Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack.
Cotillion, 1970.
On loan from Charles W. Taylor III

This three-record set features some of the biggest acts from the Woodstock Festival.
Another three-record set would quickly follow.

THE PROMOTERS BILLED Woodstock as "Three Days of Peace and Music," and hoped to draw a crowd of 150,000 for a celebration of a communal spirit and to hear some of the most popular rock acts of the day. The festival started on Friday, August 15, 1969, and the crowds quickly grew to number over 450,000, causing massive traffic jams, logistical nightmares, shortages of food and medical supplies, and potential problems of crowd control. On Saturday, the gates were opened to accommodate the many thousands who arrived without tickets. The music was almost nonstop, the rains came, drug use was widespread, sanitary conditions were primitive, bad acid trips were a constant problem, yet somehow it all worked out. Arnold Skolnick, the artist who designed the Woodstock poster said, "Something was tapped, a nerve in this country, and everybody just came." Woodstock came to symbolize all that was right and good about the hippie movement, but also that the movement was to be short-lived. A few months later, a similar gathering was held at a racetrack in Altamont, California, and turned ugly when members of the Hell's Angels attacked and killed a man near the stage where the Rolling Stones were performing. Thirty years later, when one looks back on the "Psychedelic Sixties," it is Woodstock that invariably first comes to mind. 

Anders Holmquist, photographer. The Free People.
New York: Outerbridge and Dienstfrey, 1969.
Marvin Tatum Collection of Contemporary Literature

ONE OF THE many books published after Woodstock to capitalize on the overwhelming success of the Festival, The Free People is a photographic essay on the people who attended.

Jerry Hopkins. Festival.
New York: Macmillan Company, 1970.
Marvin Tatum Collection of Contemporary Literature

WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY Jim Marshall and Baron Wolman, writer Jerry Hopkins attempts to capture the essence of those wild three days of peace and music.

Abbie Hoffman. Woodstock Nation.
New York: Vintage Books, 1969.
Special Collections Department

SIMILAR TO STEAL This Book, Woodstock Nation, is a compendium of how to make it in the world of the new counterculture. Abbie Hoffman attended Woodstock and attempted to take over the stage to exhort the crowd with Yippie rants, but was roundly booed for interrupting the music. Guitarist Pete Townsend of The Who facilitated his exit by bashing Hoffman's head with a guitar.

Woodstock Tickets.
On loan from Dr. Eric Kosowitz, David Mattern, Michael and Janet Webb, Michael and Toby Zakin

THESE TICKETS ARE souvenirs from several local residents who attended Woodstock.