The Beat Generation writers emerged in the 1950s and were known for their unconventional lifestyles and beliefs. Allen Ginsberg was a key figure in the Beat movement and wrote the iconic poem "Howl" in 1955, which brought widespread fame but was also banned for obscenity. The poem captured the spirit of the Beat Generation with its raw, spontaneous language depicting the realities of post-war America.

2. also known as the beat movement,
were a group of American writers who
emerged in the 1950s.

10. Allen Ginsberg's family: Hannah (Honey) Litzky, aunt; Leo Litzky, uncle; Abe Ginsberg, uncle; Anna
Ginsberg, aunt; Louis Ginsberg, father; Eugene Brooks, brother; Allen Ginsberg, poet; Anne
Brooks, niece; Peter Brooks, nephew; Connie Brooks, sister-in-law; Lyle Brooks, nephew; Eugene
Brooks; Neal Brooks, nephew; Edith Ginsberg, stepmother; Louis Ginsberg, Paterson,
New Jersey, May 3, 1970
by Richard Avedon

11. Hal Chase, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs
near the Columbia University campus in Manhattan

12. Carl Solomon

16. It was banned for obscenity.

17. I saw the best minds of my
generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical
naked,
dragging themselves through
the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angel-headed hipsters
burning for the ancient
heavenly connection to the
starry dynamo in the
machinery of night,

18. HOWL (2010)
• James Franco stars as the young Allen Ginsberg—poet, counter-culture
adventurer, and chronicler of the Beat Generation. In his famously
confessional, leave-nothing-out style, Ginsberg recounts the road trips,
love affairs, and search for personal liberation that led to the most
timeless and electrifying work of his career: the poem HOWL.

20. HOWL was 29-year-old Allen Ginsberg’s first published poem—but it instantly established him as a vital new
voice for rapidly changing times. At once gritty and tender, rife with sex and drugs, driven by equal parts
alienation and ecstasy, haunted by memories of childhood, oppression, and boyish love, and erupting in a rush
of language with the rhythmic urgency of a jazz riff, the poem was a shock to the system in the midst of the
grey flannel, Eisenhower ‘50s. In an instant, HOWL forecast the heat and fury of the ‘60s and helped to usher in
cultural shifts that are still reverberating.

25. • The Beat Museum collection includes more than 1,000 photographs, rare books,
posters and artifacts.
• Many of the items in the collection were donated, often by people who knew
the major figures of the Beat Generation, such as the writer Jack Kerouac.