The wide variety of music styles and the wide varieties of people came together for a new experience that redefined a generation and created an understanding that whatever their differences, the similarities were more important. Part of this may well have been the impact of the many assassinations of that time: those at the concert were ready to see the country produce something good and positive. CONCLUSION

According to police records, in spite of a lack of sanitary facilities, food, and clean water, and in spite of a lot of drug use, there were only two deaths at the Woodstock concert. Police reports also note two births at the concert (Woodstock Festival & Concert, PAGE), something probably seen as having cosmic significance by some at the concert. For four days, nearly half a million people built their own little nation, established their own cultural rules, and survived living in markedly difficult conditions, for the most part with good grace. John Lennon would later write a song where he asked people to imagine "no country." For four days in a field in New York, the people at Woodstock essentially were part of no government, and they discovered that they could make it a rich and meaningful experience. It wasn't incident free; at one point a musician...

Just as there was not any one "right" kind of music, there was no one "right" kind of person. They found that the bonds were more important than the barriers, and that generation changed the course of American history by ignoring differences and working together.
Bibliography

1969 Woodstock Festival & Concert." Accessed via the Internet 5/30/05. http://www.woodstock69.com/

Marcus, Greil. 1994. "So what was it about Woodstock '69 that made it historic?" Interview, July 1.

Rodnitsky, Jerome L. 1999. "The Sixties between the Microgrooves: Using Folk and Protest Music to Understand American History, 1963-1973." Popular Music and Society, Vol. 23.

Strauss, Neil. 1999. "Woodstock Then and Now." New York Times, Sept. 20.

Strout, Cushing. 1998. "Sixties Protest Culture and What Happened at Cornell." New England Review, Vol. 19.