Peace, music and memories: As the 1960s fade, historians scramble to capture Woodstock’s voices

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
Associated Press

BETHEL, N.Y. (AP) — An estimated 450,000 people attended the Woodstock festival in August 1969. It was a haphazard event that now evokes memories about a society’s state of mind nearing the end of a tumultuous decade. Most of that crowd was composed of teenagers or young adults now in the twilight of their lives. That ticking clock is why the Museum at Bethel Woods, based at the site of the 1969 festival, is immersed in a five-year project traveling around the United States. They are recording the oral histories of people who were there to preserve the Woodstock memories before they fade away.