The Legacies Behind The Literature

The literary group, also known as the Beats or the Beat generation, flourished from the mid-1950s until the early 1960s. The Beats brought fresh energies to American writing and their influence has been significant. 

 "America, where everyone is always doing what they ought," as Kerouac put it in one of his defining Beat works, his novel ON THE ROAD (1957).

Shown clockwise from left: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Lafcadio Orlovsky, and Gregory Corso in 1956. The Beat movement was characterized by a rejection of the materialism, militarism, consumerism, and conformity of the 1950s, in favour of individual freedom and spontaneity.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel/timeline/beatgeneration.html