DK Travel : San Francisco : History & Culture

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Gold Rush Lawlessness

Gold Rush frontier life was so criminal that vigilante justice was proclaimed in the 1850s, leading to secret trials.
Grace Cathedral

San Francisco’s own Notre Dame combines Italian Renaissance with a lot of American originality.
Grace Slick

The other queen of San Francisco’s influential bands, in this case Jefferson Airplane.
Haight-Ashbury

The matrix of yet another Bohemian movement that San Francisco has given birth to, this area nurtured idealistic hippies in the late 1960s. They brought international awareness to alternative ways of life, living in harmony with nature and espousing humane values (see Noe Valley).

Intersection, Haight-Ashbury
Harvey Milk

The first openly gay politician to become a member of the Board of Supervisors was assassinated in 1978.
Herb Caen

For nearly six decades Caen’s newspaper column was required reading. To his many devoted fans he was, and remains “Mr. San Francisco.” He coined the term “Beatnik” in his April 2, 1958, column.
Howl

On October 13, 1955, Allen Ginsberg read his revolutionary poem in San Francisco, which was later banned as obscene.
Huey Newton

Oakland’s founder of the Black Panthers, a group committed to violent change if necessary.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers

This 1978 remake of the 1950s classic stars Donald Sutherland as the last survivor of a chilling alien takeover.
Jack Kerouac

Arriving from New York in 1947, it was Kerouac (1922–69) who coined the term “Beat.” He and his companions – Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and others – initiated the new politics of dissent and free love, all of which led, within a decade, to the Hippie Movement (see “Summer of Love”). His classic novel On the Road (1957) galvanized a generation.