Labor and Radical Press History and Geography
![]() Social movements need ways to educate and communicate. Until recently that meant newspapers and other periodicals. Denied access to major media, labor and radical movements have published thousands of periodicals, constituting an alternative press that is vital to these movements and important to the history of American journalism. The decades from the 1880s through the 1940s were the golden age for labor journalism while radical journalism enjoyed an extraordinary renaissance with the underground press movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Here we explore this history and show the geography of radical journalism across nearly a century with maps and databases that include more than 1,000 publications linked to the American Federation of Labor, the Socialist Party, Industrial Workers of the World, Anarchist movements in the decades between 1880 and 1925. Then we map more than 2,000 underground and alternative newspapers published from 1965-1975, including a large complement of Chicano movement publications. In addition, we have detailed descriptions of several dozen labor and radical newspapers that were published in the Pacific Northwest. To get started, read this introduction to "The Labor and Radical Press 1820-the present" by Karla Kelling Sclater. Note: more maps and databases will be soon be added to this unit. |
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Here are more than 300 newspapers and newsletters associated with the surge in Chicano activism in the 1960s and 1970s. Some were published by movement organizations, others served local communities. |
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