One of the things I noticed about SF from that era was how "New York City-centric" it was. At that time, many SF writers and other futurists actually thought NYC and Long Island would be where the inventors of the World of Tomorrow would go to work every day. Silicon Valley was a '60's (and '70's, and '80's) phenomenon.
I was a "member" of something called The Science Fiction Book Club from about seventh grade (1967) till well into college. Got exposed to many cutting-edge authors through that. I remember that, just before I quit it, it veered off into a number of counter-culture themes, particularly some involving the gay lifestyle, that were disturbing to me (as an adolescent, anyway). That was the zeitgeist at the time (early '70's), no doubt about it.
(steely)
I think that's because New York was where the SF "action" was. Most of the writers lived there and of course Campbell at Astounding was the real sparkplug of the great flowering of the genre at that time. He was quick to recognize 'over the transom' manuscripts that showed talent and he personally groomed many budding writers. It was standard practice for writers to go to his office and discuss current and future projects, with JWC making suggestions, developing characters and plotlines, etc.
In those days pulp magazines like Astounding paid something on the order of a half-cent or a penny a word and maybe a little more if you were well known. Most of the SF writers also wrote detective, Western, romance, sports -- anything to help keep groceries on the table. While he never wrote SF, Western writer Zane Grey once said that to make a living in his racket you had to be able to type at least 120 words a minute. Judging from his enormous output he typed faster than than.
The Science Fiction Book Club is still around, there is a website somewhere