Marshall Irving Bloom (July 16, 1944 – November 1, 1969) was an American journalist and activist, best known as co-founder in 1967 of the

Liberation News Service Liberation News Service (LNS) was a New Left, anti-war underground press news agency that distributed news bulletins and photographs to hundreds of subscribing underground, alternative and radical newspapers from 1967 to 1981. Considered the "Asso ...

, the "

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

" of the

underground press The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant (governmental, religious, or institutional) group. In specific rec ...

Early life and education

Marshall Bloom was born in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

. He attended

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...

and graduated in 1966. While there, he served as chairman of ''The Student'' publication and received the Samuel Bowles Prize for his accomplishments in journalism. During the summer of 1965 Marshall worked as a

Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 202 ...

, correspondent for ''

The Southern Courier ''The Southern Courier'' was a weekly newspaper published in Montgomery, Alabama, from 1965 to 1968, during the Civil Rights Movement. As one of a few newspapers to cover the movement with an emphasis on African-American communities in the South, ...

'' reporting on the Civil Rights struggle. Bloom was one of the 20 Amherst graduates who walked out during their own commencement to protest the awarding of an honorary degree to Defense Secretary

Robert McNamara Robert Strange McNamara (; June 9, 1916 – July 6, 2009) was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He remains the Lis ...

.Dobrow, Martin
"A Life in Full Bloom: 50 Years Ago, this Amherst College Student Eembodied Turbulent Times,"
''

Daily Hampshire Gazette The ''Daily Hampshire Gazette'' is a six-day morning daily newspaper based in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States, and covering all of Hampshire County, southern towns of Franklin County, and Holyoke. The newspaper prints Monday through S ...

'' (May 25, 2016). Bloom achieved some national notoriety in England, where he attended the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

as a graduate student and was elected as president of its student union. He had a prominent role in the

sit-ins A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to mo ...

and demonstrations there in the spring of 1967, protesting the appointment of

Sir Walter Adams Sir Walter Adams (16 December 1906'' The International Who's Who 1943-44''. 8th edition. George Allen & Unwin, London, 1943, p. 5. – 21 May 1975) was a British historian and educationalist. Adams was educated at University College London ...

as the school's next director. Bloom was suspended and his suspension sparked further demonstrations.

Liberation News Service

In the summer of 1967, Bloom was elected director of the

United States Student Press Association The United States Student Press Association (USSPA) was a national organization of campus newspapers and editors active in the 1960s. It held a national convention of college student newspaper staff each summer at a member college campus, and a n ...

(USSPA), which ran the

Collegiate Press Service Collegiate Press Service (CPS) is currently the name of a commercial news agency supplying stories to student newspapers. Earlier organizations (now defunct) used the same or similar names in the past. History of Earlier Organizations The first ...

(CPS) news service. At an organizational meeting in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

in August, however, Bloom was purged from the USSPA because of his radical politics (and, some thought, because of what historian John McMillian refers to as Bloom's "

effeminate Effeminacy is the embodiment of traits and/or expressions in those who are not of the female sex (e.g. boys and men) that are often associated with what is generally perceived to be feminine behaviours, mannerisms, styles, or gender roles, rather ...

demeanor"). As a result, Bloom and his colleague

Ray Mungo Raymond Mungo (born 1946) is an American author, co-author, or editor of more than a dozen books. He writes about business, economics, and financial matters as well as cultural issues. In the 1960s, he attended Boston University, where he served ...

formed the

. The inaugural issue of the Liberation News Service, a

mimeographed A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a copy made by the pro ...

news packet, was sent in the summer of 1967. By February 1968, LNS was becoming the hub for

alternative journalism Alternative media are media sources that differ from established or dominant types of media (such as mainstream media or mass media) in terms of their content, production, or distribution.Downing, John (2001). ''Radical Media''. Thousand Oaks, CA ...

in the United States, supplying the growing movement media with interpretive coverage of current events and reports on movement activities and the

Sixties counterculture The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the Western world in the 1960s and has been ongoing to the present day. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the civil rights mo ...

. In 1968, the LNS moved to New York, and in August, an internal split developed. In August 1968, a successful fundraising event led to an ugly fight over control of the organization's funds. Bloom's intention was to abandon political activism in an urban setting, and supplant it with a

Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and hi ...

vian lifestyle. Aspiring to contribute to the

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

phenomenon of rural

communes An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...

in the late '60s, Bloom, Mungo, and their LNS colleague Steve Diamond left New York for

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

, where they used the $6,000 cash from the fundraiser to make the down payment on a farm in Montague which was to be the new headquarters of LNS. An angry posse of LNSers trailed them from New York, leading to a tense six-hour standoff at the farm. The dispute ended with Bloom writing a check for the money to the New York group, but soon afterward Bloom filed kidnapping charges against 13 people. The charges were later dismissed. For the next six months, Bloom published the "LNS of the New Age," with subscribers receiving rival news packets from LNS-Montague and LNS-New York. But Bloom's group was understaffed, underfunded, and isolated on a remote (and cold) country farm, and the project died when the ink froze in the mimeograph. Only the New York headquarters group survived the split. Bloom's former political colleagues,

and

Verandah Porche Verandah Porche (born November 8, 1945) is a poet living in Guilford, Vermont. Biography Porche (born Linda Jacobs) attended public schools in Teaneck, New Jersey, graduated from Teaneck High School in 1963, and went on to Boston University, grad ...

, were later among the founders of a similar rural commune in southern

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

Death

On November 1, 1969, Bloom committed suicide by

carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the simple ...

poisoning. He was found dead in his car with the tailpipe connected to the window. Many theories have emerged as to why he killed himself;

Allen Young Sir Allen William Young, (12 December 1827 – 20 November 1915) was an English master mariner and explorer, best remembered for his role in Arctic exploration including the search for Sir John Franklin. Early life Allen Young was born at Tw ...

and Amy Stevens have both suggested that it was because he was unhappily

closeted ''Closeted'' and ''in the closet'' are metaphors for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and other (LGBTQ+) people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and human ...

.Young, Allen. (1990) "Liberation News Service: A History," Liberation News Service
Archived
at the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see ...

. Retrieved Dec. 15, 2022.

References

External links

Marshall Bloom Alternative Press Collection
in the Archives & Special Collections at Amherst College
Marshall Bloom Papers
in the Archives & Special Collections at Amherst College {{DEFAULTSORT:Bloom, Marshall 1944 births 1969 deaths 1969 suicides Alumni of the London School of Economics American anti–Vietnam War activists American male journalists Amherst College alumni 20th-century American journalists News agency founders People associated with the London School of Economics Journalists from Denver People from Montague, Massachusetts Suicides by carbon monoxide poisoning