ABSTRACT
The Sixties provided unprecedented choices for young Americans who were searching for meaningful lives. Born as “war babies” and “baby boomers,” they had grown up in the Cold War. They had seen African Americans fighting for civil rights and witnessed people their own age protesting social inequities at home and United States policies abroad, particularly the Vietnam War. Urged forward by the era’s presidents, Kennedy and Johnson, and by their teachers and college professors, some young people who had been raised in middle-class comfort rejected what they saw as the materialism and complacency of their parents’ generation and the careerism and conformity of industrialized society. The path through college to a career and a suburban house did not seem as attractive to them as it had seemed to the generation that had grown up during the Depression. Instead, they sought jobs or lifestyles that would make a difference either in the world or within themselves.
