Last updated Front page of the Philadelphia Free Press (date unknown, ca. 1970?)
Philadelphia Free Press was a 1960s era underground newspaper published biweekly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1968 to 1972. Originally launched at Temple University in May 1968 as the monthly Temple Free Press, it separated from Temple and became the Philadelphia Free Press in September 1968.
Robert Glessing described the early evolution of the Free Press in his book The Underground Press in America:
"The Philadelphia Free Press was initially a quiet voice on the Temple University campus reporting only on college issues. Originally an unimaginative, pictureless two-page paper, the Free Press grew under doctoral candidate Bill Baggins and his activist staff to a colorful sixteen-page format including coverage of local, state and national movement news."[1]
The Free Press was published by a collective and distributed free at Philadelphia-area colleges, with circulation in the thousands. Operating on a shoestring, its costs were partly subsidized by record company advertisements, with one generous record company even insisting on paying $300 for a $50 ad. The Free Press was more political than its local underground competition, the Distant Drummer, which cost 15 cents and was more interested in covering rock 'n' roll than the antiwar movement.[2][3] Early founders included Bill and Judy Biggin, Jim Quinn (an organizer for the DuBois Club), and Temple undergraduates Rick Rubin and Art Platt; and contributors included local gay activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya. In early 1970 some of the more culturally oriented contributors, including Art Platt, left to form their own rival paper, the Plain Dealer.
The Free Press ran into a number of difficulties due to its Marxist-Leninist revolutionary politics; the paper was repeatedly harassed by the Philadelphia police under Frank Rizzo, in 1969 the paper was banned from Pennsylvania State University for its use of four letter words, Jim Quinn was briefly expelled (and subsequently reinstated) by Temple, and in 1971 Bill Biggin, a Canadian, was deported by the US Department of Justice.[4][5] The paper closed in 1972, in part a victim of the winding down of the Vietnam War and the decline of student activism on campus.[6][7][8]
↑ Shore, Elliott. "Decade of Dissent: The Alternative Press in Philadelphia, 1966–1976". Drexel Library Quarterly, v.12, n.3 (July 1976), p. 59-74.
Related Research Articles
Fifth Estate (FE) is a U.S. periodical, based in Detroit, Michigan, begun in 1965, and presently with staff members across North America who connect via the Internet. Its editorial collective sometimes has divergent views on the topics the magazine addresses but generally shares an anarchist, anti-authoritarian outlook and a non-dogmatic, action-oriented approach to change. The title implies that the periodical is an alternative to the fourth estate.
Temple University is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called Baptist Temple. On May 12, 1888, it was renamed the Temple College of Philadelphia. By 1907, the institution revised its institutional status and was incorporated as a research university.
William Still was an African-American abolitionist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a conductor on the Underground Railroad and was responsible for helping 650 freedom seekers make their way to Canada. Still was also a businessman, writer, historian and civil rights activist. Before the American Civil War, Still was chairman of the Vigilance Committee of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, named the Vigilant Association of Philadelphia. He directly aided fugitive slaves and also kept records of the people served in order to help families reunite.
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 group. In specific recent 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 of the late 1960s and early 1970s in India and Bangladesh in Asia, in the United States and Canada in North America, and the United Kingdom 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 and Poland respectively, during the Cold War.
The Daily Collegian is a student-produced news outlet, with a newspaper and website, that is published independently at the Pennsylvania State University. The newspaper is printed twice a week during the fall and spring semesters, and once a week during the summer semester. It is distributed for free at the University Park campus as well as mailed to subscribers across the country.
The Los Angeles Free Press, also called the "Freep", is often cited as the first, and certainly was the largest, of the underground newspapers of the 1960s. The Freep was founded in 1964 by Art Kunkin, who served as its publisher until 1971 and continued on as its editor-in-chief through June 1973. The paper closed in 1978. It was unsuccessfully revived a number of times afterward.
The Pittsburgh City Paper is Pittsburgh's leading alternative weekly newspaper which focuses on local news, opinion, and arts and entertainment. It bought out In Pittsburgh Weekly in 2001. As of April 2015, City Paper is the 14th largest alternative weekly in the United States.
Kaleidoscope was an underground newspaper that was published in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA]. Founded by John Kois, the radio disk jockey Bob Reitman and John Sahli, it was published from October 6, 1967, to November 11, 1971, printing 105 biweekly issues. The paper's first issue was printed with a borrowed $250 in an edition of 3,500 copies, which sold out in two days.
The Reverse Underground Railroad is the name given, sardonically, to the pre-American Civil War practice of kidnapping in free states not only fugitive slaves but free blacks as well, transporting them to slave states, and selling them as slaves, or occasionally getting a reward for return of a fugitive. Those who used the term were pro-slavery and angered at an "underground railroad" helping slaves escape. Also, the so-called "reverse underground railroad" had incidents but not a network, and its activities did not always take place in secret. Rescues of blacks being kidnapped were unusual.
Kiyoshi Kuromiya was a Japanese-American author and civil rights, anti-war, gay liberation, and HIV/AIDS activist. Born in Wyoming at the World War II–era Japanese American internment camp known as Heart Mountain, Kuromiya became an aide to Martin Luther King Jr. and a prominent opponent of the Vietnam War during the 1960s.
Temple University Press is a university press founded in 1969 that is part of Temple University. It is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach to funding open access books.
The Helix was an American biweekly newspaper founded in 1967 after a series of organizational meetings held at the Free University of Seattle involving a large and eclectic group including Paul Dorpat, Tom Robbins and Lorenzo Milam A member of both the Underground Press Syndicate and the Liberation News Service, it published a total of 125 issues before folding on June 11, 1970.
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 radical politics. Important events covered by Seed writers and artists were the trial of the Chicago Eight, Woodstock, and the murder of Fred Hampton. At its peak, the Seed circulated between 30,000 and 40,000 copies, with national distribution.
The Temple News (TTN) is the editorially independent weekly newspaper of Temple University. It prints 6,000 copies to be distributed primarily on Temple's Main Campus every Tuesday. A staff of 25, supported by more than 150 writers, is responsible for designing, reporting and editing the 20-page paper. Increasingly, TTN is supplementing its weekly print product with breaking news and online-only content on its web site. In September 2007, TTN launched Broad & Cecil, its own blog community.
The Kudzu was a counterculture underground newspaper published in Jackson, Mississippi starting in September 1968. Promising "Subterranean News from the Heart of Ole Dixie" and offering a blend of hip culture and radical politics, it was founded by members of the Southern Student Organizing Committee (SSOC), a student activist group affiliated with SDS. Founding editors were Cassell Carpenter, David Doggett, and Everett Long, students at Millsaps College in Jackson. Despite harassment by police and city officials it survived until May 1972.
San Francisco Express Times was a counterculture tabloid underground newspaper edited by Marvin Garson and published weekly in San Francisco, California from January 24, 1968, to March 25, 1969, for a total of 62 issues, covering and promoting radical politics, rock music, arts and progressive culture in the Bay Area. It was a member of the Underground Press Syndicate, and sold for 15 cents.
Distant Drummer was a 1960s counterculture underground newspaper published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States from November 1967 to July 1979. It changed titles twice: from October 2, 1970 to August 12, 1971 it was Thursday's Drummer, and subsequently it was known simply as The Drummer until its demise in 1979, after a run of 568 issues. It was a member of the Underground Press Syndicate and also used material from the Liberation News Service.
John Charles Bryan was an American newspaper publisher, editor, and journalist best known for founding and running the Los Angeles alternative newspaper Open City. He also published the San Francisco-based Open City Press and the Sunday Paper. In 1981, the San Francisco Chronicle called Bryan "The King of the Underground Press." Warren Hinckle of the Chronicle called Bryan a "one-man-newspaper newspaperman," noting that his apartment was crammed with printing equipment. Paul Krassner said that Bryan was a journalist in the tradition of I.F. Stone.
Yarrowstalks was an underground newspaper, primarily based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that published 12 issues from 1967 to 1975. It is notable for being the first publication to publish the comix of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb. In addition to Crumb, other notable contributors to Yarrowstalks included Timothy Leary and the editor/publisher Brian Zahn.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
