was a music festival not too far from new york city that many bands and their managers thought would be a great laun people. launching pad, put them in front of a lot of people. they hoped to make some money s performing. and it was sort of one musician signed up, it lured another musician. it was a sort of cavlacade effect, a snowball effect, to accept a few of the most major names, the stones, the beatles, weren't there, but, boy, after that, they all wanted to come to woodstock. >> one of the myths i think by people who think about woodstock is that it became a place of violence and disruption, but that wasn't the situation, was it? >> no. i think what surprised the nation and certainly went against what the mass media had

been promoting up until the actual festival began, was that woodstock turned out to be, despite some pretty dire he lac conditions, an incredibly peaceful assemblage of 450,000 people who figured out how to get along, not let tensions f erupt, not let lack of water, lack of food, turn them off. they shared what they had. they worked with each other.hint and they made an incredible event that i think for those who attended became something they never, ever forgot. >> what is remarkable, too, is how this spread to a half a million, nearly half a million y people. you can see the crowds in that film that was shot. they initially expected, as you pointed out, between 150,000 to 200,000 people to travel to bethel, new york. this is in the era where there s is no social media, no websites, no cell phones.even so how did word spread about this iconic event? >> it's a real testament to how the counterculture and youth culture in general were organized at that time. yeah, there was no social media, there were no advertisements on the mainstream media. a lot of the word on the concerts got out through the

alternative press. there was a very vital underground press at that point. every big city had one, many college towns had an underground press. and the promotors did advertise in those places. it was talked about on sort of nascent burgeoning fm radio stations which was a new thing at that time. so young people had their own media and it worked. word got out and far faster and spread wilder than the promotors ever expected. >> what was the counterculture movement? >> the counterculture movement didn't have membership cards and there's no roster. so it's a kind of amorphous word. it entitled two different things at the same time by 1969. jus one is it was protest culture. ranging from people seeking social justice, racial justice, against the war in vietnam, the beginnings of the environmental movement.litics young people who were united for creating some sort of alternative politics in the united states.ev

i think even more the koupt c l counterculture was a celebration of alternative values or maybe h america living up to the values it proclaimed. feel what would equality really look like, what should freedom feel like, what would social justice live like? these are people who wanted to experience and build a different america built on some real core values. >> for those watching on c-span3's american history tv, following our conversation, we'll let you listen to an oral history done by artie cornfeld. who was he? >> artie was one of the four most important people in putting woodstock together.c indust artie was at that time in his mid 20s.. all the guys who put the concert together were in their mid 20s.i they were good men. cornfeld was integral to them signing up some of the big names. he had those connections into r the industry.th >> and here's part of that oral history as he reflects on what he and his colleagues put together in august of 1969.

>> the legacy of woodstock is that in 500 years when they forgot about the beatles if there's still people living, they're still going to remember the greatest peaceful event. wos the legacy was "time" magazine when they listed the top 20 events of mankind, making woodstock number two, when they said it was the greatest peaceful manmade event in the history of all mankind and it was second to man landing on the moon. >> david farber, as you hear that, what's your reaction? >> well, i think artie's right to take pride in what he helped accomplish. top 20, we could all have an interesting debate about that. it was certainly an extraordinary event and certainly in 1969 it felt to many americans like an extraordinary event. here was a time of polarization, anger, rage, when violence was starting to become the norm in a lot of the political movements

at the time. yet, there they were, 400,000, 500,000 young people trying to assemble. it really did surprise the people who attended and cheered a lot of americans up and young people could gather together like that and create history in a wonderful, peaceful way. >> we're dividing our phoneatte love to hear from you. 202-748-8000. if you're 55 or older and may not have attended but remember conversation among your family members about woodstock, that number is 202-748-8001. and all others 202-748-8002. what is the most important thing as a historian that we need to understand with regards to what happened in bethel, new york? >> i think woodstock has remained an important historical event really for probably two reasons.

one, it was a hallmark of music history. i mean, if you've seen the movie, if you've watched those bands perform, this was an incredible event. the richie havens' opening very long set where he played that amazing freedom piece to jimmy hen rix's closing "star-spangled banner." these are the moments that live on. it was an event that marked in some ways the coming out party for the counter culture across america. so people kind of knew about hippies in san francisco. they knew about the youth culture of music.ma they were fearful, i think, many americans of the drug experiences regarding marijuana and lsd. but at woodstock people saw another side of the counterculture, especially the movie that came out in 1970. here were young people who were really trying to live different values, who were trying to share and cooperate. this was the best face the counterculture could show america. i think it's been a lasting face in part because of the film that came out the next year.

>> we have a trailer from that film that was released in 1970. let's watch. >> "woodstock," an incredible film about an incredible event, is back. ♪ >> supposed to be a million and a half people here by tonight. can you dig that? ♪ i get by with a little help from my friends ♪ >> it's really amazing. it looks like some kind of biblical, epic, unbelievable scene.utrage >> woodstock, with a cast of a half a million outrageously friendly people. >> you want me to explain it in plain english? >> it's a dirty mess. ♪ >> woodstock, where it all began. >> the voiceover by casey casem. who has since passed away. of course, that iconic voice of radio and the film came out in 1970.

i want to point out, david farber, the organizers sold about 185,000 tickets expecting 200,000 to show up. what were the ticket prices? and what did they do when a half million people showed up or nearly a half million? >> right. right. i mean, that's i think one of the most important things to ponder all these decades later is woodstock was supposed to just be another music concert. i think it was if i remember right $18 if you wanted to attend all 3 days of the concert. you could buy tickets pretty readily all over the united states. overwhelmingly, the audience came from the new york/mid-atlantic area. what the promoters didn't expect is that another 250,000, 300,000 people, showed up. they weren't prepared. because of the last-minute organization of the festival, they didn't have the fencing and ticket booths you'd see at a music festival today. people were coming from all ote directions and they showed up. after a while, the promoters just didn't even try to collect fees.

they made it forthrightly, theyn announced it from the stage, this will be a free concert.ertt there have been free concerts before but never at this scale, nothing like it. i think it was that transition from this kind of commercial for-profit concert for this free event where hundreds of thousands of people showed up and had to take care of themselves. that's when woodstock became woodstock. >> let's bring in our viewers and listeners. bob from boston, were you there 50 years ago? >> caller: yes, i was. i was 16 years old. i was up in new hampshire working at a summer camp there. like all the counselors they had from europe, they say we all quit, we're going to woodstock. i said, i'm quitting, too. let me come. i seen the documentary in the 1980s. i didn't get to see it before that. but one thing that i noticed in

the documentary that it didn't grasp the real hold of what was actually going on.s kind it was a vietnam war protest fo: the most part. i was kind of disappointed about that. >> hey, bob, we'll get a response from our guest, david farber, but as somebody who was there, do you remember what you ate and where you slept? >> caller: well, like, just peanut butter sandwiches. slept on, you know, people had blankets and stuff, slept right there. >> thank you, bob. david farber, your response? >> what bob said about the peanut butter sandwiches very much rings true. people brought what they could and ate pretty simply. the larger context is interesting. 1969 marked in some ways the hallmark of the polarization

over the war in vietnam. there were massive demonstrations. 200,000 people, 100,000, 00,000. woodstock, fundamentally, was not political. country joe mcdonald did give his anti-draft rag. eddie hoffman briefly tried to get on stage and talk about some political issues. the bands, the festal the organizers, did not treat this as a political event. it was not fundamentally about the war in dvietnam, though tha shadowed everything that was happening. it was kind of a counterpoint to the war in vietnam and to the anger and frustrations and fears many americans had. it was set up as a nonpolitical event or at least politics of a very different kind. >> ann is joining us, charlotte, north carolina. good morning. >> caller: hi. thank you for c-span. it's the greatest. i had just one question. one of my great regrets is i did not make it to woodstock. but i was under the

understanding that there was a group called ten years after and they did a song called "going home." and i don't see them ever listed as being appearing at woodstock. could you clear that up? thank you, and i'm going to hang up. >> thank you, ann. >> there were, boy, 30 or so acts. ten years after performed. i can't remember what their status was in terms of the film. so a lot of people get the two things mixed up, who was at woodstock and who appears in the "woodstock" film. i know, for example, the grateful dead for reasons that might have had to do with what substances they were ingesting at the time, didn't sign the waiver to be in the film. some groups did not choose to be invested in the documentary film. i don't know the particulars, to tell you the truth, of ten years after. but that's why some people's favorite bands don't show up in the documentary film. >> so drugs were prevalent at woodstock? drugs? the use of drugs?

>> say it again. >> the use of drugs, were they prevalent in woodstock? >> yes. so, there was a lot, a lot, of marijuana smoked. people said you only had to be within 100 yards of the stage to get high. you didn't actually have to be smoking a joint because there were so many marijuana joints being passed around. cannabis was omnipresent. it was being sold fairly openly. it was being shared ostensibly. there also was a famous story about lsd at the concert. lsd use by 1969 was not something young people had ever tried. at woodstock, lsd was fairly easily available and a lot of people tried lsd for the first time at woodstock. imagine taking this incredibly powerful hallucinogenic in a crowd of 450,000 people and some people had a hard time with those acid trips. i think 300, 400 people, showed up at the medical tents having bad experiences, but thousands

of people did not have bad experiences, so lsd use was prominent. marijuana was omnipresent at that concert. >> the official name was the woodstock music and art fair, three days of peace and music. we're looking back 50 years later. we have some aerial views of what the area looks like today. david farber, it is a historic site now, is it not? >> yeah, that's right. there's a wonderful museum right there. the bethel museum, wonderfully run and curated. anybody who's in the area can come and relive the woodstock experience. it's really quite special. weree >> be able to show that to you in just a moment, as we listen to bob from phillipsburg, new jersey. you were there 50 years ago? >> caller: yes, i was. i was 18 years old. we traveled from bayonne, new jersey, after work friday night at midnight. we missed all of the folk day friday, but that was okay. we wanted rock 'n' roll.

and for $18 it was a bargain with a star-studded cast of great rock 'n' roll acts.lf a ml we had no idea there was going to be like almost a half a million people there. >> what do you remember about trying to get to bethel, new w york? because there were reports of traffic backed up eight miles to get there.iles >> caller: we had a big detour, parked our car maybe on somebody's lawn or the side of the road and we had to walk for miles on saturday morning or afternoon to get to the festival site.s but i remember people, the locan people, being friendly, giving us water and sandwiches and being very nice to us. >> and, bob, how did you hear about it, if i may ask? we were talking earlier, there was no social media. where did you get information about this huge concert? >> caller: well bayonne is close to new york city and it was advertised. we just bought our tickets in

advance. >> bob, thanks for the call. david farber, what are you hearing from his comments? >> yeah, bob's comments, again, ring so true and are very representative, i think, of a lot of people. one, he was 18 years old. the other caller was 16 years old. i think when you look out at that crowd, you realize how young so many people were. this was a group of people ildrn 16 to 25. yeah, there were a few people oi older and a handful of kids there, actually, as well.l.thes but it was teenagers and people in their early 20s. i think that's also what gives s woodstock its aura. t these were young people who faced all sort of bizarre conditions, having to walk mileh to get there, to having to figure out how to make do on a jar of peanut butter, to finding the free food others provided. these are young people who rose to the occasion and had an incredible time under incredible circumstances. so that's a great story bob just told us. how woo >> peggy is joining us from kansas. how old were you when you went to woodstock, peggy?7.

>> caller: 17. >> and w how did you get there? >> caller: we drove. me and three other girls.ber al >> what do you remember about it? >> caller: i just remember all the people, but the best thing in the world was jimi hendrix playing "the star-spangled banner." that' >> peggy, thanks for the call. david farber? >> yeah, that's a really nice story. there were people who came from all over the country. some people came from europe. so i would bet you all 50 states were represented, give or take hawaii and alaska maybe. i also think it's marvelous that she remembered jimi hendrix and i'm sure she did. but one of the things that's striking is when you actually at least on the film watch jimi hendrix's performance and you look out you realize, oh, gosh, 80% of the people, maybe 90% of the people, had left by that time. the audience henrix played to so

early monday morning was very, very small. i wonder if it's like i was there the day this happened. hank aaron hit his 715th home run. maybe she heard him. i bet she did. she was from kansas, she wanted to wait to the last minute, but very few people were in the audience when henrix did his show stopping, overwhelming, emotionally powerful rendition of "the star-spangled banner." >> joe from delray beach, florida, how old were you when you attended woodstock? >> caller: i was 19 years old. >> how did you get there? >> caller: i drove my 1968 mustang as far as i could. i lived in a small town in new york at the time. i think, if my memory serves mee directly, even though it was only 60 miles north of where i was living, it took me about 8 hours to get to the actual sited itself.. y. i must have parked five miles and walked in the rest of the way.

when i got there, it was a field of mud, but there was some great music. and the people were just views fantastic. i think that was instrumental in forming my political views that people could get along together, that there actually could be love and peace and happiness. i think we could use more of that today. >> is that the message of woodstock, love and peace? >> caller: as far as i recall and as i said i'm 69 today, although i'm still something of a hippy, i think i'm one of the few residents of this retirement village to still have a ponytail, but i think the message should resonate today that we can all get along and we don't have to be at odds with each other. there's more that unites us than divides us. i don't want to be political about it, but i think that's

where our current president is doing his best to undo, to divide us rather than to unite us. >> joe, thank you for the call. >> yeah. i think one of the other things that's really worth thinking about and remembering is most people came to woodstock to hear the music. they were kids. they were interested in youth culture. and the things of youth culture. they didn't come there thinking oh my gosh, this will be an incredible opportunity to share and live the values we claim we believe in. it was the actual lived experience of woodstock that was transformative. it wasn't the idea of it. it wasn't the purpose of it and its origins. it wasn't what drove most people to come to woodstock. that's what i think was so transformative. it became visible to the people there, the reports, the media coverage showed it.

and the movie kind of hammered home that message. that's why woodstock lives on in memory. it's not just another incredible concert. gosh, i think beyonce had over a million people show up at a concert at one time, but we don't talk about beyonce's incredible concert with a million people. it was the lived experience of the young people at woodstock that's given it its historical resonance and its historical power. >> we're hearing from a lot who were there 50 years ago this weekend. tom from new york. good morning. >> caller: good morning. >> what do you remember about woodstock, and how did you get there? >> i drove up in a 1964 barracuda. which allowed me to put a mattress in the back of the car. i went up about a week earlier just to see what was going on at the concert site and there were an awful lot of people already there. so i decided that i should go up as early as possible. i got out of work a little early on friday and drove up that day

and i didn't go up 17 and in from monticello. i came up along the delaware and went in from the west side. so i got to be within, oh, a mile of the concert. but when i came over the last hill, i got to the intersection where the state police had put up barriers and as far as you could see going back toward monticello, the cars were parked five or six deep all the way back on both shoulders and both lanes of the highway. everybody had just sort of inth pulled up, got out of their cars and walked into the concert from there. so i came with a few more changes of clothes and more ttea food, mainly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and orange drink. so i went back and forth between my car and the concert at times to change my clothes and eat. >> hey, tom, let me ask you, what do you remember -- you mentioned the new york state police, the troopers who were there. what about other infrastructure,

whether it was facilities for you to -- for bathrooms, places to eat. what was it like? >> caller: initially, there were places to eat at the back of the concert. you could walk up to the back of the audience and they had various vendors there, but they all ran out of food fairly quickly. and there were a lot of port-a-johns which they did keep up fairly well, but the lines were very long. but there were also, which i think was in the movie a little bit, there were communes that had come in california and -- like the hog farm and other people. those groups tried to feed the crowd as much as they possibly could with supplies they brought in. ultimately, most of the supplies came in by helicopter.the the u.s. army and the national guard flew people in and out of the concert like if it was a medical emergency and also flew

food in and, in fact, at times dropped food live into the audience as they flew over the concert. >> one final question for you. was this a political event or a music social event? >> caller: for me, it was a music social event. i was a drummer in a rock band at the time, and i can tell you that all the clubs in the area -- at that time the new jersey drinking age was 21 and new york was 18, so a lot of jersey people used to come up to new york. ban so we had a lively group of ple bands that played in those clubs. and there wasn't a single band that would play that weekend in greenland lake or any place in orange county which is where i lived at the time. >> tom, thanks for sharing our stories with us. >> caller: oh, you're -- >> what are you hearing, david farber? >> john's got a great memory. everything he said really helps give us that picture of what things were really like at that time.

i want to follow up on what he said about the hog farm. i think one of the things that't worth thinking about is the ways in which the promotors and some of the people the promotors brought in helped set that tone and helped create the possibility of woodstock working so well. on the one hand the promotors didn't prepare well. there wasn't enough food, there wasn't enough water at first. traffic conditions were absurd. as you've heard over and over again. but they made some really good decisions. i think this is michael lange and artie cornfeld in particular chose to aly themselvly themsel wonderful group called the hog farm. these were people who knew how to take care of other people. they'd been doing this before in all sorts of settings. these were true counterculturalists. these were not members of youth culture coming out of suburban basements or living with their mom or dad. these were people who committed by the mid '60s to

creating an alternative world. tom and lisa law were two of the members of that. lisa law, without telling her story, you don't understand woodstock. lisa law is one of those people who knew how to take care of business, very practical, very thoughtful, very pragmatic even as she lived these outlandish values and virtues that most americans would have not considered the mainstream. she understood that you needed to bring hundreds, thousands of. pounds of bulgar, rolled oats and other food you could feed lots of people with, and the hog farm distributed free food. free food.d. nobody paid a nickel for it. to tens of thousands -- arguably hundreds of thousands of people. so groups like the hog farm are what gave substance, tone and created the possibility that woodstock would work the way it did. so all kudos to lisa law, the hog farm, hugh romney, all the

others. >> to that point, here's more background on that commune. >> we brought in a group called the hog farm. that was hugh romney at the time, now wavy gravy. they were great. they were a commune. they were used to setting up big outdoor facilities, outdoor kitchens.ally they were into organic gardening. their food was organic. that's probably the first time anybody had seen granola when they passed out 400,000 portions of granola in one day. more than that, more than what they provided in terms of talent, they set up kind of a vibe, if you will, of welcoming everybody, getting them situated and then getting them to understand that it's now their job to welcome the next group and get them situated. that started this whole idea of sharing responsibility and thatt we're all in this together and that's really what started to bring this community together. i think that's probably what had

most to do with the success when 200,000 turned into 500,000 and everything had to stretch. >> more background on that commune and its role at woodstock. we're hearing from those who were there 50 years ago this weekend. janie from lindhaven, florida. >> caller: hi. it's janie. >> right. good morning, janie. >> caller: i was there back in 1969. i caught a ride with six of my friends from atlanta, georgia. and i was 16 at the time, and we had stopped initially at the atlantic city pop festival and then afterwards we went straight to where the woodstock festival was going to be held at. and when we got there we were there two weeks before the festival even started. so we started camping out and as we camped out, more and more ot

people started to come in. and we had found out that there were -- they were going to be taking applications to work for the festival. so me and my friend, van wing, and the rest of my group went ui and we applied for jobs and i worked for food for love, and van, he worked for security. and the things that i remember about woodstock was that, to mee when i went up there, it was more about -- about really gathering the tribes together. you know, because people were coming together from all over the world. it wasn't just a group of people from atlanta, georgia. it wasn't just a group of hippies from california or from new york.r the but we met people from england. we met people from other countries. we met them from all over the

united states and they were like-minded. the emphasis was in the people a coming together and the music was very important because that was the music of our time and it had a lot of meaning to us weren because it was like they were singing to our souls. and the one thing that really impressed me was that there were people out there that were like me. i believed in peace, i believed in love, i believed in sharing. and we were all together in this. and when that storm hit, you know, there wasn't somebody, anybody just pushing the other brother or sister away. they were gathering them together under the plastic that they may have had, whatever we had we shared. that's what this country needs. we need to gather together again, you know. and it's not about the drugs, it's not about sex, it's not about skinny dipping.

it's about caring for each other. and that's what i got, you know, got from it, and i'm 66 now and like i said, my name's jeannie whitworth and i still believe in that. i still believe in loving each other, gathering together and, you know, just looking upon my brother as equal. not above me or not below me. >> thank you for the call from lindhaven, florida. it's remarkable people remember the car they were driving in. it's one of those iconic moments they don't forget. to her point, you want to respond? >> it was a marvelous testimony by jeannie, marvelous testament really. i think that's what people took away, that these people who came from all different corners of the united states, sometimes maybe the only hippy in a small

town or the only counterculturalist in their suburban community. they found each other. she used the phrase, a wonderful phrase, a gathering of the tribes. that's in reference to the 1967 human bean that took place in san francisco. a lot of people wanted that experience of being with like-minded people and living, even if only for a few days, a completely different way of life. not a competitive individualistic dog-eat-dog world. but this dream, this aspirational dream, of what it could be like to live in a very different kind of world. woodstock was, to use a bet of academic jargon, a temporary autonomous zone. it was a place that was going to exist out of time in some ways.e these young people created it for themselves there, and as jeannie suggests, some at least took it home with them and tried to live by those values.s. >> and we learned from thee stye section of "washington post" a

bird of peace amid the dogs of war. in the summer of 1970, charles schultz using the name, "woodstock," for his iconic bird. you can see the initial comic strip as woodstock enters the fray, he says, "you'll never believe it. woodstock." the name charles schultz gave the iconic bird. we're hearing from those who remember what happened 50 years ago. linda from howell, new jersey, what do you remember? >> caller: i remember it was the greatest experience when we gotr there. i was from brooklyn, new york, at the time, and everybody in thethere an neighborhood was go we kept saying, well, we'll see you there.t when we got there and we saw the mass of people, it was just a most loving atmosphere that you can possibly imagine. was a >> from your standpoint, linda, was this a political event or jn music event for you? >> caller: it was a music event for me.jimi i wanted to see janice joplin, i

wanted to see jimi henrix, sly and the family stone. it was mostly musical. about ten of us rented a cargo d van and we drove up in the cargo van not knowing at the timerainw that the windshield wipers didn't work.rs. so we were driving in that pouring rain with no windshield wipers. and we pulled over on the side of the road, another van pulled over. we opened up the back doors and we became friends because they were from queens. so we saw them after woodstock. it was just a wonderful, wonderful, experience. >> linda, thanks for the call from howell, new jersey. linda, i have to ask you one question, because there had been talk of trying to have an anniversary woodstock 50 years later. that has not come together. why? why so difficult to try to capture the moment again 50 years later? >> caller: i don't know. i think -- i really don't know. would i have gone now?

i don't think i would have gone now. just, i would like to see it on tv, but i wouldn't have gone. so i don't know why. >> linda, thank you. >> caller: so -- >> david farber? >> i think another thing that emerges from the people who were there and are giving us their wonderful testimonies is something that i think in memory we don't understand too well about the '60s. a lot of people marched against the war in vietnam. a lot of people marched against racial injustice, against women's oppression. but it was a relatively small nr minority of the baby boomer they generation, itself. so most baby boomers never marched. they never protested. they weren't self-consciously political people. par but many, many, baby boomers dih feel, themselves, a part of this youth culture, of chthis cultur rebellion that was taking place. that was the politics most people lived. >> let me go to another caller. from jeff in the bronx in new

york. >> caller: hi. >> you were there 50 years ago. >> caller: yes, i was. you're right. it was more for the music than the politics. we were only kids. i was 15. the other kid was 13. my father drove us to the bus station in manhattan. >> so he let you go? >> caller: well, i told him i was going to a jimi henrix concert upstate. the other two guys told their parents they were going to the other guy's house to sleep over. >> that would never happen today, right? >> caller: no.you su my father drove us down in the cab to the port authority. when he let us out, he goes, yok guys sure you got enough toilet paper? and, you know, later on, i said he must have known what we were doing. why would you ask somebody if you had enough toilet paper if you were only going to a concert? he probably knew the whole time. a funny incident that happened up there -- >> i want to hear the story. did you tell your dad afterwards

where you all went? >> caller: they saw it on tv. they all went -- they just yelled out, that's where jeff is, oh my god. >> you were going to tell us a funny story. go ahead. >> caller: excuse me. >> you were going to tell a tony story. go ahead. >> caller: they put us in a u-haul van. they had no more buses left. they put us in a u-haul with other people. they were smoking pot back there. we were kids and had to walk all 17, they dropped us off on 17 and had to walk ten miles to the site. on the way we stopped at a grocery store. we got a half a case of beer in bottles. when we walked right down to the middle, we were sitting there listening, all these, quote, adults around us were bugging us for the beer and the wine.you we said we just trucked this ten miles. you guys are adults.s. you should have got what you wanted. they're telling us, we'll give . you $5 for one bottle.

meanwhile, the throe of us worked. we weren't hurt for money.th you know? we worked at a concession stand, worked at a commissary. we weren't hurting for money. they were really bugging us for the beer. you don't like to be laughing at other people, but 15-year-old kids got their beer and adults couldn't get their own? the best part was joe cocker. we never heard of him. we just sat there in awe of joe cocker. he was magnificent. he was definitely the best of everybody that was there. >> thanks for phoning in. i have a question for you because we have a twitter poll. i'd like you to answer it as well. we encourage our viewers and listeners to answer the question as well from american history tv. the question is this, did the 1969 woodstock festival have a lasting impact on culture in america in a positive way, a negative way, or no impact at all? so three areas that you can

decide upon. right now a majority saying in a positive way. how would you answer that, jeff? >> caller: definitely positive. everybody was expecting a disaster. it was definitely positive.ree u nothing bad happened there. i mean, the three of us survived. i mean, when we got up, i think it was sunday morning, i forget what morning it was, and we had gone up to the hill to sleep for the night.si we looked across the other side and there was a big tanker over there. we had milk and water. we went over there and they fed us hot dogs, gave us free water. the port-a-stands were cleaner than some of the port-a-stands you see around baseball stadiums. it was a positive impact on me. everybody was nice. the people bugging us for the beer, we couldn't blame them. >> jeff, thank you for the call. david farber? >> that's wonderful. i think his comment on joe cocker is also telling. some of the bands were already

famous. janis joplin, jimi henrix, the grateful dead, jefferson airplanes. they were already headline bands. but some people really emerged at that concert or became famous to a far larger crowd. richie havens was not a well-known figure though he was prominent in the new york area. santana was not a well-known band. when santana got up there, himself, and played that guitar, suddenly that band erupted and became an iconic figure in the rock scene.. for some bands there was a breakthrough moment. for some it was a validation. for some it wasn't the best show they ever played.id turn on but the music really did turn o. a generation and really exposede millions of people eventually to the film in particular to bands they didn't know about before that time. >> john is joining us from hanover, maryland. good morning, john. >> caller: good morning. >> go ahead with your memory from woodstock. you were there? start >> caller: well, yes, i was.

my memory is what started it and what started it, it was like a spiritual awakening.yo and it started from the whole land.u sic how you can tell by the music how it progressed. it started out with folk music and went into, you know, the t t british invasion and then it an went into psychedelics. people would get together and sit around and talk about the insights that they had gotten. and that's what the power behind this movement and woodstock was a culmination. of all this. it was the signifying moment. i remember my -- i was just married. i had a 6-month-old child. i told my wife i was going to go to woodstock. she said she was against it, you know. i said, look, i grew with this

movement, i worked for it, i got to go. and she let me go. and it was everything, you know, that we believed in. the word, hippy -- "hip" came from -- "hip" used to be a word from the '60s that meant you knew. you were right. and that's how they got to be called the hippies because people would stand around, share their insights and they said i'm hip, i'm hip. that's how they started becoming hippies. >> thanks for your story. as we hear these stories, david farber, there were other venues, other concerts in the 1960s. you mentioned the turmoil of the vietnam war, the assassination of dr. kinger a senator bobby kennedy. the election of richard nixon. what made woodstock different from, say, the monterey jaz international pop festival in june of 1967 or the newport jaze

festival in the summer of '69? >> as you suggest, there were plenty of other festivals going on. newport folk festival had been going on for years at that point. festivals and to take monterey pop festival in 1967 in california and it was a much more commercial, ve event and t music industry controlled that event and much more stayed, much more typical and you paid your money and you sat there and listened to the bands. unique, woodstock was not that.ing to m the multi-day aspect of it, while not unique and the fact that people were camping and tha fact that people after a short period of time were having to make do with what they had, it o created a cultural middle you, and there were festivals that were more related to woodstock, but i think that moment in 1969t when people were so hungry for something good, something peaceful, something that

commemorated the best possibilities young people could express. i think that's what gave it itso power.cc it's the specific time in which it occurred, the place it occurred and the unexpected qualities that it brought forth for so many. that's what made woodstock unique, i think. >> let's go to dan in rosswell georgia. good morning, dan. >> hi, my name is dan. i attended in '69 and i am here today with my friend jeannie that was with me in 1969. we heard about -- [ indiscernible ] and we dug our money together for $75 and purchased an old ford van and having to push the thing. >> you're breaking up a little bit, but we got the essence of what you were saying and of course, another reminder of what

they were driving. >> yeah. yeah. i think, you know, that's another '60s thing. we tend to forget, this was an auto mania country, and you could buy cars cheap. you could fix cars up cheap and it was ubiquitous and iconic volkswagen beetle was such a great hippie car because you could lift the engine up, basically yourself and you could repair the volkswagen yourself. the volkswagen van became this perfect people mover. cars were integral to the counter culture and gave people the opportunity to move and travel and come to these festivals and it was cheap. somebody out there probably remembers how much gasoline cost at the time. i want to say 29 cents a gallon that even with inflation was really cheap. cars were cheap. it was easy to fix them and there was no electronic computer stuff. cars were at the core of youth culture and the counter culture, too. those are great stories. everybody remembers their vehicle and it is so amazing that that has such powerful resonance for folks.ho

>> wantw to share with the viewers some of the headlines beginning with "the new york times." how woodstock was covered 50 years ago as we listen to dan fa from fort lauderdale, florida, n who was there in august 1969. go ahead, dan. >> yes, i was. i came from a town in mass, and got together with the lifeguard who i was working with in the state park and his friends and we drove down there. we had our ticket and i still au have thatp survive, survive, survive, welcome to hip city and i stayed up on my own energy for three days just because it was so peaceful and just the music h and everything.e it was quite an experience.be tl >> did you think at the time that 50 years later we would still be talking about this ca venue in bethel, new york, this music concert and what happened over three days? >> no, i did not. no, i did not. >> thank you for phoning in. let's go to eddie. >> isn't it amazing? >> we have another woodstock

memory from eddie in heller town, pennsylvania, as we look at some old film from what happened that year. go ahead, eddie. >> how are you? >> yeah. i was there. i had a good time. it was grit. i live in pennsylvania now, but i grew up in scotsbury, new jersey, and i went with a friend of mine. he had a '59 triumph and four of us in that little two-seater car that managed to go mile after mile, skirting around traffic. i think we left around 4:00 in the afternoon and my buddy couldn't drive anymore. we parked and we turned out to be 12 miles from the stage. we walked that way, and i got to see -- it started to rain and seeing joan baez. we got there around midnight and we had an excellent time from there. i remember it well. i had a great time. in fact, me and a friend went up there friday just two days ago so i could stand on the same spot i was in 50 years ago, and

they had it pretty closed off and the venue was set up for -- you needed a parking pass like what is going on today, but i had a great time. i never forgot it and that's why i went back friday and i wanted to stand in the same spot that there was 50 years ago, but they had it closed off. >> did it look the same as 50 years ago when you were there just a couple of days ago? >> yeah. i remember everything. the lake woe all swam in and i remember where the stage was an. we drove past it, but they had it kind of fenced off. it. i wanted to actually stand in the field where i was, but i wasn't able to do it. >> it is a historic site as you. can see from this marker and some aerial drone footage. i eddie, this is what it looks htw like .today, if you're watching on television. what do you think? >> man, i'm not looking at the tv rate now. i could in a minute. i remember it exactly the way io was except it was a field of mud

and today it's nice landscaped field, beautiful grass, and if o you look closely you'll see the 5-0, the peace sign to commemorate the anniversary. robby how old were you and why did your parents let you go to woodstock? >> i was 21 at the time and we drove outside of detroit, michigan, and we kind of came i. the back way so we didn't experience all of the traffic that they saw from new york city and one of the main reasons we t wenthe obviously was the music s also, if you remember john sinclair who was an activist at the time and part of the purpose of the concert, at least in the michigan area was that there was going to be a fund-raiser to try to help his legal fund, but it was a great time. we got there friday night, had a

tevent and we came in a '63 chevy and we camped probably less than half a mile from the actual stage. the big thing was between the band, one thing people don't mention is that each band that came on stage it took quite a while for them to set up. so there was quite a bit of time between each concert so we would go back to our tent. we could hear the music and we'd go back to the tent and you know, just sit around and enjoy ourselves and then come back when the music started to play. >> thank you, robin, for the call. we have time for one more. marcia who was also at woodstock. she's joining us from vermont. you get the last word on this, so what do you remember? >> oh, my goodness. almost everything. almost everything. we came up with college friends and newton mass and we had to

leave and we came out early and they took our tickets and i hadt gone down close to the stage to film because i shot over the four day, seven rolls of film mn and -- movie film, and they had left the next morning because of the rain.'t i didn't know that they had left. i stayed on and i didn't have shoes for four days and just my camera bag, and i do remember most -- most of the music, but most of all it was the love and the caring and the sharing and there wasn't any hassle in the midst of a huge, huge crowd --

>> marcia, i want to stop you there because we are short on time. thank you to those who weighed in with their memories of woodstock. david farber, from marcia's story and others, what have you heard in the last hour? >> i think what is so powerful in listening to these people, 50 years later their experiences at that time, how aspirational woodstock was for so many. such a moment in which everything that they kind of hoped for. everything that they saw as best about the united states and about american society sharing, compassion, equality, freedom, looking after one another as fellow people on this planet. that seems to be the message and except those people who remember woodstock want us to take with us so i thank them for sharing those memories and i think woodstock does bear remembering over and over again. >> and so with a half a minute

left. what is important to remember about woodstock? why should we care 50 years later? >> i think there are those moments in human time when we seem to rise above the everyday and the 1950s are filled with those moments from the great protest marches to the struggle to create greater equality. the '60s live on because americans try to move past their own petty concerns, post the selfish issues we try to deal with every day and woodstock became the icon for that for a lot of young people. this moment when they could rise above circumstances, and rise above anger and ride above pettiness and create something wonderful even if that lasted three days and they've lived on in the minds of someone who was there and we should take stock of woodstock. david farber, joining us from the university of kansas.

we thank you for your time. >> thank you. all week, we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. lectures in history, american artifact, reel america, the civil war, oral histories, the presidency and special event coverage of our nation's history. enjoy american history tv now and every weekend on c-span3. 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the woodstock music festival which attracted nearly half a million people to a dairy farm in upstate new york. next, an oral history interview with woodstock coco-creator artie kornfeld how he signed the musical artists and the concept and business arrangements for the