Sean McKean
Post Graduate Student
SUNY
Beyond the Myth:
A Deeper Look at the 1969
Woodstock Festival
Submitted for History 609/631
Seminar in American History
and Public Policy History
Authored By: Sean McKean
The host of the Woodstock Festival, and town of Bethel, New York
resident Max Yasgur said, “half a million kids can get together for fun
and music and have nothing but fun and music." Attendees of the
festival did not let Max Yasgur down, as they stayed three days without a
single violent act. Max Yasgur should have thanked his neighbors and the
National Guard. It is more surprising that residents of Bethel New York
managed to stay peaceful. That part of the story is often left out. The
story of the 1969 Woodstock Festival is based mostly on oral history;
therefore it has largely become a mythical event. It is world renowned as
a successful concert, where the “hippies” proved that free love works.
This interpretation is very common, but clouds the complete history of the
concert. It tells nothing about the profit driven corporation who promoted
the concert, or how the idea for the festival was unmarketable, and found
opposition in the majority of potential buyers. That, in the end, the
festival obtained necessary permits through backdoor dealings that defied
zoning laws, and ignored local opinion. The Woodstock Festival was a
complete business failure for the Woodstock Ventures Corporation, a
political battle between the local government and residents of the town of
Bethel New York, and was a social success only because the National Guard
and local citizens organized to bring the crowd the necessary resources.
In late 1960 there was a growing “counterculture”, largely made up
of people under the age of thirty who were questioning the purpose of
American society. Michael Wm. Doyle Ph.D. describes the development of
this rebellious generation, “a deep social division known as the
generation gap, separated parents from children, [and] half a million
mostly young people removed themselves“. These “hippies, longhairs, or
freaks” as they became known, lived outside cultural norms. They grew
their hair long, attempted to give up capitalistic, competitive American
ideals, and advocated communal living and free love. Many people fear
things they don’t understand, and the new “hippie” culture was no
different.
The Woodstock Festival attracted “hippies” from all over the United
States. The nearly half-million rock and roll fans became the largest
gathering of counterculture youths. The musicians brought the
counterculture ideals into the public eye through radio, television, and
extensive touring. Their music was displeasing to the over thirty crowd,
therefore it greatly appealed to the new social group developing from the
generation gap. Artists such as Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix,
created more than just music, they had a significant influence on the
youth. Many of the Sixties most popular artists were featured at the
Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. That is one reason why it is recognized
as the culmination of everything the counter culture had idolized, and
proved the drawing power of the music and musicians. Still today the
festival associated almost exclusively with the “hippie”
counterculture.
The idea for the Woodstock Festival developed from the realization that
there was a lot of money to be made from the constantly growing
counterculture. Artie Kornfeld, Michael Lang, John Roberts and Joel
Rosenman saw their opportunity to tap into this market. Roberts and
Rosenman were both from wealthy families. They were two young men
searching for something to do with their lives. As John Roberts explains,
“the only problem was that we did not have enough business experience….
So we decided to solve that problem by taking out an ad in the Wall Street
Journal: Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting and
legitimate business ideas”. Kornfeld and Lang represented the more
counterculture of the four. Michael Lang was an aspiring musician and
Artie Kornfeld was vice president of Capitol Records. Kornfeld and Lang
answered Roberts and Rosenman’s advertisement and together they formed a
company called Woodstock Ventures. This corporation’s first goal was to
produce a concert to help raise funds for a music studio.
The Woodstock Music and Arts Festival was not supposed to be a protest
concert similar to the “be ins” happening in California during this
time. As historian Michael Doyle explains the “be in” concerts were,
“a cultural form for evoking an alternative community in place, and
garnered the counterculture's first coverage by the national news media.
Dozens of be-ins and love-ins were organized across the country”. The
group had set out on this business venture to make money for a studio.
With creation of Woodstock Ventures Corporation, and the vision of
enormous profits uniting the four business partners, the company began
production. As Joel Rosenman explains, “we wrote up a shareholders
agreement among the four of us….that we would take the proceeds of the
festival and build a recording studio”. The whole idea began because two
wealthy entrepreneurs signed legally binding contracts with two musicians
with the goal of becoming even wealthier.
Woodstock Ventures wanted to gain profits through marketing their
concert to the under thirty-counterculture group. Their hope was that
ticket sales would be in the twenty five thousand range, with the price
costing attendees about six dollars a day, and if the sales even came near
100,000 they would make incredible profits. This miscalculation became a
costly mistake. Costly not only to Woodstock Ventures, the larger than
anticipated crowd caused environmental, travel, and legal problems for a
sizeable portion of New York State. For Woodstock Ventures it cost
millions of dollars as rock journalist Simon Warner explains, “advance
ticket sales had generated $1.3 million and first day sales of $140,000
had raised the total to 1.5 million, expenses would run close to 2
million.” These finical problems were only an afterthought for the
partners in Woodstock Ventures, because their first big problem was
finding someone, and somewhere that would allow the festival.
The Woodstock Ventures Corporation’s drive to produce the Woodstock
Festival grew stronger as time continued. Even without a guaranteed
location, advance tickets sales fared well, promotions generated a good
buzz, and mostly everything fell into place. With the exception of where
the actual concert would be. Originally Lang had planned for a site near
Woodstock, New York. The preliminary negotiations fell though because no
landowners wanted to lease their property. Essentially Woodstock Ventures
was not a corporation that people wanted to make a deal with. As the
search expanded beyond the Woodstock area the frustration continued as
Rosenman explains, “we walked into the room and were essentially
stonewalled and kicked out by this guy, who seemed to be amused by our
request to rent his property. He had a little fun and then kicked us out”.
Eventually they met a farmer named Howard Mills from Wallkill, New York.
Mills was willing to let them use his land for ten thousand dollars. Only
because after the concert cleared out, he had plans to have an industrial
park built there.
Woodstock Ventures were accepted at first, only because the locals from
Wallkill may not have realized what type of business they were dealing
with. In Wallkill, Woodstock Ventures quickly became scrutinized by locals
for drug use. The company’s administrative troubleshooter, Joel Rosenman,
had the ingenious idea of circulating a memo which announced it was a
company policy to discipline strongly anybody caught with illegal drugs.
Rosenman thought it would calm the locals. In actuality it had the
opposite effect as he explains, “it just gave them further evidence that
we were a bunch of criminals with long hair. Druggies." This was the
beginning of the end of the Wallkill location.
The corporation did everything it could to make Wallkill a success, but
it marked Woodstock Ventures first failure, as local residents soon turned
against the concert. At first, the zoning board in Wallkill had led the
corporation to believe it would not have problems getting the necessary
permits. When public outcry increased and the town-building inspector
refused to grant permits for the stage, the partners knew they would need
legal assistance. Woodstock Ventures hired Sam Eager, a son of a state
Supreme Court Justice to lead their fight with the local government.
During meetings with the town board, local citizens raised many questions
about the impact of the concert. Not simply questions about construction
plans and the actual concert, but about how it affected the families of
Wallkill. No matter how many plans, drawings, or contracts the corporation
showed the zoning board, it could not answer questions of safety and
morality. As the campground coordinator Stanley Goldstein recalls, “there
was a lot of name-calling. There had been threats made that the Mills'
were going to be bombed out of the house, that there were going to be
shotguns and pitchforks, and that they would run the hippies out of town.
That they were coming up to infect the whole community with hepatitis and
who knows what else." At this point Woodstock Ventures had spent over
five hundred thousand dollars, and did not want to lose the Wallkill
sight. The government truly did not want to legally allow it and many of
the residents did not want any hippy-type people in their town. The locals
solidified their case when they presented a petition of over fifty -five
“violent objectors” at a town board meeting, and the debates
deteriorated into shouting matches. Realizing that the local government
would not budge, the corporation pulled out of Wallkill. Rosenman and
Roberts believed the concert would never happen, but Lang recalled that,
“I don’t ever remember losing hope. There were moments of depression
and moments of reflection and times of sitting outside of town halls
wondering about the American dream and those kinds of things, and do we
really have a system of justice and laws for everyone?” Even though time
was running short, in the end the decision was made to forget about the
Mills' location. Many inside the business thought all was lost, but Lang’s
dedication to the Woodstock Festival project drove him to find another
location.
With the legal battle over in Wallkill, Woodstock Ventures became
desperate, and attempted to find a location no matter the cost. They put
out advertisements, Lang took helicopter trips all over upstate New York,
and eventually they found a farmer from Sullivan County who was willing to
make a deal with the partners. That farmer was Max Yasgur, who historian
Michael Wm. Doyle describes as, “a well respected citizen of Bethel
Township with [an] extensive holding of rolling hills and woodlands. His
health was not good which made him more receptive to deriving income from
pursuits other than farming” With Yasgur’s assistance, the corporation
obtained the appropriate permits from the Town officials. Although the
validity of the permits were challenged heavily by the local citizens
right after construction began.
Many residents were against the concert, some held fears similar to
those in Wallkill, others felt slighted by the town government. The
decision to issue a permit to Woodstock Ventures, did not include the town’s
zoning board, and ignored public policy by forgoing the necessary public
hearing. Many of the town’s residents came to the realization that the
government had its own agenda. Obviously if the town officials were
concerned about the public’s opinions, they would have made Woodstock
Ventures apply for permits through the proper channels. Many felt there
would be no help from town officials, so on July 28th of 1969, three
hundred and twenty two citizens of the town of Bethel signed a petition
organized to oppose the concert. The residents saw no other option. With
construction underway and time running short they were demanding the town
board to issue a stop order for the Woodstock Festival.
Many residents questioned the motives of some of their government, and
wanted answers about the legality of the permit given to Woodstock
Ventures. At a heated town board meeting on August 1st, the head of the
zoning board tried to explain the situation to the angry town citizens:
the people in Woodstock Ventures were under the impression that they had
the green light. At the informal discussion on July 21, 1969 after which
the green light statement was made, there were no minutes taken nor was
there a vote and no member of the Zoning Board of Appeals was acting in
the official capacity of his membership on this board. As a result of this
we in no way deem ourselves responsible for any action taken, or progress
exercised.
This statement did not answer any questions regarding how a permit was
issued. The zoning board basically stated that the decision was not made
at an official meeting, and that no member of the board was at the private
meeting, therefore it was not the zoning board’s problem. Citizens now
knew that the zoning board was not to blame and they focused on the town
board members.
Fed up with the lack of action from the local government, the town’s
residents took their case to higher level. On August 9th the Bethel
petitioners sent a letter to the Sullivan County Supreme Court. Opposers
to the concert and the town board were hoping that the courts would rule
in favor of the people, and put an end to the concert. The petitioners
compiled a list of all the zoning violations, which the town board and the
building inspector of Bethel had allowed. In the letter angry citizens
claimed that the town board had given authorization to the building
inspector to issue a temporary permit, without the consent of the Town
Zoning Board of Appeals. The locals were desperately trying to enforce a
law enacted in 1967 that attempted to “promote the health, safety,
morals, and general welfare of [Bethel].” Three days before the start of
the concert the Supreme Court set up a hearing to be held. On August 12th
the case went before the county’s Supreme Court, and after several hours
of debates the final decision was in favor of Woodstock Ventures…
Woodstock was going to happen in Bethel, regardless of how many zoning
laws were broken, and in spite of the over three hundred and twenty two
citizens who opposed it.
Many of the townspeople fought the concert on legal grounds, rather
than relying on stereotypes and verbal threats. Their local government had
made a quick backdoor deal with an outside corporation. The locals felt
that their small town could not handle the huge crowds, regardless if they
were one hundred thousand hippies or one hundred thousands farmers like
themselves. As one citizen clearly argued, “From the standpoint of
health, transportation on the narrow dirt or stone-bedded town road,
especially Happy Avenue which abuts my 88 acres will be taxed beyond its
physical capacity.” The citizens of Bethel were put in a very tough spot
by their local government. Despite their opposition to the concert, Bethel
residents did not threaten attendees or Max Yasgur. As historian Dr. Doyle
explains, “The same spirit of cooperation that was noted among festival
goers was also exhibited by people on farms adjacent to the site and in
neighboring communities, many of whom provided housing, food, and water
upon hearing of shortages at the site.”
Woodstock Ventures didn’t have time to worry about the legal actions
being taken by local residents. Two days before the concerts start date,
people began to arrive, creating new problems for Woodstock Ventures, and
for Bethel. The corporation scrambled to find a place for all the people
and, more importantly, their cars. No one was ready for the early
arrivals. Woodstock Ventures planned to have a crew of three hundred and
forty six, New State police officers to help with crowd control.
Unfortunately police commissioner Howard Leary decided to remind all of
the officers, that in 1967 moonlighting regulations had been enacted,
which forbid policeman to have outside jobs involving security. Leary
deliberately enforced this regulation because he did not want to have any
association with the Woodstock Festival. By allowing officers to
participate in the concert it may have been assumed that New York State
Police supported the concert.
With no support from the State government promoters had no choice but
to use some of their own already overworked employees. The corporation
asked some of the one hundred workers from the Hog Farm Commune to assist
with security. The commune had originally planned to run a free food
stand, as well as organize a treatment center for attendees on bad acid
trips. To help with crowd control members of the Hog Farm labeled
themselves the “Please Force” and threatened lawbreakers with seltzer
and pies. In the end, the lack of state police inside the festival was
perhaps a good thing. The members of the Hog Farm were devout followers of
the free love movement. Their peaceful and brotherly manner was contagious
and served as an example to other concertgoers.
The State police also tried to sabotage the concert by arriving later
than necessary to direct traffic, a delay that was very costly. The week
before the concert, director of operations Wes Pomeroy attempted to set up
a plan with state troopers for traffic control. He tried to explain that
massive amounts of people would soon flood the highway, police officials
ignored his warnings. According to Pomeroy, “I had a firm commitment
from these guys that they would have their people up there at a certain
time, and they didn’t show up until almost eight or ten hours later.”
Woodstock Ventures had over five hundred acres for parking and hired
workers to direct people in. But the police were not there in time to keep
the highway traffic flowing. The blockage began long before the concert
was set to begin, and it truly was the most serious problem as Doyle
explains, “It was the first and only time that the state actually closed
a portion of the New York Throughway, after festival goers, trapped in a
seemingly endless traffic jam that in places featured four, sometimes five
columns of vehicles splayed across a two-lane turnpike, simply abandoned
their cars and set off for the festival site on foot.” Those who
abandoned their cars and headed for the concert grounds found a similar
scene when they arrived. Thousands of people were ready for the concert,
but the concert was hardly ready for them.
The traffic jam that ensued due to the lack of State police involvement
became one of the most notorious problems of the concert because no one
inside the block could get out. This had a terrible effect on the local
farmers, especially the dairy farmers whose milk trucks couldn’t pick up
their daily shipments. As one farmer explains, “the boys just milked the
cows then dumped the milk over the side.” Many fields were ruined as
attendees camped wherever they pleased, picked farmers crops, and turned
fertile fields into latrines.
The overflow of people caused as much financial strain for Woodstock
Ventures as it did for the Bethel farmers. The corporation had managed to
get most aspects of the concert grounds ready to go. The stage was up and
running, they had rented every available porto potty (which still was far
from enough), and at the last minute the perimeter fences had gone up. The
fences were a short-lived endeavor, because they simply didn’t do their
job. The enormous influx of people merely pushed through the barrier. It
was at this point when the leaders of Woodstock Ventures took a hard look
at the situation at hand. The overwhelming amount of people coming in and
the loss of the fencing meant there was no way of collecting or selling
tickets. Most concerts have one front entrance from which the vendor
collects and sells tickets. With no perimeter fences, people just walked
in through a hole. The corporation realized it would be nearly impossible
to organize the crowd, and force people to buy tickets. At one point there
was a thought to simply cancel the event, and to tell everyone to go home.
This was far too dangerous with the enormous size of the crowd and no one
wanted to start a riot. Other suggestions were to send collection trays
around similar to church, or they could make an announcement over the loud
speaker. These appeared reasonable, but no one wanted to risk upsetting
the mood of the crowd. Finally they decided to accept their financial
failure by ending ticket sales and making it a free concert. The
announcement was made to the crowd by the production coordinator John
Morris, who remembers, “everybody loved it, it got everybody up,
everybody was into it. There’s nothing like telling somebody who’s in
the middle of a field of a few thousand people for free that they’re
there for free and it’s ok, but it worked. It was share with your
neighbor and if you got a can of beans and the guy next to you has a can
opener….it was one of the greatest things in the world”.
This decision beyond doubt led to the financial failure of the
Woodstock event. By allowing everyone in for free it was no longer a
business opportunity for Woodstock Ventures, but an experiment in
counterculture society. Woodstock Ventures succeeded in their goal of
having the concert, but failed miserably at creating a profit.
The only chance left to make a profit for Woodstock Ventures came from
the Food for Love concession stands, setup inside the concert grounds.
Originally Woodstock Ventures president John Roberts, had hoped to work
with the more legitimate Restaurant Associates, but they had backed out a
month earlier. In the end, Food for Love was hired, due to the fact they
were the only ones available who would associate with Woodstock Ventures.
This became another fiscal catastrophe for the business. The corporation
maintained only two sources of food, so most concertgoers simply quenched
themselves with mostly soft drinks and beer. The concession stand business
failed for many reasons, one being that many stand workers were trading
the company’s food for drugs and alcohol. Another downfall of the stands
were their overpriced food and consumers were appalled at being forced to
pay for water. The capitalistic concession stands are linked to the only
threat of violence as Roberts recalls “a band of outraged consumers had
organized under a flaming torch and were heading up to the Food for Love
encampment to once and for all, get rid of this plague upon the land,
selling them five dollar hot dogs”.
By the end of the first day the Woodstock Ventures Corporation had to
stop focusing on profits and use all their resources to keep the festival’s
crowd under control. The roadblock had reached its pinnacle, and police
and Rosenman had both tried with no avail to turn away cars that were
heading to the festival. The New York State Government had declared the
area a state of emergency, and a large part of interstate 87 became a
parking lot. At first the state government wanted to take complete control
of the situation. Government officials had planned to mobilize the
National Guard and simply clear everyone out. John Morris, the production’s
coordinator, quickly got on the phone and purposed a new plan; he advised
that the best way to help was to send supplies. Since the crowds had
already grown beyond what anyone had prepared for, the major problems
became food, water, shelter from the rainstorms, and medical care. As Time
magazine writer John Dominis explains, “the festival had the look of a
massive poorly supervised, three day summer camp for city kids. Disaster
was always just around the corner.” Many people had not adequately
prepared themselves, believing that there would be concession stands, or
local businesses available. Even those who did prepare found that once
they were inside the concert, getting back to their car was an impossible
task. Not only had that, going back meant losing a spot to watch the
concert from
The state and local governments also proved crucial to providing food
and resources. The National Guard airlifted food and water, the local
towns held food drives, and even local restaurants made sandwiches which
they brought via back roads. The extra help was actually a bit of
overkill, because the Hog Farm actually took home 700 pounds of extra
bulgur wheat. The Hog Farm Commune had adequately prepared for the
festival, the problem was that not everybody was willing to eat what the
unfamiliar foods they were serving. Also the media created the idea that
people were starving because they found people hadn’t eaten in a day,
but never asked if by choice. "Some concertgoers were simply
uninterested in whether they ate or not", Stanley Goldstein explains,
“They were content to sit in the mud so long as they were in front of
the stage hearing the music, and if they had to leave that particular
patch of ground to go get some food, they weren’t gonna do it” Hunger
was definitely not the biggest problem that Woodstock Ventures dealt with
thanks to help from the locals and airlifts by the National Guard.
The National Guard played a most important role delivering packages of
medical supplies. The first aid building was very busy treating drug
overdoses and bad trips. Medical teams at Woodstock also dealt with the
major problem of cut feet, which arose due to the high number of people
walking shoeless. Still by far the biggest medical concern stemmed from
the rampant drug use. The main drug of choice for concertgoers was
marijuana, but the use of LSD was the most notable. With no direct police
involvement in the concert, drugs were widely available. Within the first
twenty-four hours, people suffering from unhealthy reactions to drugs
comprised one third of the one thousand people seeking medical attention.
The large percentage of people at the concert taking LSD caused some
problems, but it also may have kept things in control. Aside from those
attendees on bad acid trips, the LSD helped users tap into the feeling of
brotherhood among attendees. It also focused them on the music rather than
the situation around them, and no doubt help keep morale up throughout the
concert
Since no profits had been made from the concert, even after the concert
ended the financial problems continued to grow. The mess left behind by
nearly half a million people took more than two weeks to clean up. The
corporation hired a cleaning crew, but could not afford to pay the workers
at the end of the job. Eventually the cleaning crews were sent checks, but
at the time they received only enough money to send them home after the
cleanup was over. The corporation was also responsible for brining Max
Yasgur’s farmland back to a useable quality. This was a daunting task
because the rainy weekend did nothing but increase the damage to the
farmer’s fields. After everything was cleaned and packed up, Woodstock
Ventures could put the concert behind them.
Even after the concert ended, residents of Bethel still wanted answers
from their local government. Many still wanted to know about why the
concert was allowed to proceed. Residents who knew that a temporary permit
had been issued expected answers from the town zoning board, which existed
to prevent catastrophes such as the concert. At a town board meeting on
September 2, residents questioned building inspector Donald Clark so he
could explain what happened. He told the upset citizens, that with the
advice of the Town Attorney, he had issued the permit according to local
zoning ordinances. Clark’s account was seconded by the planning
consultant, who claimed that the festival fell under a special uses
provision of the zoning laws. The town board next discussed how they would
prevent this from ever happing again. The Town Supervisor stated that the
local government now realized the town could not handle such gatherings.
The town board agreed that another meeting would be held to discuss
changes to the zoning laws. As well as call a public hearing to discuss
the proposed changes with the town’s residents. Finally the town justice
thanked all the people of the town for their help and cooperation during
the festival.
Many Bethel citizens continued to organize around the issue of the
concert even after the September 2 meeting. Still discontent with the
local government, “concerned citizens” of Bethel posted an
advertisement in an October issue of the Catskill Shopper. The
advertisement called the Woodstock Festival “ the biggest political
swindle since Boss Tweed, the biggest drug and sex orgy since the Roman
Empire, the biggest pile of filth since the sewers of Paris” The
advertisement also posed ten “who dunnit” questions. The “concerned
citizens” asked why their local government and law enforcement had
ignored public outcry against the concert. They wanted answers about why
the New York State Health Department processed a permit in a few weeks,
when it usually took a minimum of several months. This advertisement
published the day before the next town meeting implored residents to come
ask their own questions.
Bethel citizens received only a few answers, and only from local
officials at the October 2 meeting. The meeting began with discussion of
the new plan to outlaw gatherings of over one thousand people. The town
attorney thought the plan needed some improvements, so he suggested it be
turned over the town planning board. This resolution was seconded voted
on, and passed by citizens who felt the planning board was unjustly left
out of the Woodstock decision. The meeting turned personal when the town
board read excerpts from the inflammatory Catskill shopper advertisement.
The town attorney asked each person whose name appeared on the
advertisement, if they truly believed the wild accusations. All of the
accused responded affirmatively, but also stated that being questioned in
that manner upset them. The town attorney, in order to control rising
tension, reminded the crowd that a court stenographer is writing
everything that was said. Next the advertisement was read in full to the
crowd of citizens. After the town attorney had finished reading, an
angered citizen spoke up, reminding attendees about what Bethel had
suffered during Woodstock, and asked if the board had an answer for the
advertisements accusations. Finally the town attorney admitted that the
Town Board had no power to issue the permit. Town Official did not take
full responsibility as they explained that the building inspector had good
reason to believe the permits he gave were covered in the special zoning
provision, that he issued tickets to Woodstock Ventures, and the fines had
been paid. The meeting ended in a stalemate. The local government took
some blame but basically avoided accusations by promising that measures
would be taken to prevent further situations.
These empty words did nothing to repair destroyed farmland or to
replace gallons of milk lost due to blocked shipping routes. Many farmers
had threatened both the Town Board and Woodstock Ventures with lawsuits.
Most of these suits were simply dropped while others lost in court. Many
were outraged at everyone for the damage done to their property. Others
blamed their government but sympathized with the concertgoers, realizing
that they, too, were promised adequate conditions by Woodstock Ventures.
The economic and political story of the Woodstock Ventures Corporation,
Bethel and the Woodstock Festival is as important as the social. The
events chosen for this paper are not meant to tarnish the image of the
festival, or to belittle the cultural significance of it. Nothing can
change the fact that overall the festival was a social success. But these
events are significant because they show a different side of the story. It
is important to see the festival for more than just a gathering of young
people celebrating counter-culture ideals and listening to some good
music. The festival has significance because Woodstock Ventures found ways
to get around local laws and regulations. The corporation learned from the
Wallkill experience, and knew what town officials they needed to convince
to let them in. Bethel town officials ignored the public outcry against
the concert because a business promised them fame and fortune. Many
residents attempted every legal way to stop the concert from happening. In
the end the local government decision couldn’t be changed and the
citizens were left with the consequences. The complete story of Woodstock
is also significant because it exemplifies the tension between the
conservative generation which was fading and being replaced by the growing
liberal/counterculture group. The New York State Troopers showed this
animosity when the two deals were broken. If the troopers had arrived on
time to direct the traffic a huge crisis would have been averted. In
Wallkill, the hostility shown towards Woodstock Ventures’ hippy
employees caused major problems. If the corporation had adequate time to
construct the fairgrounds the concert would have sold out, and never
become the free concert that it is world renowned for. The political and
economical story of Woodstock makes it appear less of a myth and more of a
story of counterculture entrepreneurs attempting to be successful against
all odds. The story is not complete without recognizing that many citizens
of Bethel fought the corporation in every legal way possible, and found
that in the end they were powerless. The Woodstock Aquarian Arts and Music
Festival, was not peace, love, and happiness for everyone, for some in
Bethel it was destroyed fields, lost milk, and a local government that
turned its back on its citizens.
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Works Cited
General Works:
Bennet, Andy. Remembering Woodstock, Burlington: Ashgate Publishing
Company, 2004
Collier, Barnard. “Tired Rock Fans Begin Exodus,” The New York
Times, 18 August, 1969
Dominis, John. “The Big Woodstock Rock Trip; Hundreds of Kids Mob
Catskill Mountain Farm,” Life, Vol .67, Issue 9, 1969,
Doyle, Michael Wm. Ph.D. Statement on the Historical and Cultural
Significance of the 1969 Woodstock Festival Site, Indiana: Ball State
University, 2001
Fosburgh, Lacey. “346 Policeman Quit Music Festival,” New York
Times, 15 August, 1969
Makower, Joel. Woodstock: The Oral History, New York: Bantam DoubleDay
Dell Publishing, 1989
Navraez, Alfonso “Bethel Farmers Call Fair a Plot to Avoid the Law,”
The New York Times, 20 August, 1969
“On This Day”, (August 18, 1969),
