[Ads-l] Antedating of "Hippie"

[Baker, John]

Note that the view that Fallon’s work was the first clearly contemporary use is controversial on Wikipedia and primarily insisted on by one diligent editor.  The linked Wikipedia article cites a number of earlier examples that arguably represent the modern meaning:


In a 1961 essay, Kenneth Rexroth of San Francisco used both the terms hipster and hippies to refer to young people participating in African American or Beatnik nightlife. 

In 1963, the Orlons, an African-American singing group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania released the soul dance song "South Street", which included the lyrics "Where do all the hippies meet? South Street, South Street...The hippest street in town". Some transcriptions read "Where do all the hippist (sic) meet?" Nevertheless, since many heard it as "hippies", that use was promoted. Another 1963 song by The Dovells, "You Can't Sit Down" also referenced South Street Philadelphia and hippies: "When you're on South Street and the band is really bootin'. You hear the hippie with the back beat..." Another use around the same time was on the 1963 Freddy Cannon single on Swan Records, "Do What The Hippies Do". In addition, The Stereos, a doo-wop group who had already released their 1959 single "Memory Lane" under the alias "the Tams" (not the more famous group The Tams), re-released the recording yet again in 1963 under the name of "the Hippies". 

Modern use

In a June 11, 1963 syndicated column by Dorothy Killgallen, she wrote "New York hippies have a new kick – baking marijuana in cookies". The term "hippie" appears in a New York Times book review of April 21, 1964 entitled "Is The Pentagon Threatened by Civilians on Horseback?" where it said "Mr. Raymond felicitously gives us a hippie link between the present and the past." The term appeared numerous times in the Village Voice on September 10, 1964 in an article entitled "Baby Beatniks Spark Bar Boom on East Side." Another early appearance of the term hippies was on November 27, 1964 in a TIME Magazine article about a 20-year old's drug use scandalizing the town of Darien, Connecticut: "The trouble is that in a school of 1,018 pupils so near New York there is bound to be a fast set of hard-shell hippies like Alpert [the 20 year old] who seem utterly glamorous to more sheltered types." Shortly afterwards, on December 6, 1964, in an article entitled "Jean Shepherd Leads His Flock On A Search For Truth", New York Times journalist Bernard Weinraub wrote about the Limelight coffeehouse, quoting Shepherd as using the term hippie while describing the beatnik fashions that had newly arrived in Greenwich Village from Queens, Staten Island, Newark, Jersey City, and Brooklyn. And the Zanesville Times Recorder, on January 1, 1965, ran a story questioning how society could tolerate a new underground New York newspaper started by Ed Sanders called The Marijuana Times — whose first issue (of only two, dated January 30) it directly quoted as saying: "The latest Pot statistics compiled through the services of the Hippie Dope Exchange, will be printed in each issue of the Marijuana Newsletter." 

Another early appearance was in the liner notes to the Rolling Stones album, The Rolling Stones, Now!, released in February 1965 and written by the band's then-manager, Andrew Loog Oldham. One sentence of the notes reads, "Their music is Berry-chuck and all the Chicago hippies..." and another sentence from the same source reads, "Well, my groobies, what about Richmond, with its grass green and hippy scene from which the Stones untaned." 
 
Rev. Howard R. Moody, of the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, was quoted in the June 6, 1965 New York Times as saying "Every hippy is somebody's square. And don't you ever forget it." 



John Baker




From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Ben Zimmer
Sent: Monday 10 September 2018 12:19 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Antedating of "Hippie"

External Email - Think Before You Click

From Wikipedia:

----
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_hippie
The first clearly contemporary use of the word "hippie" appeared in print
on September 5, 1965. In an article entitled "A New Haven for Beatniks,"
San Francisco journalist Michael Fallon wrote about the Blue Unicorn
coffeehouse, using the term hippie to refer to the new generation of
beatniks who had moved from North Beach into the Haight-Ashbury district of
San Francisco. (In a 1969 interview, San Francisco writer Ralph Gleason
attributed this move to tourism.) Fallon reportedly came up with the name
by condensing Norman Mailer's use of the word "hipster" into "hippie."
----

Fallon's 9/5/65 article in the San Francisco Examiner was the first in a
four-part series:

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/23611289/hippie_1/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/23611379/hippie_2/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/23611403/hippie_3a/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/23611420/hippie_3b/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/23611436/hippie_4/

I used 1965 as the birth year of the Bay Area countercultural "hippie" here
(based on Fallon's series, I think):

https://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/of-hipsters-
hippies-and-hepcats/


On Mon, Sep 10, 2018 at 11:58 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
wrote:

> The context doesn't clarify much, but it is likely, I think, that the 1944
> citation is in the basic sense of "one who is hip."
>
>
> I have tried to antedate the 1966 first use for the "Berkeley
> countercultural" sense of "hippie," but it seems to be difficult to find
> 1965 evidence.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Sent: Monday, September 10, 2018 11:36 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Hippie"
>
> Presumably the surrounding context clarifies what sort of folks those
> “hippies” were. Note the referential split between OED hippy/hippie 1
> (‘one who is in the know, esp. about jazz music and culture; hepcat) and 2
> ('A member of a countercultural movement which began in the late 1960s,
> characterized by pacifism, rejection of conservative values, and a
> nonconformist appearance…’). The first attestations of the latter
> denotation are from 1966, but I suspect it could be pushed back a little.
>
> LH
>
> > On Sep 10, 2018, at 8:58 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> wrote:
> >
> > hippie (OED 1948)
> >
> >
> > 1944 _New York Age_ 8 Jan. 9/8 (Readex) There is too much adulation by
> Harlem children of the "hippies" and their activities.
> >
> >
> > Fred Shapiro
> >

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org