Hippies Living History

In the late 1960s and 1970s, living history flowered, with new developments in research and interpretation at sites like Plimoth Plantation and Old Sturbridge Village, and the establishment of many new living history farms and museums, alongside a new professional organization: the Association for Living History Farms and Museums. This article examines this shift and puts it into conversation with the concurrent countercultural and commune movement, which often resembled—both aesthetically and ideologically—new living history. Using this case study as a model, I argue that in order to fully understand and account for developments in public practice, we must not only look at public history in a wider lens, but also account for form alongside context.

Feeling at home in lonely cities: an emotional history of the West German urban commune movement during the long 1970s

In the 1970s, a commune movement emerged in West German cities. The article explores this movement as an attempt to create spaces for feeling ‘at home’ in cities that many people perceived to be alienating. After providing a brief overview of the development of the commune movement, the article explores the new domesticity that emerged in communes. It first discusses the emotional and political ambitions that motivated mostly left-leaning students to move into communes, and then explores the practical attempts to create such spaces for feelings, how such attempts succeeded but also encountered many difficulties. The article thereby contributes to an understanding of what it takes for people to feel at home in cities.

Communes and Changing Family Norms

This article examines attitudes and behaviors regarding marriage, parenting, and lifestyle among former members of communal groups. A follow-up sample of 635 individuals who lived in a variety of communes in the early 1970s was restudied using personal interviews and self-administered questionnaires. Ex-commune members are less likely to have married than others in their age group. Sizable proportions currently live in multi-adult households. The vast majority of respondents hold open the possibility of collective living some time in the future. Attitudes show continuity of ideological criticisms of traditional life styles and a commitment to emotional openness and negotiated role relations within the family. Findings support a cohort-historical explanation of the commune movement. Communal experimentation was both a manifestation of and a contributor to the larger process of family change.