1969: When Woodstock Changed the World

50th Anniversary Conference on the 60's and its Woodstock Music Festival

   

The Hudson River Valley Institute (HRVI) and Marist College, in collaboration with the Museum at Bethel Woods and the New York State Museum, Office of State History present a conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Festival and the social history of the decade leading up to the actual Woodstock event at Bethel, New York.

Thursday, June 13 & Friday, June 14, 2019
Marist College
Conference Registration Fee: $50
(Thursday's welcome reception, Friday's breakfast, lunch, and closing reception included in conference fee)

We hope you'll join us for this special commemorative two-day event!

Below is a schedule of events:

Thursday, June 13

9:00 a.m. - Bus trip to Bethel Woods (bus trip is optional and is NOT included in conference fee, additional cost is $30 and pre-registration is required; space is limited. See below for additional information)

3:00 p.m. - Registration; Murray Student Center

4:00 - 5:15 p.m. - Session I: The Vietnam War and The Peace Movement

•Dr. Kristin Bayer, Marist College, moderator and presenter on Military history overview
•Dr. Robert Brigham, Vassar College, author: Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (with Robert S. McNamara and James G. Blight)
•Mr. Jeff Jones, Environmental Strategist and Consultant, former member of the Weather Underground
•COL (Ret.) James R. McDonough, author: Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Combat

5:30 - 6:30 p.m. - Welcome Reception  

7:00 p.m. - Keynote Lecture*

•Dr. Douglas Brinkley, Rice University, author: American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race, 1960's media, and culture

*keynote is free and open to the public with RSVP

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Friday, June 14

8:00 - 9:00 a.m. - Registration and Continental Breakfast 

9:00 - 10:30 a.m. - Session II: Civil Rights & Black Power:

•Dr. Quincy T. Mills, Vassar College, Associate Professor and Director of Africana Studies, author: The Wages of Resistance: Financing the Black Freedom Movement (book forthcoming)  
•Dr. COL Ty Seidule, USMA, author: Black Power Cadets: How African American Students Defeated President Nixon's Confederate Monument and Changed West Point
•Dr. Robyn Spencer, Lehman College, author: The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland

10:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. - Session III: The Challenges of Second Wave Feminism

•Dr. Robyn Rosen, Marist College, moderator & professor of history
•Ms. Carol Hanisch, member, Redstockings, author: The Personal is Political
•Dr. Jennifer Lemak, NYSM, Equal Rights Amendment Campaign
•Dr. Micki McElya, UCONN, author: Liberating Beauty: Feminism, the Civil Rights Movement and Miss America (book forthcoming)

12:15 - 1:45 p.m. - Lunch & Keynote Lecture

•Dr. David Farber, University of Kansas, The '60's: From Memory to History

2:00 - 3:00 p.m. - Session IV: Back to Land/Communal Living

•Mr. Devin Lander, New York State Historian, moderator and presenter, ongoing research on Millbrook Commune
•Dr. Kate Daloz, author: We Are As Gods, Back to the Land in the 1970's on the Quest for a New America
•Dr. Sally Dwyer-McNulty, Marist College, The Catholic Worker Farm in Tivoli, NY

3:45 - 5:15 p.m. - Session V: Music and the Sixties Counterculture

•Dr. Steven Garabedian, Marist College, moderator and assistant professor of history
•Dr. Nicholas Bromell, UMass Amherst, author: Tomorrow Never Knows: Rock and Psychedelics in the 1960's.
•Mr. Mat Callahan, author: The Explosion of Deferred Dreams: Musical Renaissance and Social Revolution in San Francisco, 1965-1975
•Mr. Joe Hagan, author: Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine

5:30 - 6:30 p.m. - Closing Reception

7:00 p.m. - Keynote Lecture*

•Mr. Wade Lawrence, Museum Director at the Museum at Bethel Woods, moderator
•Woodstock Festival Panel - Panelists to be announced

*keynote is free and open to the public with RSVP

 

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Information on Bus Trip to Bethel Woods*

9:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
$30 per person

The Museum at Bethel Woods is located in Sullivan County, New York, approximately 1.5 hours from the Marist campus. The bus will depart from Marist promptly at 9 a.m. and return to campus by 3:30 p.m.

Greeted at the museum by Museum Director and Senior Curator, Wade Lawrence, the tour will include the main exhibit, the museum's 2019 special exhibit, and a short walk to the overlook area at the top of the historic Woodstock festival field. Lunch will be provided on site and is included in your bus trip registration.

 
photos courtesy of Bethel Woods Center for the Arts

*All registrants for the Bethel Woods Museum trip MUST meet at Marist and take the bus to the grounds; no other vehicle entry to the grounds will be permitted by Bethel Woods.

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Conference rates have been secured at the following hotels in Poughkeepsie:

Courtyard Marriott Poughkeepsie
2641 South Road
Poughkeepsie, New York
(845) 485-6336
Click here to reserve your room now!

Residence Inn Poughkeepsie
2525 South Road
Poughkeepsie, New York
(845) 463-4343
Click here to reserve your room now!

Holiday Inn Express
2750 South Road
Poughkeepsie, New York
1-888-HOLIDAY
Click here* to reserve your room now!
*you must reference the code "MAR" when booking online or via phone

Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton*
2361 South Road
Poughkeepsie, New York
(845) 463-7500
*guests should contact the hotel directly, press "0" and ask for the "Marist Woodstock Conference" rate

For a list of additional hotel accommodations in the Hudson River Valley, click here.