HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

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 recent (post-World War II) Asian, American and Western European context, the term "underground press" has most frequently been employed to refer to the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with 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''. H ...
of the late 1960s and early 1970s in
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
and
Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...
in Asia, in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
and
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
in North America, and the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
and other western nations. It can also refer to the newspapers produced independently in repressive regimes. In German occupied Europe, for example, a thriving underground press operated, usually in association with the Resistance. Other notable examples include the '' samizdat'' and '' bibuła'', which operated in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
and
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
respectively, during the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
.


Origins

In Western Europe, a century after the invention of the printing press, a widespread underground press emerged in the mid-16th century with the clandestine circulation of
Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John C ...
books and broadsides, many of them printed in Geneva, which were secretly smuggled into other nations where the carriers who distributed such literature might face imprisonment, torture or death. Both Protestant and Catholic nations fought the introduction of Calvinism, which with its emphasis on intractable evil made its appeal to alienated, outsider subcultures willing to violently rebel against both church and state. In 18th century France, a large illegal underground press of the Enlightenment emerged, circulating anti-Royalist, anti-clerical and pornographic works in a context where all published works were officially required to be licensed. Starting in the mid-19th century an underground press sprang up in many countries around the world for the purpose of circulating the publications of banned Marxist political parties; during the German Nazi occupation of Europe, clandestine presses sponsored and subsidized by the Allies were set up in many of the occupied nations, although it proved nearly impossible to build any sort of effective underground press movement within Germany itself. The
French resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
published a large and active underground press that printed over 2 million newspapers a month; the leading titles were '' Combat'', '' Libération'', '' Défense de la France'', and '' Le Franc-Tireur.'' Each paper was the organ of a separate resistance network, and funds were provided from Allied headquarters in London and distributed to the different papers by resistance leader
Jean Moulin Jean Pierre Moulin (; 20 June 1899 – 8 July 1943) was a French civil servant and French Resistance, resistant who served as the first President of the National Council of the Resistance during World War II from 27 May 1943 until his death less ...
. Allied
prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...
(POWs) published an underground newspaper called POW WOW. In
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...
, also since approximately 1940, underground publications were known by the name '' samizdat''. The countercultural underground press movement of the 1960s borrowed the name from previous "underground presses" such as the Dutch underground press during the
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
occupations of the 1940s. Those predecessors were truly "underground", meaning they were illegal, thus published and distributed covertly. While the countercultural "underground" papers frequently battled with governmental authorities, for the most part they were distributed openly through a network of street vendors, newsstands and
head shop A head shop is a retail outlet specializing in paraphernalia used for consumption of cannabis and tobacco and items related to cannabis culture and related countercultures. They emerged from the hippie counterculture in the late 1960s, an ...
s, and thus reached a wide audience. The underground press in the 1960s and 1970s existed in most countries with high GDP per capita and freedom of the press; similar publications existed in some developing countries and as part of the ''samizdat'' movement in the
communist state A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comint ...
s, notably
Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...
. Published as weeklies, monthlies, or "occasionals", and usually associated with
left-wing politics Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in ...
, they evolved on the one hand into today's alternative weeklies and on the other into
zine A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very s ...
s.


In Australia

The most prominent underground publication in Australia was a satirical magazine called '' OZ'' (1963 to 1969), which initially owed a debt to local university student newspapers such as Honi Soit (University of Sydney) and Tharunka (University of New South Wales), along with the UK magazine '' Private Eye''. The original edition appeared in Sydney on April Fools' Day, 1963 and continued sporadically until 1969. Editions published after February 1966 were edited by Richard Walsh, following the departure for the UK of his original co-editors Richard Neville and
Martin Sharp Martin Ritchie Sharp (21 January 1942 – 1 December 2013) was an Australian artist, cartoonist, songwriter and film-maker. Career Sharp was born in Bellevue Hill, New South Wales in 1942, and educated at Cranbrook private school, where one ...
, who went on to found a British edition (''London Oz'') in January 1967. In Melbourne Phillip Frazer, founder and editor of pop music magazine '' Go-Set'' since January 1966, branched out into alternate, underground publications with ''
Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
'' in 1970, followed by ''
High Times ''High Times'' is an American monthly magazine (and cannabis brand) that advocates the legalization of cannabis as well as other counterculture ideas. The magazine was founded in 1974 by Tom Forcade.Danko, Danny"Norml Founder Retires – Exhal ...
'' (1971 to 1972) and ''
The Digger ''The Digger'' is a 24-page magazine in Glasgow, Scotland which focusses on crime stories. It is published weekly, in an A5 newsletter format. In 2012, the magazine went from newsprint to glossy. Background The magazine was founded by James ...
'' (1972 to 1975).


List of Australian underground papers

* ''
The Digger ''The Digger'' is a 24-page magazine in Glasgow, Scotland which focusses on crime stories. It is published weekly, in an A5 newsletter format. In 2012, the magazine went from newsprint to glossy. Background The magazine was founded by James ...
'' (1972–1975) * ''
The Living Daylights ''The Living Daylights'' is a 1987 spy film, the fifteenth entry in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the first of two to star Timothy Dalton as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by John Glen, the film's ...
'' (1973-1974) * ''
High Times ''High Times'' is an American monthly magazine (and cannabis brand) that advocates the legalization of cannabis as well as other counterculture ideas. The magazine was founded in 1974 by Tom Forcade.Danko, Danny"Norml Founder Retires – Exhal ...
'' (1971-1972) * '' OZ Sydney'' (1963-1969) * ''New Dawn'' magazine * ''Nexus'' magazine * ''
Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
'' (1970-1971)


In the United Kingdom

The underground press offered a platform to the socially impotent and mirrored the changing way of life in the UK underground. In
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, Barry Miles, John Hopkins, and others produced ''
International Times ''International Times'' (''it'' or ''IT'') is the name of various underground newspapers, with the original title founded in London in 1966 and running until October 1973. Editors included John "Hoppy" Hopkins, David Mair ...
'' from October 1966 which, following legal threats from ''The Times'' newspaper was renamed ''IT''. Richard Neville arrived in London from Australia, where he had edited '' Oz'' (1963 to 1969). He launched a British version (1967 to 1973), which was A4 (as opposed to ''IT'''s broadsheet format). Very quickly, the relaunched ''Oz'' shed its more austere satire magazine image and became a mouthpiece of the underground. It was the most colourful and visually adventurous of the alternative press (sometimes to the point of near-illegibility), with designers like
Martin Sharp Martin Ritchie Sharp (21 January 1942 – 1 December 2013) was an Australian artist, cartoonist, songwriter and film-maker. Career Sharp was born in Bellevue Hill, New South Wales in 1942, and educated at Cranbrook private school, where one ...
. Other publications followed, such as '' Friends'' (later ''Frendz''), based in the
Ladbroke Grove Ladbroke Grove () is an area and a road in West London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, passing through Kensal Green and Notting Hill, running north–south between Harrow Road and Holland Park Avenue. It is also a name given to ...
area of
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
; '' Ink'', which was more overtly political; and '' Gandalf's Garden'' which espoused the mystic path.


Legal challenges

The flaunting of sexuality within the underground press provoked prosecution. ''IT'' was taken to court for publishing small ads for homosexuals; despite the 1967
legalisation Legalization is the process of removing a legal prohibition against something which is currently not legal. Legalization is a process often applied to what are regarded, by those working towards legalization, as victimless crimes, of which one ...
of homosexuality between consenting adults in private, importuning remained subject to prosecution. Publication of the ''Oz'' "School Kids" issue brought charges against the three ''Oz'' editors, who were convicted and given jail sentences. This was the first time the Obscene Publications Act 1959 was combined with a moral conspiracy charge. The convictions were, however, overturned on appeal.


Harassment and intimidation

Police harassment of the British underground, in general, became commonplace, to the point that in 1967 the police seemed to focus in particular on the apparent source of agitation: the underground press. The police campaign may have had an effect contrary to that which was presumably intended. If anything, according to one or two who were there at the time, it actually made the underground press stronger. "It focused attention, stiffened resolve, and tended to confirm that what we were doing was considered dangerous to the establishment", remembered Mick Farren. From April 1967, and for some while later, the police raided the offices of ''International Times'' to try, it was alleged, to force the paper out of business. In order to raise money for ''IT'' a benefit event was put together, "The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream" Alexandra Palace on 29 April 1967. On one occasion – in the wake of yet another raid on ''IT'' – London's alternative press succeeded in pulling off what was billed as a 'reprisal attack' on the police. The paper ''Black Dwarf'' published a detailed floor-by-floor 'Guide to Scotland Yard', complete with diagrams, descriptions of locks on particular doors, and snippets of overheard conversation. The anonymous author, or 'blue dwarf', as he styled himself, claimed to have perused archive files, and even to have sampled one or two brands of scotch in the Commissioner's office. The London ''
Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...
'' headlined the incident as "Raid on the Yard". A day or two later ''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...
'' announced that the prank had resulted in all security passes to the police headquarters having to be withdrawn and then re-issued.


Support from British pop culture

By the end of the decade, community artists and bands such as Pink Floyd (before they "went commercial"), The Deviants, Pink Fairies, Hawkwind, Michael Moorcock and Steve Peregrin Took would arise in a symbiotic co-operation with the underground press. The underground press publicised these bands and this made it possible for them to tour and get record deals. The band members travelled around spreading the ethos and the demand for underground newspapers and magazines grew and flourished for a while. Neville published an account of 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''. H ...
called ''Play Power'', in which he described most of the world's underground publications. He also listed many of the regular key topics from those publications, including the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, Black Power, politics,
police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to ...
, hippies and the lifestyle revolution, drugs, popular music, new society, cinema, theatre, graphics, cartoons, etc.


Local papers

Apart from publications such as ''IT'' and ''Oz'', both of which had a national circulation, the 1960s and 1970s saw the emergence of a whole range of local alternative newspapers, which were usually published monthly. These were largely made possible by the introduction in the 1950s of offset litho printing, which was much cheaper than traditional typesetting and use of the rotary letterpress. Such local papers included: * ''Aberdeen Peoples Press'' * ''Alarm'' (Swansea) * ''Andersonstown News'' (Belfast) * '' Brighton Voice'' * ''Bristol Voice'' * ''Feedback'' (Norwich) * ''Hackney People's Press'' * ''Islington Gutter Press'' * ''Leeds Other Paper'' * ''Response'' (Earl's Court, London) * ''Sheffield Free Press'' * ''West Highland Free Press'' A 1980 review identified some 70 such publications around the United Kingdom but estimated that the true number could well have run into hundreds. Such papers were usually published anonymously, for fear of the UK's draconian libel laws. They followed a broad anarchist, libertarian, left-wing of the Labour Party, socialist approach but the philosophy of a paper was usually flexible as those responsible for its production came and went. Most papers were run on collective principles.


List of UK underground papers


North America


Legal definition of "underground"

In the United States, the term ''underground'' did not mean ''illegal'' as it did in many other countries. The
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
and various court decisions (e.g. '' Near v. Minnesota'') give very broad rights to anyone to publish a newspaper or other publication, and severely restrict government efforts to close down or censor a private publication. In fact, when censorship attempts are made by government agencies, they are either done in clandestine fashion (to keep it from being known the action is being taken by a government agency) or are usually ordered stopped by the courts when judicial action is taken in response to them. A publication must, in general, be committing a crime (for example, reporters burglarizing someone's office to obtain information about a news item); violating the law in publishing a particular article or issue (printing obscene material,
copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, ...
,
libel Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defi ...
, breaking a non-disclosure agreement); directly threatening national security; or causing or potentially causing an imminent emergency (the " clear and present danger" standard) to be ordered stopped or otherwise suppressed, and then usually only the particular offending article or articles in question will be banned, while the newspaper itself is allowed to continue operating and can continue publishing other articles. In the U.S. the term "underground newspaper" generally refers to an independent (and typically smaller) newspaper focusing on unpopular themes or counterculture issues. Typically, these tend to be politically to the left or far left. More narrowly, in the U.S. the term "underground newspaper" most often refers to publications of the period 1965–1973, when a sort of boom or craze for local tabloid underground newspapers swept the country in the wake of court decisions making prosecution for obscenity far more difficult. These publications became the voice of the rising
New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights ...
and the hippie/psychedelic/
rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm ...
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''. H ...
of the 1960s in America, and a focal point of opposition to the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
and the draft.


Origins

The North American countercultural press of the 1960s drew inspiration from predecessors that had begun in the 1950s, such as the '' Village Voice'' and Paul Krassner's satirical paper '' The Realist.'' Arguably, the first underground newspaper of the 1960s was the '' Los Angeles Free Press'', founded in 1964 and first published under that name in 1965.


1965–1973 boom period

According to Louis Menand, writing in ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', the underground press movement in the United States was "one of the most spontaneous and aggressive growths in publishing history." During the peak years of the phenomenon, there were generally about 100 papers currently publishing at any given time. But the underground press phenomenon proved short-lived. An Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) roster published in November 1966 listed 14 underground papers, 11 of them in the United States, two in England, and one in Canada. Within a few years the number had mushroomed. A 1971 roster, published in Abbie Hoffman's '' Steal This Book'', listed 271 UPS-affiliated papers; 11 were in Canada, 23 in Europe, and the remainder in the United States. The underground press' combined readership eventually reached into the millions. The early papers varied greatly in visual style, content, and even in basic concept — and emerged from very different kinds of communities.Reed, John
"The Underground Press and Its Extraordinary Moment in US History,"
'' Hyperallergic'' (July 26, 2016).
Many were decidedly rough-hewn, learning journalistic and production skills on the run. Some were militantly political while others featured highly spiritual content and were graphically sophisticated and adventuresome. By 1969, virtually every sizable city or college town in North America boasted at least one underground newspaper. Among the most prominent of the underground papers were the ''
San Francisco Oracle ''The Oracle of the City of San Francisco'', also known as the ''San Francisco Oracle,'' was an underground newspaper published in 12 issues from September 20, 1966, to February 1968 in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of that city. Allen Cohen ( ...
,'' '' San Francisco Express Times'', the '' Berkeley Barb'' and ''
Berkeley Tribe The ''Berkeley Tribe'' was a radical counterculture weekly underground newspaper published in Berkeley, California from 1969 to 1972. It was formed after a bitter staff dispute with publisher Max Scherr and split the nationally known ''Berkeley B ...
''; ''
Open City In war, an open city is a settlement which has announced it has abandoned all defensive efforts, generally in the event of the imminent capture of the city to avoid destruction. Once a city has declared itself open the opposing military will b ...
'' (
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
), ''
Fifth Estate The Fifth Estate is a socio-cultural reference to groupings of outlier viewpoints in contemporary society, and is most associated with bloggers, journalists publishing in non-mainstream media outlets, and the social media or "social license". Th ...
'' (
Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
), '' Other Scenes'' (dispatched from various locations around the world by John Wilcock); '' The Helix'' (
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...
); ''
Avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appear ...
'' (
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
); ''The
Chicago Seed ''The Chicago Seed'' was an underground newspaper published biweekly in Chicago, Illinois from May 1967 to 1974; there were 121 issues published in all. It was notable for its colorful psychedelic graphics and its eclectic, non-doctrinaire radi ...
''; '' The Great Speckled Bird'' (
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...
); ''
The Rag ''The Rag'' was an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas from 1966–1977. The weekly paper covered political and cultural topics that the conventional press ignored, such as the growing antiwar movement, the sexual revolution, gay ...
'' (
Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
); '' Rat'' (
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
); '' Space City!'' (
Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...
) and in
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
, '' The Georgia Straight'' (
Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...
, BC). ''
The Rag ''The Rag'' was an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas from 1966–1977. The weekly paper covered political and cultural topics that the conventional press ignored, such as the growing antiwar movement, the sexual revolution, gay ...
'', founded in
Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
, in 1966 by
Thorne Dreyer Thorne Webb Dreyer (born August 1, 1945) is an American writer, editor, publisher, and political activist who played a major role in the 1960s-1970s counterculture, New Left, and underground press movements. Dreyer now lives in Austin, Texas, wh ...
and Carol Neiman, was especially influential. Historian
Laurence Leamer Laurence Leamer (born October 30, 1941) is an American author and journalist. Leamer is a former Ford Fellow in International Development at the University of Oregon and a former International Fellow at Columbia University. He is regarded as an ...
called it "one of the few legendary undergrounds,"Leamer, Laurence, ''The Paper Revolutionaries: The Rise of the Underground Press'' (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972) and, according to John McMillian, it served as a model for many papers that followed. ''The Rag'' was the sixth member of UPS and the first underground paper in the South and, according to historian Abe Peck, it was the "first undergrounder to represent the participatory democracy, community organizing and synthesis of politics and culture that the New Left of the mid-sixties was trying to develop." Leamer, in his 1972 book ''The Paper Revolutionaries'', called ''The Rag'' "one of the few legendary undergrounds". Gilbert Shelton's legendary ''
Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers ''The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers'' is an Underground comix, underground comic about a fictional trio of Cannabis culture, stoner characters, created by the American artist Gilbert Shelton. The Freak Brothers first appeared in ''The Rag'', an u ...
'' comic strip began in ''The Rag'', and thanks in part to UPS, was republished all over the world. Probably the most graphically innovative of the underground papers was the ''
San Francisco Oracle ''The Oracle of the City of San Francisco'', also known as the ''San Francisco Oracle,'' was an underground newspaper published in 12 issues from September 20, 1966, to February 1968 in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of that city. Allen Cohen ( ...
''. John Wilcock, a founder of the Underground Press Syndicate, wrote about the ''Oracle'': "Its creators are using color the way Lautrec must once have experimented with lithography – testing the resources of the medium to the utmost and producing what almost any experienced newspaperman would tell you was impossible... it is a creative dynamo whose influence will undoubtedly change the look of American publishing." In the period 1969–1970, a number of underground papers grew more militant and began to openly discuss armed revolution against the state, some going so far as to print manuals for bombing and urging their readers to arm themselves; this trend, however, soon fell silent after the rise and fall of the Weather Underground and the tragic shootings at Kent State.


High school underground press

During this period there was also a widespread underground press movement circulating unauthorized student-published tabloids and
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 proc ...
sheets at hundreds of high schools around the U.S. (In 1968, a survey of 400 high schools in
Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban ...
found that 52% reported student underground press activity in their school.) Most of these papers put out only a few issues, running off a few hundred copies of each and circulating them only at one local school, although there was one system-wide antiwar high school underground paper produced in New York in 1969 with a 10,000-copy press run. Houston's ''Little Red Schoolhouse,'' a citywide underground paper published by high school students, was founded in 1970. For a time in 1968–1969, the high school underground press had its own press services: FRED (run by C. Clark Kissinger of Students for a Democratic Society, with its base in Chicago schools) and HIPS (High School Independent Press Service, produced by students working out of Liberation News Service headquarters and aimed primarily but not exclusively at
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
schools). These services typically produced a weekly packet of articles and features mailed to subscribing papers around the country; HIPS reported 60 subscribing papers.


G.I. underground press

The G.I. underground press in America produced a few hundred titles during the Vietnam War, some produced by antiwar G.I. coffeehouses, and many of them small, crudely produced, low-circulation mimeographed "zines" written by a draftee editor opposed to the war and circulated locally off-base. Three or four G.I. underground papers had large-scale, national distribution of more than 20,000 copies, including thousands of copies mailed to G.I.'s overseas. These papers were produced with the support of civilian anti-war activists, and had to be disguised to be sent through the mail into Vietnam, where soldiers distributing or even possessing them might be subject to harassment, disciplinary action, or arrest. The idea of smuggling a full-size printing press into South Vietnam was determined to be too dangerous to attempt. As an alternative, a few G.I.'s based in South Vietnam were issued small kits to enable them to produce little hektograph-type zines.


Technological and financial realities

The boom in the underground press was made practical by the availability of cheap offset printing, which made it possible to print a few thousand copies of a small tabloid paper for a couple of hundred dollars, which a sympathetic printer might extend on credit. Paper was cheap, and many printing firms around the country had over-expanded during the 1950s and had excess capacity on their offset web presses, which could be negotiated for at bargain rates. Most papers operated on a shoestring budget, pasting up camera-ready copy on layout sheets on the editor's kitchen table, with labor performed by unpaid, non-union volunteers. Typesetting costs, which at the time were wiping out many established big city papers, were avoided by typing up copy on a rented or borrowed IBM Selectric typewriter to be pasted-up by hand. As one observer commented with only slight hyperbole, students were financing the publication of these papers out of their lunch money.


Syndicates and news services

In mid-1966, the cooperative Underground Press Syndicate (UPS) was formed at the instigation of
Walter Bowart Walter Howard Bowart (May 14, 1939 – December 18, 2007)Fox, Marglit (Jan. 14, 2008)(obituary). ''New York Times''. was an American leader in the counterculture movement of the 1960s, founder and editor of the first underground newspaper in New ...
, the publisher of another early paper, the '' East Village Other''. The UPS allowed member papers to freely reprint content from any of the other member papers. During this period, there were also a number of left-wing political periodicals with concerns similar to those of the underground press. Some of these periodicals joined the Underground Press Syndicate to gain services such as microfilming, advertising, and the free exchange of articles and newspapers. Examples include '' The Black Panther'' (the paper of the
Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxism-Leninism, Marxist-Leninist and Black Power movement, black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. New ...
,
Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the ...
), and ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'' (New York City), both of which had national distribution. Almost from the outset, UPS supported and distributed
underground comix Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority ...
strips to its member papers. Some of the cartoonists syndicated by UPS included Robert Crumb,
Jay Lynch Jay Patrick Lynch (January 7, 1945 – March 5, 2017) was an American cartoonist who played a key role in the underground comix movement with his ''Bijou Funnies'' and other titles. He is best known for his comic strip ''Nard n' Pat'' and the r ...
,
The Mad Peck John PeckBerke, Ben"Providence's Mad Peck receives little recognition, and wants even less: Counterculture artist, archivist's job description falls somewhere between 'renaissance man' and 'hustler,'"''Providence Journal'' (Oct 20, 2016).l a.k.a. ...
's ''Burn of the Week'', Ron Cobb, and
Frank Stack Frank Huntington Stack (born October 31, 1937 in Houston, Texas) is an American underground cartoonist and fine artist. Working under the name Foolbert Sturgeon to avoid persecution for his work while living in the Bible Belt, Stack published wh ...
."Special Collections and Rare Books: Frank Stack Collection,"
University of Missouri Libraries. Accessed Dec. 29, 2016.
The Rip Off Press Syndicate was launched 1973 to compete in selling underground comix content to the underground press and student publications.Fox, M. Steven
"Rip Off Comix — 1977-1991 / Rip Off Press,"
Comixjoint. Retrieved Dec. 5, 2022.
Each Friday, the company sent out a distribution sheet with the strips it was selling, by such cartoonists as Gilbert Shelton,
Bill Griffith William Henry Jackson Griffith (born January 20, 1944) is an American cartoonist who signs his work Bill Griffith and Griffy. He is best known for his surreal daily comic strip '' Zippy''. The catchphrase "Are we having fun yet?" is credited to ...
,
Joel Beck Joel Beck (May 7, 1943 – September 14, 1999) was a San Francisco Bay Area artist and cartoonist. His comic book, ''Lenny of Laredo'', one of the earliest underground comic books of the 1960s, was the first underground comic book published ...
, Dave Sheridan, Ted Richards, and Harry Driggs. The Liberation News Service (LNS), co-founded in the summer of 1967 by Ray Mungo and Marshall Bloom, "provided coverage of events to which most papers would have otherwise had no access." In a similar vein, John Berger, Lee Marrs, and others co-founded Alternative Features Service, Inc. in 1970 to supply the underground and college press, as well as independent radio stations, with syndicated press materials that especially highlighted the creation of alternative institutions, such as
free clinics A free clinic or walk in clinic is a health care facility in the United States offering services to economically disadvantaged individuals for free or at a nominal cost. The need for such a clinic arises in societies where there is no universal ...
, people's banks, free universities, and
alternative housing Alternative housing is a category of domicile structures that are built or designed outside of the mainstream norm e.g., town homes, single family homes and apartment complexes. In modern days, alternative housing commonly takes the form of tiny ...
. By 1973, many underground papers had folded, at which point the Underground Press Syndicate acknowledged the passing of the undergrounds and renamed itself the Alternative Press Syndicate (APS). After a few years, APS also foundered, to be supplanted in 1978 by the
Association of Alternative Newsweeklies The Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) is a trade association of alternative weekly newspapers in North America. It provides services to many generally liberal or progressive weekly newspapers across the United States and in Canada. AAN ...
.


Controversies

One of the most notorious underground newspapers to join UPS and rally activists, poets, and artists by giving them an uncensored voice, was the '' NOLA Express'' in New Orleans. Started by Robert Head and Darlene Fife as part of political protests and extending the "mimeo revolution" by protest and freedom-of-speech poets during the 1960s, ''NOLA Express'' was also a member of the
Committee of Small Magazine Editors and Publishers Richard Ward Morris (1939–August 28, 2003) was an American author, editor, and poet. He published more than 20 books in his lifetime, many of which were written to "explain the intricacies of science to the general public". His literary sty ...
(COSMEP). These two affiliations with organizations that were often at cross-purposes made ''NOLA Express'' one of the most radical and controversial publications of the counterculture movement. Part of the controversy about ''NOLA Express'' included graphic photographs and illustrations of which many even in today's society would be banned as pornographic. Charles Bukowski's syndicated column, ''Notes of a Dirty Old Man,'' ran in ''NOLA Express'', and Francisco McBride's illustration for the story "The Fuck Machine" was considered sexist, pornographic, and created an uproar. All of this controversy helped to increase the readership and bring attention to the political causes that editors Fife and Head supported.


Harassment and intimidation

Many of the papers faced official harassment on a regular basis; local police repeatedly raided and busted up the offices of '' Dallas Notes'' and jailed editor Stoney Burns on drug charges; charged Atlanta's '' Great Speckled Bird'' and others with obscenity; arrested street vendors; and pressured local printers not to print underground papers. In Austin, the regents at the University of Texas sued ''The Rag'' to prevent circulation on campus but the
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
successfully defended the paper's First Amendment rights before the U.S. Supreme Court. In an apparent attempt to shut down ''The Spectator'' in Bloomington, Indiana, editor James Retherford was briefly imprisoned for alleged violations of the Selective Service laws; his conviction was overturned and the prosecutors were rebuked by a federal judge. Drive-by shootings, firebombings, break-ins, and trashings were carried out on the offices of many underground papers around the country, fortunately without causing any fatalities. The offices of Houston's '' Space City!'' were bombed and its windows repeatedly shot out. In Houston, as in many other cities, the attackers, never identified, were suspected of being off-duty military or police personnel, or members of the Ku Klux Klan or Minuteman organizations. Some of the most violent attacks were carried out against the underground press in San Diego. In 1976 the ''
San Diego Union ''The San Diego Union-Tribune'' is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in San Diego, California, that has run since 1868. Its name derives from a 1992 merger between the two major daily newspapers at the time, ''The San Diego Union'' and ...
'' reported that the attacks in 1971 and 1972 had been carried out by a right-wing paramilitary group calling itself the Secret Army Organization, which had ties to the local office of the FBI. The U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice ...
(FBI) conducted surveillance and disruption activities on the underground press in the United States, including a campaign to destroy the alternative agency Liberation News Service. As part of its
COINTELPRO COINTELPRO ( syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrati ...
designed to discredit and infiltrate radical New Left groups, the FBI also launched phony underground newspapers such as the ''Armageddon News'' at
Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, or simply Indiana) is a public research university in Bloomington, Indiana. It is the flagship campus of Indiana University and, with over 40,000 students, its largest c ...
, ''The Longhorn Tale'' at the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
, and the ''Rational Observer'' at
American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was cha ...
in Washington, D.C. The FBI also ran the Pacific International News Service in San Francisco, the Chicago Midwest News, and the New York Press Service. Many of these organizations consisted of little more than a post office box and a letterhead, designed to enable the FBI to receive exchange copies of underground press publications and send undercover observers to underground press gatherings.


Decline of the underground press

By the end of 1972, with the end of the draft and the winding down of the Vietnam War, there was increasingly little reason for the underground press to exist. A number of papers passed out of existence during this time; among the survivors a newer and less polemical view toward middle-class values and working within the system emerged. The underground press began to evolve into the socially conscious, lifestyle-oriented alternative media that currently dominates this form of weekly print media in North America. In 1973, the landmark Supreme Court decision in ''
Miller v. California ''Miller v. California'', 413 U.S. 15 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court modifying its definition of obscenity from that of "utterly without socially redeeming value" to that which lacks "serious literary, artistic, politi ...
'' re-enabled local obscenity prosecutions after a long hiatus. This sounded the death knell for much of the remaining underground press (including
underground comix Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books that are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority ...
), largely by making the local
head shop A head shop is a retail outlet specializing in paraphernalia used for consumption of cannabis and tobacco and items related to cannabis culture and related countercultures. They emerged from the hippie counterculture in the late 1960s, an ...
s which stocked underground papers and comix in communities around the country more vulnerable to prosecution. '' The Georgia Straight'' outlived the underground movement, evolving into an alternative weekly still published today; ''Fifth Estate'' survives as an anarchist magazine. ''
The Rag ''The Rag'' was an underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas from 1966–1977. The weekly paper covered political and cultural topics that the conventional press ignored, such as the growing antiwar movement, the sexual revolution, gay ...
'' – which was published for 11 years in Austin (1966–1977) – was revived in 2006 as an online publication, ''
The Rag Blog ''The Rag'' was an underground press, underground newspaper published in Austin, Texas from 1966–1977. The weekly paper covered political and cultural topics that the conventional press ignored, such as the growing antiwar movement, the sexua ...
'', which now has a wide following in the progressive blogosphere and whose contributors include many veterans of the original underground press. Given the nature of alternative journalism as a subculture, some staff members from underground newspapers became staff on the newer alternative weeklies, even though there was seldom institutional continuity with management or ownership. An example is the transition in Denver from the underground '' Chinook'', to '' Straight Creek Journal'', to ''
Westword ''Westword'' is a free digital and print media publication based in Denver, Colorado. ''Westword'' publishes daily online coverage of local news, restaurants, music and arts, as well as longform narrative journalism. A weekly print issue ci ...
'', an alternative weekly still in publication. Some underground and alternative reporters, cartoonists, and artists moved on to work in corporate media or in academia.


Lists of underground press papers


United States

More than a thousand underground newspapers were published in the United States during the Vietnam War. The following is a short list of the more widely circulated, longer-lived and notable titles. For a longer, more comprehensive listing sorted by states, see the long list of underground newspapers.


U.S. military G.I. papers

See Table: GI Underground Press During the Vietnam War (U.S. Military)


Canada

* ''
Canada Goose The Canada goose (''Branta canadensis''), or Canadian goose, is a large wild goose with a black head and neck, white cheeks, white under its chin, and a brown body. It is native to the arctic and temperate regions of North America, and it is ...
'',
Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city an ...
,
Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest T ...
* '' The Georgia Straight'',
Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...
,
British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...
* ''Guerilla'',
Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
* '' Harbinger'', Toronto, Ontario * ''
Logos ''Logos'' (, ; grc, λόγος, lógos, lit=word, discourse, or reason) is a term used in Western philosophy, psychology and rhetoric and refers to the appeal to reason that relies on logic or reason, inductive and deductive reasoning. Aris ...
'',
Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...
,
Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirte ...
* '' Loving Couch Press'',
Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749 ...
,
Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
* ''Mainmise'' (1970–1978), Montreal, Quebec * '' Octopus'',
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the c ...
, Ontario (a.k.a. ''Canadian Free Press'', ''Ottawa's Free Press'') * '' Pop-See-Cul'', Montreal, Quebec * ''Sexus'' (1967–1968), and ''Allez chier'' (1969), Montreal, Quebec * ''Yorkville Yawn'' and ''Satyrday'', Yorkville, Toronto, Ontario


India

* ''Hungry Generation weekly bulletins''.
Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...
(1961–1965) The Hungry Generation was a literary movement in the
Bengali language Bengali ( ), generally known by its endonym Bangla (, ), is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bengal region of South Asia. It is the official, national, and most widely spoken language of Bangladesh and the second most widely spoken ...
launched by what is known today as the ''Hungryalist quartet'', ''i.e.''
Shakti Chattopadhyay Shakti Chattopadhyay (25 November 1933 – 23 March 1995) was an Indian poet and writer who wrote in Bengali. He is known for his realistic depictions of rural life. He was a green poet, many of his poems raised the issue of nature in crisis. ...
, Malay Roy Choudhury, Samir Roychoudhury and
Debi Roy Debi Roy (born 4 August 1940) is one of the founding fathers of the Hungry generation movement in Bengali literature. He is also the first modern Dalit poet in Bengali. He was born in a very poor family and worked as an errand boy in tea stalls o ...
(''alias'' Haradhon Dhara), during the 1960s in
Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
, India. Due to their involvement in this
avant garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or 'vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical D ...
cultural movement, the leaders lost their jobs and were jailed by the incumbent government. They challenged contemporary ideas about literature and contributed significantly to the evolution of the language and idiom used by contemporaneous artists to express their feelings in literature and painting.Dr Uttam Das, Reader, Calcutta University, in his dissertation 'Hungry Shruti and Shastravirodhi Andolan' This movement is characterized by expression of closeness to
nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
and sometimes by tenets of Gandhianism and Proudhonianism. Although it originated at Patna, Bihar and was initially based in
Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
, it had participants spread over North Bengal, Tripura and Benares. According to Dr. Shankar Bhattacharya, Dean at Assam University, as well as Aryanil Mukherjee, editor of Kaurab Literary Periodical, the movement influenced
Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
as much as it influenced American poetry through the
Beat poets Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery ...
who visited Calcutta, Patna and Benares during the 1960–1970s. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, now a professor and editor, was associated with the Hungry generation movement.
Shakti Chattopadhyay Shakti Chattopadhyay (25 November 1933 – 23 March 1995) was an Indian poet and writer who wrote in Bengali. He is known for his realistic depictions of rural life. He was a green poet, many of his poems raised the issue of nature in crisis. ...
, Saileswar Ghosh, Subhas Ghosh left the movement in 1964. More than 100 manifestos were issued during 1961–1965. Malay's
poems Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...
have been published by Prof P. Lal from his Writers Workshop publication. Howard McCord published Malay Roy Choudhury's controversial poem ''Prachanda Boidyutik Chhutar'' i.e., "Stark Electric Jesus from Washington State University" in 1965. The poem has been translated into several
languages Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
of the world; into
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
by Carl Weissner, into Spanish by Margaret Randall, into
Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Assamese by Manik Dass, into
Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...
by Nalin Patel, into
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
by
Rajkamal Chaudhary Rajkamal Choudhary (1929–1967) (also spelled Rajkamal Chaudhary or Rajkamal Chaudhari) was an Indian poet, short story writer, novelist, critic and thinker in Maithili & Hindi languages. He was known as "a bold leader of new poetry" and writ ...
, and into
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...
by Howard McCord.


In Italy

* (
Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
) * (
Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...
) * (
Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...
)


In the Netherlands

Clandestine press in the Netherlands is related to the second World War, which ran from 10 May 1940 until 5 May 1945 in the Netherlands. * See the list of 1300 Dutch illegal WW2 newspapers on Dutch Wikipedia * See also on Dutch Wikipedia :* List of places of publication of Dutch illegal WW2 newspapers :* List of printers and publishers of Dutch illegal WW2 newspapers :* List of legally continued Dutch WW2 newspapers


See also

* Alternative media ** Alternative media (U.S. political left) **
Alternative media (U.S. political right) The term right-wing alternative media in the United States usually refers to internet, talk radio, print, and television journalism. They are defined by their presentation of opinions from a conservative or right wing point of view and polit ...
*
Clandestine literature Clandestine literature, also called "underground literature", refers to a type of editorial and publishing process that involves self-publishing works, often in contradiction with the legal standards of a location. Clandestine literature is often an ...
* List of underground newspapers (by country and state) *
List of underground newspapers of the 1960s counterculture This is a partial list of the local underground newspapers launched during the Sixties era of the hippie/psychedelic/youth/counterculture/New Left/antiwar movements, approximately 1965–1972. This list includes periodically appearing papers of ge ...
*
News agency (alternative) An alternative news agency (or alternative news service) operates in a similar fashion to a commercial news agency, but defines itself as an alternative to commercial or "mainstream" operations. They span the political spectrum, but most frequently ...
* , Italian alternative editor) * Jeff Sharlet (Vietnam antiwar activist) * , Italian underground activist) * , (co-editor, Italian ''Re Nudo'')


Further reading

* Leamer, Lawrence. ''The Paper Revolutionaries''. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1972. * Lewes, James. ''Protest and Survive: Underground GI Newspapers during the Vietnam War''. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2003. . * Mackenzie, Angus, "Sabotaging the Dissident Press", ''Columbia Journalism Review'', March–April 1981, pp. 57–63, Center for Investigative Reporting, 1983. * Mungo, Raymond. ''Famous Long Ago: My Life and Hard Times With the Liberation News Service''. Boston: Beacon Press, 1970. * Peck, Abe. ''Uncovering the Sixties''. New York, NY: Pantheon Books, 1985. * Rips, Geoffrey, ''The Campaign Against the Underground Press'', San Francisco, City Lights Books, 1981. * Verzuh, Ron, "Underground Times: Canada's Flower-Child Revolutionaries", Toronto: Deneau, 1989. * Wachsberger, Ken, editor. ''Voices From the Underground''. Tempe, AZ: Mica Press, 1993.


Notes


References


Citations


Sources


"The Underground GI Press: Pens Against the Pentagon,"
''Commonweal''. Reprinted in '' Duck Power'' vol. 1, no. 4.
''Voices from the Underground (Vol. 1): Insider Histories of the Vietnam Era Underground Press''


* Holhut, Randolph T. ttp://www.brasscheck.com/seldes/history.html "A Brief History of American Alternative Journalism in the Twentieth Century,"BrassCheck.com. Retrieved Dec. 15, 2022. * Dreyer, Thorne and Victoria Smith
"The Movement and the New Media,"
Liberation News Service (1969).


External links

* ; U.S. underground press
Underground/Alternative Newspapers History and Geography
Maps and databases showing over 2,000 underground/alternative newspapers between 1965 and 1975 in the U.S. From the Mapping American Social Movements project at the University of Washington. * A number of libraries have extensive
microfilm Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. ...
collections of underground newspapers. For example, th
University of Oregon
library has a collection that consists of mostly, but not exclusively North American underground papers.
Chicano Newspapers and Periodicals 1966-1979
Maps and charts showing over 300 Chicano newspapers from the 1960s and 70s
"Voices from the Underground," an exhibition of the North American underground press of the 1960s; includes a substantial gallery of color images

A digitally scanned archive of the first twelve issues (1966-67) of ''The Rag'', from Austin, Texas

Articles about the underground press at ''The Rag Blog''


(While ''The Avatar'' shared its design approach and many social concerns with other underground papers of the time, in one important respect it was completely atypical: it served as a platform for self-proclaimed "world saviour"
Mel Lyman Melvin James Lyman (March 24, 1938 – March 1978) was an American musician and writer, and the founder of the Fort Hill Community, which has been variously described as a family, commune, or cult. Early life Lyman grew up in California and Ore ...
, leader of the Fort Hill Community.)
A collection of ''Space City News'' covers
by underground artist
Bill Narum Bill Narum (January 11, 1947 – November 18, 2009) was an artist, illustrator, and Texas counter-culture icon known for his work in popular entertainment, and for being one of the few non-natives to have lived with the Tarahumara tribe of norther ...

The website for the film ''Sir! No Sir!''
has an extensive collection of primary source materials from the GI underground press
''The Truth''
, a specimen high school underground paper from 1969 ; U.K. underground press

by Gerry Carlin and Mark Jones
''International Times'' archive

''OZ magazine'', London, 1967-1973
online at the University of Wollongong Library ; Australian underground press
''The Digger'', 1972-1975
online at the University of Wollongong Library
''Nexus'' magazine (Australia)

''OZ magazine'', Sydney, 1963-1969
online at the University of Wollongong Library
Ozit.org
— history of ''OZ Magazine'' (archived site) ; European underground press

at stampamusicale.altervista.org


Interviews


Underground press historian Sean Stewart on Rag Radio
Interviewed by
Thorne Dreyer Thorne Webb Dreyer (born August 1, 1945) is an American writer, editor, publisher, and political activist who played a major role in the 1960s-1970s counterculture, New Left, and underground press movements. Dreyer now lives in Austin, Texas, wh ...
, August 31, 2010 (57:17)
Historian John McMillian, author of ''Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America'' on Rag Radio
Interviewed by
Thorne Dreyer Thorne Webb Dreyer (born August 1, 1945) is an American writer, editor, publisher, and political activist who played a major role in the 1960s-1970s counterculture, New Left, and underground press movements. Dreyer now lives in Austin, Texas, wh ...
, March 4, 2011 (42:18)
Thorne Dreyer's 24 hour-long Rag Radio interviews with veterans of the Sixties underground press
{{DEFAULTSORT:Underground press Alternative press Alternative media