By Linda Li Class of 2025

Peace Or Chaos: The Media’s Legacy of Woodstock & Altamont

Editor’s Note: The History Fellowship program offers students the opportunity to conduct college-level independent research on a historical topic of their choice, resulting in a substantial academic paper and oral presentation. Through guided discussions, structured support, and access to both on- and off-campus sources, students learn and apply the practices of professional historians.

It all started in 1967 with an ad in The Wall Street Journal: “Young men with unlimited capital looking for interesting, legitimate business opportunities and business propositions.” What followed was an unlikely collaboration that would culminate in one of the most iconic cultural events of the twentieth century. Two years later, half a million people gathered on a farm in Bethel, New York, for what would be billed as “three days of peace and music,” witnessing the most iconic musical performances of the decade. However, Woodstock was far from the utopia we remember it as; plagued with heavy rain, food shortages, deaths, and overdoses. Still, Woodstock became a culturally defining moment that lived on through movies, books, and songs, symbolizing the peace and love of 1960s counterculture.

Four months later, the ideals established at Woodstock came crashing down when Mick Jagger, the lead singer of the Rolling Stones as well as the initiator of the Altamont Free Concert learned a hard lesson: a motorcycle gang fueled by beer is a poor choice for hired security. Rolling Stones’ attempt to emulate the spirit of Woodstock through a free concert quickly descended into violence, shattering the ideal of “peace and love” it sought to embody. The Altamont Concert on a racetrack, which also drew nearly half a million people, ended with one murder, hundreds injured, and a crowd far from united. Headlines solidified the event’s dark legacy and labeled Altamont as the downfall of the counterculture, immortalizing it as a tragic turning point.

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