The concert came at the tail end of one of the most tumultuous decades in United States history. The public at large had turned against President Nixon’s brutal escalation of the war in Vietnam. Demands for Civil Rights boiled over into violent uprisings following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. A generation of young people felt alienated from the system, demanding peace at home and abroad.

Woodstock was the brainchild of two music business executives, Michael Lang and Artie Kornfeld, who wanted to tap into this rising counterculture. Bolstered by financing from Joel Rosenman and John Roberts (who was the wealthy scion of a dental adhesive fortune), the four formed Woodstock Ventures and set about organizing the massive concert, even before a site had been finalized. 

Originally, the four had planned to set up at the town of Woodstock in upstate New York, but the residents rejected the concert. Next, Land and Kornfeld tried a nearby farm but were denied again. Rosenman and Roberts then began searching as well to make good on their investments. They tried an industrial park near Wallkill, New York, but the local board passed a new law just to stop the gathering. 

Finally, the Woodstock group found a spot at Max Yasgur's dairy farm, where the hill would create a natural slope for seating with the concert stage at the bottom. Even then, residents opposed the concert, with a boycott organized against Yasgur. The stalwart rejections only strengthened the word of mouth however, as many became interested in this countercultural festival. When the Yasgur farm was finally secured, there was just a month to get the space ready for the concert.

What followed that August weekend was a momentous event that would define a generation. Over 450,000 people descended upon the Woodstock music festival, far exceeding the expected crowd of 100,000 to 200,000. More than thirty bands stood on this stage and played to the masses. Legendary artists such as Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Who, Santana, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young electrified the crowds.

In the early hours of Monday August 18, on the final day of the concert, Jimi Hendrix took to the stage and closed the show with iconic renditions of the "Star-Spangled Banner" and "Purple Haze". By then rain had driven away all but about 30,000 concertgoers, who took with them special memories of a watershed moment in the history of music and American culture.

This specimen is a fragment of the original stage that hosted this iconic festival. After the concert, the stage’s plywood was repurposed for use as a local paddle ball court for 48 years until a Woodstock attendee recognized the manufacturer's stamp on the plywood. Today, pieces of the Woodstock stage are on display in the Smithsonian's Museum of American History, bearing the names of the legendary performers who partook in a seismic moment in music history.