Date of Award

Summer 2012

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS)

Department

Library and Information Science

Advisor

Debra Hansen

Keywords

Communication Company, Counterculture, Diggers, Haight-Ashbury, Mimeograph, Pamphlet

Subject Areas

Library science; American history; American studies

Abstract

The thesis examines the history of the Communication Company, a grassroots radical street press utilizing mimeograph technology and operating for and within the psychedelic hippie counterculture of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury District from 1967-1968. The symbiotic relationship between the Communication Company and the Diggers, a street theater and anarchist collective that became a group of de facto social workers of the Haight, is discussed, demonstrating how the Communication Company fulfilled a critical role as the Diggers' outreach and information ministry. The products of the Com/co press were also examined within the context of the American radical pamphlet tradition. By exploring the cycle and activities of Com/co, the study sought to shed new light on the radical pamphlet tradition and the role it played in the 1960s counterculture.


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