Woodstock museum seeking locals who went to 1969 festival

Apr. 9—The average age of a Woodstock festival attendee is more than 75 years old, and the Museum at Bethel Woods Oral History Initiative is seeking to capture their stories before they are lost forever.

Currently, museum historians are embarking on their second cross-country road trip to find attendees, with an upcoming stop April 19-21 at SUNY Oneonta.

Housed at the original site of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair, currently Bethel Wood Center for the Arts, the museum is dedicated to documenting as many firsthand accounts of the festival as possible, according to a news release.

The project aims to obtain a deeper understanding of the counterculture of the 1960s by documenting personal experiences. This round of the initiative will focus on stories about peace, resistance and resilience.

Bethel Woods is seeking anyone who may have worked at Woodstock, served as a volunteer or had interactions with any of the organizations who came to Woodstock to aid with the festival.

The nonprofit organization is also collecting stories about the wider social movements in New York City and the surrounding region.

Significant partnerships with the American LBGTQ+ Museum and the Borsch Belt Marker project aim to collect stories from people who were on the front lines of justice and reform.

Dr. Neal V. Hitch, the museum's senior curator, said that through the oral history initiative, the museum began collecting stories that were so much bigger than the festival.

"Our goal in 2024 is to create partnerships and reach into communities that have been historically underserved," he said in a statement. "We want to record the experiences of as many participants, attendees, workers and volunteers from the era as we can, because we know they are slipping away fast. These narratives are invaluable in shaping and preserving the rich history and legacy of the '60s and through these partnerships our hope is that the stories can be shared to through as many outlets, exhibits, and programs as possible."

The Oral History Initiative at Bethel Woods began in October 2020 and is a legacy of the pandemic. To date, 1,200 stories have been documented through the initiative. In 2023 alone, the museum collected 300 new audio-visual interviews. The goal of 2024 is to add another 300 stories that increase the diversity of life perspectives and experiences.

This portion of the traveling Oral History Initiative is funded through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and will focus on gathering stories from under-recorded voices — particularly those from diverse and disadvantaged communities — within the history of 1960s counterculture.

The museum is committed to gathering at least 4,500 oral histories — roughly 1% of the estimated attendees — to collect and commemorate perspectives that round out the picture of the festival.

Attendees can sign up to tell their stories by contacting OralHistory@BethelWoodsCenter.org. The museum also is accepting virtual interviews.