Donate Memorabilia
People are writing us and asking what types of items we’re looking to display and exhibit in the Counterculture Museum. People want to contribute—and we appreciate that more than you can imagine! We’re seeking donations or loans of pertinent counterculture materials. The scope of the CCM is intentionally quite broad. The five topic areas we’re focusing on at present are: the Beat Generation, civil rights, feminism/women’s liberation, LGBTQ+, and the Sixties.
Obviously the Sixties is the broadest of all, as it encompasses the others, and branches off into so many subcategories and movements: the Vietnam War, the anti-war movement and protests, the free speech movement, the environmental movement, along with the music of the times—jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, the “British Invasion,” the Grateful Dead, punk rock, and more. It also includes the underground comix and poster art of the 1960s, along with Eastern religion, philosophy, and alternative spirituality. There was also an ever-expanding awareness and inclusion of Latino, AAPI, and Native American cultures.
We’re looking for posters, ephemera, books, the personal effects of influential people, and other items related to all of these topics; the more original the better. We would love to acquire an original Acid Test poster, but a good quality reprint would be a start. Fillmore posters, items related to the 1968 DNC demonstrations, the Kent State shooting, Attica, the Hells Angels, and so on. We’re not singularly focused on San Francisco, or just Haight-Ashbury, or even just the USA—we’d like to include counterculture movements around the world. After all, there were communes in Eastern Europe, and underground movements resisting censorship and repression in the Soviet Union.
Bottom line: we want to tell the story of the counterculture and how its messages were delivered and received around the world. The 1950s/1960s/1970s were a highly charged and potent time in history. We want to display the artifacts that will help us tell that story.