The 1950s are generally regarded as the sleepy years in our history; the age of Ike Eisenhower, and the elevation of the ideals of the "American Dream". While many Americans were comfortably conforming in the post-war boom years, a group of writers and artists who called themselves "the beat generation" were rebelling. They produced some of the grittiest, ground-breaking work of the 20th-century. A new exhibition at the Walker Art Center, called "Beat Culture and the New America: 1950-1965," seeks to capture the beat movement in all its complexity.