Author: historicalseditions

Sabotage Noise

A Salish Sea Monthly Zine, 2023-Present

• 1 – June 2023
• 2 – July 2023
• 3 – August 2023
• 4 – September 2023
• 5 – October 2023
• 6 – December 2023
• 7 – January 2024
• 8 – February 2024
• 9 – March 2024
• 10 – April 2024
• 11 – May 2024
• 12 – June 2024
• 13 – July 2024
• 14 – August 2024
• 15 – September 2024
• 16 – October 2024
• 17 – December 2024
• 18 – January 2025
• 19 – February 2025
• 20 – March 2025
• 21 – April 2025
• 22 – May 2025
• 23 – June 2025
• 24 – July 2025

Sabotage Noise describes itself as “the Salish Sea’s premier scuzzy punk zine.” It has been published since mid-2023 by Sabotage Noise Productions, a Kitsap County-based benefit show booking collective. As of 2025 the zine has an average monthly circulation over 2,000 and can be found at a variety of spaces around the region including cafes, bookstores, record stores, dive bars, and more.

The zine is typically a folded single sheet of paper. The outside features an interview or article featuring a variety of projects ranging from anarchist collective spaces to antifascist punk bands to DIY venues. The inside features an updated event calendar highlighting events with an interest to anarchists around the region, including concerts (ranging from free and NOTAFLOF to benefit shows), queer community meetups at anarchist collective spaces, anarchist bookfairs and fundraisers, author talks, and more. Cities featured in the calendar have included Seattle, Bremerton, Tacoma, Aberdeen, Olympia, Everett, and Quilcene.

Historical Seditions is excited to publish PDFs of scanned original issues for archival purposes. We hope that the interviews in particular provide inspiration and valuable information.

Enfant Terrible

A San Francisco Anarchist Periodical, 1891

Click here for our zine on Clara’s life, incorporating the text below.

Title _ Vol.-No. _ Day Month Year

Enfant Terrible 1-3 8 Nov 1891

Enfant Terrible 1-6 20 Dec 1891

 

Clara Dixon
Poet-Printer of Early American Anarchism

Download Clara Dixon: Poet-Printer of Early American Anarchism Letter-imposed printing

Before the internet wove its globe-spanning web of social media, far-flung groups and individuals were brought together via the print culture of books, pamphlets, newspapers, and journals. The revolutionary culture of the anarchist movement was, in many respects, incubated in the pages of its printed matter. Letters to ones favorite paper often engaged in discourse with one another, bringing correspondents from San Francisco to South Africa to the same playing field. The rapid proliferation and decreasing cost of such publications thus provided more than just a passive window through which to view the world, opening up a new intellectual and social universe.

As deeply-entrenched patriarchal norms pushed late-nineteenth women into the “private sphere,” anarchist print culture offered an outlet for those determined to make their voice heard. When scanning the pages of periodicals like The Alarm or Free Society, the femme presence is impossible to ignore. Letters to the editor frequently appear from small-town readers connected to the wider world through their favorite subversive publication. Women also played vital roles in creating and sustaining anarchist publications, as editors and typesetters, as authors and distributors.

Clara Dixon exemplified this literary radicalism. For years she developed her Anarchist politic while living in small-town Iowa coal and farming country. Clara wrote short stories, articles, and most of all poetry for submission to papers across the country. Eventually she took an even bigger leap; at nearly 40 years old she left Iowa alone for San Francisco. Now immersed in a growing anarchist milieu, Clara went on to edit two anarchist newspapers and later write a novel with strong sapphic themes. She also took a particular interest in anti-authoritarian relations between parents and children.

Please enjoy this brief journey through Clara Dixon’s radical life.

____________________

Clarissa “Clara” Dixon was born November 30, 1851 in the small town of Hennepin, Illinois. At a young age her family moved to another small town in Iowa’s farming and coal belt: Amityville. Her “Scotch-Irish” family had early-colonial settler roots and were strict religious fundamentalists. Her parents even taught their children “a roundabout route to school to keep them from passing the house or a reputed atheist.

But when she turned 17 (the age of confirmation in her church), Clara instead “stood up and announced that, having lost her belief in the tenants of the church, she was renouncing her membership.

She sensibly left town,” moving to the nearby towns of Eddyville and Kirkville, where she would spend more than two decades. Within a couple years of leaving home, Clara had married George Davidson and the two had a son Clarence.

Clara did not intend to become a quiet housewife.

She hustled through school classes in nearby Ottumwa, eventually taking college courses. Clara became one of the few schoolteachers in her local area and also became a prolific writer.

Clarence later recalled happy memories of his childhood, painting a “warm and loving domestic scene in which Geroge treated Clarissa with tenderness.” The couple’s finances were handled jointly. But all was not marital bliss: they briefly separated after a year of marriage because “she refused to submit to sexual relations, which she found distasteful.” She also later claimed to have found her husband’s business practiced unethical. Nevertheless the couple remained together for twenty years.

Through her writing and poetry, Clara’s mental horizon expanded far beyond little Kirkville. She became a frequent contributor to a wide variety of reform and later radically minded newspapers. Papers like the Chicago Sentinel, New Thought, The Christian Socialist, and the Iowa Farmer’s Tribune circulated widely but frequently relied on volunteer contributions to fill their pages. Eventually she even utilized a toy typesetting device to produce her own radical leaflet.

It should be noted that at least one of these early poems betrayed the settler-colonial mentality all-too common in white radicals then and often now. The Oklahoma War-Chief sought to bring about its demands of ”restoration of the public domain, lands for the landless and homes for the homeless, Universal Suffrage, and a national currency issued by the federal government” through the settlement of the Oklahoma (aka “Indian”) territory, preceding the infamous Oklahoma “Land Rushes” by several years.

Clara’s poem put a bottom-up spin on the issue, seemingly arguing that settler’s were even more justified in making claims than conquistadors had been; the latter did so on behalf of a crown, the former to find land for homes.

Clara Dixon Davidson’s radical reading and writing eventually led her to correspondence with anarchist and socialist papers. During the mid-1880s, two parallel organizations claimed to carry-on the torch of the “International Workingman’s Association,” the “First International.” The explicitly anarchist “Black” International Working People’s Association was rooted in the midwest and northeast, its most famous adherants organizing in Chicago. The self-described “Red” international, the “International Workman’s Association” meanwhile, was headquartered in San Francisco with significant participation as far East as Colorado and Kansas.

In 1884, letters and poems from Clara appear in Chicago’s Alarm, the English weekly of the “Black” IWPA, as well as the main organs of the IWA, Denver’s Labor Enquirer and San Francisco Truth. By this time Clara clearly counted herself in the radical camp, ending a treatise in the Enquirer advocating for men and women to organize with the famous call:

“Workingpeople of the world, unite; you have only your chains to lose, you have a world to win.”

Both Internationals loudly called for organizing and direct action to overthrow the capitalist system, by dynamite if necessary. But unity between these two bodies was not to be.

The staunchly decentralized organization of the Black IWPA, privileging local group autonomy, did not mesh easily with the San Francisco body’s call for a tightly centralized, albeit secretive, pyramid structure. Many in the two groups nevertheless believed they fought towards the same ends and as 1885 rolled into 1886, discussions about merging were top of the agenda.

The wrench in these plans was forged from a tremendously important question of principle: was “The International” open to all, regardless of race or nationality? Both organizations paid affirmative lip-service, but the anarchistic IWPA took it far more seriously, even as many of its members waffled on the premise.

The two Internationals took up parallel campaigns of escalation, focusing on issues they hoped could convert popular outrage into social revolution. For the anarchists in the East, this was the struggle for the “Eight Hour Day.” The western Red International planted its feet on much grimmer ground: expelling the Chinese laborers many white settlers felt undermined their standards of living and ability to organize. Many IWPA anarchists were shamefully willing to overlook this as a minor disagreement, or worse sympathized with the drive. But enough viewed this as an obvious betrayal of their global emancipatory vision to effectively halt merger talks.

In May, 1886, hundreds of thousands struck demanding the Eight Hour Day across much of the United States. IWPA sections played a significant agitational role in the uprising that witnessed intense clashes between strikers and armed state forces. Most infamously, police murdered several workers outside the McCormick harvester factory in Chicago. Local anarchists responded by calling a mass-meeting at “The Haymarket.”

Cops ordered the rally disperse, someone threw a bomb, and the cops responded with gunfire. Seven anarchists were sentenced to death afterwards, including the chief-editors of Chicago’s anarchist papers. Four were hanged, one killed himself before the state could.

State Repression following the 1886 strike wave was intense, and not just in Chicago. Politicians, business owners, and mainstream newspaper publishers railed against anarchism, which they argued was a foreign subversion bordering on insanity. Yet Clara argued that ‘Repression Breeds Resistance,’ channeling Haymarket martyr August Spies final declaration that “our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.” A whole new wave of radicals awoke to the immense injustice in society following what many argued was a politicized frameup trial. Among these were a new generation of radical poets and publishers, like Emma Goldman and Voltairine de Cleyre.

Temporally parallel to the Eight Hour agitation was a brutal wave of anti-Chinese pogroms in the far-west. Entire Chinese communities were driven out of towns like Eureka, California and Tacoma, Washington. Dozens if not hundreds of Chinese people were massacred. At the forefront of this agitation was the “Red” IWA of San Francisco, whose members hoped to “convert the anti-Chinese storm into an anti-Capital storm” not by diverting attention but by riding full-speed ahead.

One of the very few opponents was Sigismund Danielewicz, a tireless traveling organizer. Sigismund was the Red International’s Secretary until he spoke out against the anti-Chinese violence, calling for a move to higher principles.

 

A few years later, he launched a new anarchist paper in San Diego and later San Francisco: The Beacon. The paper drew readers and contributors from both the old networks around the Chicago Alarm as well as his own contacts on the West Coast, becoming a vital bridge between the anarchism of the Haymarket period and that of later years.

Clara first became a semi-regular contributor to The Beacon while still living in distant Kirksville.

In 1890, Clara’s twenty-year marriage to George Davidson ended in an apparently amicable separation and later divorce. Their son already lived on his own. Determined to escape the “stifling atmosphere of rural Midwestern fundamentalism,” Clara set off alone on a train for San Francisco at the age of 39.

Clara was drawn to San Francisco’s bohemian literary milieu, and her articles and poems from the following decades appear frequently in publications from the Overland Monthly to The Nation. But Clara didn’t rely solely on the good grace of other editors to publish her work.

In 1891, she joined Sigismund Danielewicz as The Beacon’s assistant editor. Under their guidance the paper notably spoke out for the rights of San Francisco’s Chinese residents, unique among the San Francisco radical press in a time where trade unions explicitly advertised their products being made with “white labor.”

Not long after Clara joined The Beacon’s staff, Sigismund stepped down from his post and turned over the paper’s type, printing equipment, and subscription list to her. Perhaps reflecting the differences in their sentiments, she chose to rename the paper. Clara teamed up with her new boo, the Irish Anarchist immigrant Harry (H.C.B.) Cowell to edit Enfant Terrible. Sigismund remained an advocate for dynamite politics long after the Haymarket tragedy; Clara called for a more “evolutionary” than “rev-olutionary” trans-formation, privileging education and cultivation of individual freedom over insurrection.

Both surviving issues of Enfant Terrible lead with a poem by Clara before alternating between long sections written by Clara and Harry. Reading from a 21st century vantage it comes off almost like a radical couples blog. Short fables and clever little anecdotes provoke little mental challenges to authority or expose societal hypocrisy. Brief commentary on current events like a proposed law closing business on Sunday reveals Clara and Henry’s distaste for intertwined capital, government, and organized religion.

Enfant Terrible was relatively short-lived, its last available issue on December 20, 1891 was only the 6th. The February issue of another local individualist anarchist paper, Egoism, announced its cessation and that subscribers would receive their paper. Egoism’s May issue noted the couple’s participation in debates at the “People’s Free Lyceum” over the meaning of “Philosophical Anarchy.” Henry argued that “majority rule is inexpedient and a social failure because it defeats equal freedom, whereupon it follows that Anarchism is the correct social principle.” Clara delivered her own “sharp hits.”

Enfant Terrible was relatively short-lived, but its free-love-minded editors remained together for another decade.

In February, 1893 the literary pair married and Clara took Cowell’s name.

In an 1893 article to the Boston anarchist paper Liberty, Clara outlined her vision for the relationship between parents and their children which, she thought, ought to resemble friend and friend rather than master and slave. Rather than notions of duty compelling either to care for the other, she felt that such relations ought to be rooted in love and a desire for social harmony, arguing that “generally speaking, people’s love for their children is in inverse proportion to their love of God and duty.” When it came to education, children deserved truthful, complete explanations for their many questions. Clara’s meditations on childraising did not remain a matter of hindsight:

Henry Dixon Cowell was born March 11, 1897; Clara was 46 years old.

Henry Cowell was raised amid his parent’s San Francisco bohemian writers crowd. At a young age he was gifted a quarter-size violin and developed a lifelong commitment to music that led to a career as a renowned avant-garde composer. But at the age of six, Harry and Clara divorced so that Harry could marry another woman. Clara would take custody of their child, and would instill in young Henry a “philosophical anarchist principle of mutual aid and non-competition that he took seriously as long as he lived.” For several years they lived near San Francisco’s Chinatown, close to friends of his mother like the anarchist Anna Strunsky.

Clara encouraged her son’s musical career, and also apparently supported him during a youthful gender-bending phase in which he refused to wear trousers and insisted on being called “Mrs. Jones.” After Henry suffered both illness and severe bullying at school, Clara took it upon herself to homeschool him.

Life for the young mother and child was not always easy.

A small child-support payment from Harry was not enough to live on; Clara relied on her writing to make ends barely meet. She sold poems and stories to various literary magazines. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed most of their possessions, the pair briefly lived with Clara’s midwestern relatives before trying their luck in New York City.

1909 Clara published her lone novel: Janet & Her Dear Phebe.

Janet & her Dear Phebe tells the in-tense, emotionally charged tale of a loving relationship between two girls in a small Iowa town.

Separated in their teen-age years, they never gave up seeking contact and eventually re-united as adults. The novel might be dismissed as merely depicting an unusually intense Victorian friendship between two gal-pals, but what today might be called “queer” was hardly unknown in the Clara and her son’s bohemian circles. In 1936 Henry, who thought of himself as bisexual, would in fact be convicted of having oral sex with a young man and served four years in San Quentin.

Janet unfortunately sold poorly, and Clara’s publisher declined her future books. In 1910 she and Henry returned to a small cottage in the then-young exurb of Menlo Park, near the campus of Stanford University. In these surroundings, Henry first achieved notice for his musical talents, while Clara met the final love of her life.

Ellen Veblen was newly divorced from the notable anti-capitalist Standford economist Thorstein Veblen. Clara later recalled that upon meeting Ellen at the home of a mutual friend around 1912:

“As soon as Mrs. Veblen had opened her mouth and spoken a few words, I knew that I was not too old for another love.”

Ellen entered into a tight relationship with the mother-son duo, moving them into her house and later making Henry something of an adopted son and executor of her will. She also helped Henry make musical connections and afford a Steinway piano.

Tragically, Clara had only a few years to witness the growth of her son’s musical career and spend time with her new close “friend.” What she thought was tuburculosis turned out to be breast cancer.

Clara Dixon died May 15, 1916. She was 64.

Her last writing included an extensive memoir of her son’s early years.

 

Sources

Digitized issues of The Beacon can be found on our site at https://historicalseditions.noblogs.org/post/2022/04/15/the-beacon-digitized/

Scans were obtained with the gracious assistance of the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam. We have also digitized other regional Anarchist periodicals and maintains an extensive list of digitized papers.

Clippings in this zine came from the following issues:
The Beacon: 5/3/1890, 3/28/1891
Enfant Terrible: 11/8/1891, 12/20/1891

Historical Seditions is also circulating the preliminary edition of an extensive Zine covering the often dark history of the San Francisco International Workman’s Association entitled Deconstructing Settler Socialism: The Internationals and Early Anarchism in the Wild West. We have not posted a PDF online, but it is available through a number of Anarchist book stores and we will gladly send in response to inquiries to historicalseditions@riseup.net

Clippings from other radical papers include the Denver Labor Enquirer (9/13/1884), Chicago Alarm (11/1/1884), San Francisco Truth (3/22/1884, Nov-Dec 1884), The Christian Socialist (2/1885), Boston Liberty (9/3/1892) and The Oklahoma War-Chief (7/23/1885)

Most second-hand quotes on Clara’s life were drawn two biographies of her son, Joel Sach’s Henry Cowell: A Man Made of Music and Michael Hicks’ Henry Cowell: Bohemian.

Janet & Her Dear Phebe can be found at frogpeak.org/dixon/index.html

Click here for our zine on Clara’s life, incorporating the text above.

 

We’re happy to present a very incomplete list of cool rad history zines that we distro!

Note that this is not ALL of the zines we carry on our table; some we don’t currently have PDFs of, others aren’t online at this point in time, and we carry a rotating selection of miscellaneous non-history-focused titles when tabling.

A few friendly recommendations for digital zine libraries: Fugitive Distro, 1312 Press, Puget Sound Anarchists, Louise Crowley Library (note most physical zines for sale have a free PDF download), Sprout Distro, A Zine Library

Zines by Historical Seditions

1856: The Battle in Seattle

Anarchists and Rebellion in Walla Walla State Prison

In Search of Freedom and Self Determination: A Tour Through the Anarchist Movements in Graz, Austria, 1918-1938 – Letter-Imposed Printing – Digital Reading

The Centralia IWW

The Dude Smashed the Federal Courthouse, Too!

The Eyes of a Monster

The Kitsap Ferry Riot

We Don’t Forget: 2017 Inauguration Day Reflections from the Salish Sea – Letter-Imposed Printing – Digital Reading

Regional History

Multiple Eras

A People’s History of the University of Washington – Print

Notes on Mutual Aid Vol 1: A Local History of Survival and Struggle – Print – Read

Portland’s Antifascist History – Print– Read

Late 1800s-Early 1900s

The Everett Massacre – Print

The Seattle General Strike – Read

Red Harbor – Print

Who the hell is Jack London? – Print – Read

The Collected Works of Anna Falkoff – Print – Read

The Unstoppable Anarchist Ersilia Cavedagni – Print – Read

Elena Purgatorio; or, A Brief History of the Galleanisti – Print – Read

The Trials of a Noble Experiment – Print – Read

Mid-Late 1900s

Queer Fire: The George Jackson Brigade, Men Against Sexism, & the Gay Struggle Against Prisons – Print – Read – Listen

N30: The Seattle WTO Protests – A Memoir and Analysis with an Eye to the Future – Print – Read

Sharper Times: Portland Anti-Racist Action & Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice – Print

2000-Occupy Movement

A Shorter History of a Northwest ELF Cell – Read/Print

The Hilltop Boys: A True Story of the Hilltop Crips – Print – Read

You Can’t Shoot us All: Oscar Grant – Print

Against the Police and the World They Maintain: Communiques from the Pacific Northwest – January-March, 2011 – Print

Burning the Bridges they are Building: Anarchist Strategies Against the Police – Puget Sound, 2011 – Print – Read

Standing on the Land to Stand Up Against Pipelines – Print

Love for the Silent Ones: A Collection of Communiques and Reports from Actions in Solidarity with the Northwest Grand Jury Resisters – Print

Bridges Still Burning: An Anarchist Account of Occupy Seattle 2012 – Print

Longview, Occupy, and Beyond: Rank & File and the 89% Unite! – Print

“BLM 1.0”-Present

The Post-Ferguson Struggle Against Police and Fascism in the Pacific Northwest: An Incomplete Glimpse into a Dynamic and Unfolding Context – Print

Towards a More Holistic Violence – Print – Read

Against the Port and its World: Actions Against Fracking in Olympia – Print

Between Storms: Anarchist Reflections Wet’suwet’en Resistance – Print

Heal the People, Heal the Land: Unist’ot’en Camp – Print

 

So-Called North America

Multiple Eras

500 Years of Indigenous Resistance – Print

In Their Own Tongue: Bats’i’ k’op zapatista – Print – Read

Punk: Dangerous Utopia – Print – Read

Late 1800s-Early 1900s

The Stockade Stood Burning: Rebellion and the Convict Lease in Tennessee’s Coalfields, 1891-1895 – Print

Lowry Wars: Attacking Plantation Society in Reconstruction – Print

Slave Patrols and Civil Servants – Print – Read

Sacco & Vanzetti’s Revenge – Print

Johann Most – Print – Read

David Edelstadt, With His Poems for the Haymarket Martyrs – Print

Ross Winn: Digging Up a Tennessee Anarchist – Print

Bury Me Not in a Land of Slaves – Print – Read

Mid-Late 1900s

Queens, Hookers, and Hustlers: Organizing for Survival and Revolt Amongst Gender-Variant Sex Workers, 1950-1970 – Print – Read

STAR – Print

Militant Flamboyance – Print

jane – Print

Black Mask & Up Against the Wall Motherfucker: Flower Power Won’t Stop Fascist Power – The Story of a Small, Underground 1960s Revolutionary Group in New York City – Print – Read

I Will Not Crawl: Black Struggle & Armed Self Defense – Print

Repression Breeds Resistance: The Black Liberation Army and the Radical Legacy of the Black Panther Party – Print – Read

The Trial Statement of Anarchist & New Afrikan Revolutionary: Kuwasi Balagoon – Print

The Dragon and the Hydra: A Historical Study of Organizational Methods – Read/Print

The National Union of the Homeless: A Brief History – Print

The Oka Crisis of 1990 – Print

Political Prehistory of Love and Rage – Print – Read

Claim No Easy Victories: A History and Analysis of Anti-Racist Action – Print – Read

The Baldies & Anti-Racist Action: A History in Anti-Racist Skinhead Organizing – Print

2000-Occupy Movement

“BLM 1.0”-Present

Anarchist Tactics at Standing Rock – Print – Read

No Regrets: Accounts and Reflections from the 2016 National Prison Strike – Print

It’s a Sin to Kill a Mockingbird: Writings on Scout Schultz, Queer Anarchist Killed by Georgia Tech Polics – Print

We’ve Got Your Back J20 Defense – Print – Read

What They Mean When They Say Peace & The Making of “Outside Agitators” – Print

 

Global History

Multiple Eras

The Unquiet Dead: Volume .5 – Print – Read – Listen — Volume 1 – Print – Read – Listen — Volume 2 – Print – Read – Listen — Volume 3 – Print – Read – Listen — Volume 4 – Print – Read – Listen — Volume 5 – Print – Read – Listen — Volume 6 – Print – Read – Listen — Volume 7 – Print – Read – Listen — Volume 8 – Not currently online

Yalensky’s Fable Anarchist Black Cross – Print – Read

Anarchic Practices Chilean State – Read

Koukoulofori: Stories, Lessons, and Inspiration from the Greek Anarchist Movement – Print

Mobilisations of Philippine Anarchisms – Print

Can’t Stop Kaos – Print

Against All Tyranny! Essays on Anarchist in Brazil – Print

Late 1800s-Early 1900s

The Devil Rode a Bicycle: Science, Art, and Anarchism – Print

They Leaned on Each Other in Ecstasy – Print

La Band a Bonnot: Robberies and Getaways – Print

Sante Caserio – Print

Anarchists and Anarchism Ottoman Empire – Read/Print

Santos: The Barcelona of Brazil – Print

The Uniqueness of Anarchism in Argentina (1880-1930) – Print

Two Revoutions: The Ghadar Movement and India’s Radical Disapora – Read/Print

Blessed is the Flame – Print

Eternal War on the Hitler Youth – Print

A Jewish Anarchist Refutation of the Hammer and Sickle – Print – Read

Mid-Late 1900s

Memory Loss – Print

The Federacion Anarquista Uruguaya: Crisis, Armed Struggle, and Dictatorship, 1967-85 – Print – Read

“BLM 1.0”-Present

Don’t Try to Break Us – We’ll Explode: The 2017 G20 and the Battle of Haburg: A Full Account and Analysis – Print

Memories from La Zad – Print

The Firebrand & Free Society

The Iconic Anarchist Paper of the Turn of the 20th Century

The Firebrand (1895-1897)

Volume 1 (Portland, January 1895-February 1896)
Volume 2 (Portland, February 1896-January 1897)
Volume 3 (Portland, January 1897-September 1897)

Free Society (1897-1904)

Volume 4 (San Francisco, November 1897-November 1898)
Volume 5 (San Francisco, November 1898-November 1899)
Volume 6 (San Francisco, November 1899-December 1900)
Volume 7 (Chicago, February 1901-December 1901)
Volume 8 – Missing? Not run?
Volume 9 (Chicago, January 1902-December 1902)
Volume 10 (Chicago, January 1903-December 1903)
Volume 10b (Chicago & New York, January 1904-November 1904)

 

For almost a decade, the newspapers lovingly published by Maria and Abraham Isaak and a varying host of their comrades were vital nodes of anarchism in the English speaking world. When the couple and their friends launched The Firebrand in remote Portland, Oregon in 1895, they had no idea the impact their words would come to have. Over the following years, Firebrand and its successor Free Society would play a vital role in shaping and defining gilded age radicalism, and in pushing out the limits on human freedom and equality. The papers married a biting anarchist political opposition to state and capital with a deep understanding of contemporary free love and women’s right’s advocacy to produce a paper that sometimes ruffled feathers among stodgier anarchist circles.

Any study of turn-of-the-century anarchism in the English language requires a nod towards these papers. For this reason we are thrilled to present a gift in anticipation of May Day: 136 newly scanned issues of The Firebrand and Free Society, more than doubling the total previously available online. We hope this substantial contribution to the digitization of these papers will assist other students of anarchist history.

The Isaak’s launched The Firebrand in Portland, Oregon in 1895 with their friends Henry Addis, Mary Squires, and J.H. Morris in the midst of a depression and the failure of a a local upsurge by the “populist” movement. Addis previously contributed to The Beacon, an anarchist paper in San Francisco. The members of the Firebrand group had grown increasingly disillusioned with by the compromising and the exclusionary nature of Portland’s local reform and radical movements.

During its nearly three-year run in Portland, The Firebrand grew from providing biting local commentary to becoming one of the foremost papers in english-speaking anarchist. By its late run, comrades across the continent and even the Atlantic eagerly received and distributed copies. In particular The Firebrand became known for its synthesis of the emerging body of political-economic Anarchist-Communist theory with long-running us-based feminist currents. While this occasionally received side-eyes from sometimes sexist comrades that The Firebrand group gave too much attention to such matters, it would prove to be an enduring contribution to the us-based anarchist movement. Openness towards love and sex also proved to be the paper’s demise when local authorities, eager to suppress it, declared a Walt Whitman poem published on the front page to be “obscenity” liable for prosecution under the Comstock postal censorship law.

Following this prosecution, The Firebrand group split. Some members traveled north, where their strong circle of supporters around Tacoma had founded what became the Home colony. Members of the circle frequented the colony over the years, while some came to live there. The Isaak’s traveled south to San Francisco where with the help of local comrades like Sigismund Danielewicz and Viroquia Daniels they soon revived The Firebrand as Free Society.

Free Society carried the torch onward. Publishing in the years when the US escalated imperial  expansion beyond its original settler-colonial borders, Free Society took on a notably anti-imperialist tone, fervently advocating against war and colonization in The Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Hawaii. This fervent advocacy may have played a role in the paper’s most infamous association: Leon Czolgosz’s 1901 assassination of President William McKinley. Czolgosz’s brother fought as a grunt in The Philippines and came back traumatized; reading Free Society encouraged Czolgosz to see the broader evil in the war, which he came to blame on the president who oversaw it (see Moon Ho-Jung’s Menace to Empire: Anticolonial Solidarities and the Transpacific Origins of the US Security State). While Free Society‘s publishers kept their distance from Czolgosz before and after the assassination, the connection was hard to shake.

The editors were, though, still white settlers publishing in 1900. While the contributors to The Firebrand and Free Society typically took a strong stance against anti-asian bigotry, against the horrific wave of lynchings of black people, and against us imperialism abroad, they also frequently centered their own perspectives in the matter, or overly simplified conflicts between colonizers abroad. The Firebrand, for instance, once “stood up” for a group of homesteaders seeking to privatize a shoreline for clamming because it was being held in trust by the federal government; yet the very reason for that trust was that the land was still utilized by indigenous people from the area, who the settlers sought to displace. In-common with many turn-of-the-century “anti-imperialist” movements, Free Society covered the war between the british empire and the white settler boars in South Africa, with the Boars generally portrayed as a valient anti-imperialists despite their own society’s ongoing colonial actions.

We hope to provide a more fleshed-out analysis of Free Society and The Firebrand at some point, but in the interests of sharing promptly for the holiday, we suggest some further reading for the interested. Jessica Moran and Alecia Jay Giombolini have published an article and thesis respectively on The Firebrand. Information on Free Society is readily available in many anarchist works covering the turn-of-the twentieth century, but an extensive treatment is offered in Kathy E. Ferguson’s Letterpress Revolution: The Politics of Anarchist Print Culture.

(Update 7/2025: Thanks to the work of “Nicholas Flamel,” we now have scans of most missing issues of Free Society from Volume 4 “New Series” on through the final Volume 10b)

The Firebrand

Volume 1 – Portland – January 1895-February 1896

40 of approx. 52 issues (77% complete) – Nos. 2-7, 9, 11, 16, 23, 48 missing

1-1_27-January-1895  –  1-8_17-March-1895  –  1-10_31-March-1895  –  1-12_14-April-1895  –  1-13_21-April-1895  –  1-14_28-April-1895  –  1-15_5-May-1895  –  1-17_25-May-1895  –  1-18_2-June-1895  –  1-19_9-June-1895  –  1-20_23-June-1895   –  1-21_30-June-1895  –  1-22_7-July-1895  –  1-24_21-July-1895  –  1-25_28-July-1895  –  1-27_11-August-1895  –  1-28_18-August-1895  –  1-29_25-August-1895  –  1-30_1-September-1895  –  1-31_8-September-1895  –  1-32_15-September-1895  –  1-33_22-September-1895  –  1-34_29-September-1895  –  1-35_6-October-1895  –  1-36_13-October-1895  –  1-37_20-October-1895  –  1-38_27-October-1895  –  1-39_3-November1895  –  1-40_10-November-1895  –  1-41_17-November-1895  –  1-42_24-November-1895  –  1-43_1-Decemberr-1895  –  1-44_8-December-1895  –  1-45_15-December-1895  –  1-46_22-December-1895  –  1-47_29-December-1895  –  1-49_12-January-1896  –  1-50_19-January-1896  –  1-51_26-January-1896  –  1-52_2-February-1896

Volume 2 – Portland – February 1896-January 1897

43 of approx. 52 issues. (83% complete) – Nos. 1, 9, 17, 20, 25-26, 28-29, 33 missing

2-2_17-February-1896  –  2-3_23-February-1896  –  2-4_1-March-1896  –  2-5_8-March-1896  –  2-6_15-March-1896  –  2-7_22-March-1896  –  2-8_29-March-1896  –  2-10_12-April-1896  –  2-11_19-April-1896  –  2-12_26-April-1896  –  2-13_3-May-1896  –  2-14_10-May-1896  –  2-15_17-May-1896  –  2-16_24-May-1896  –  2-18_7-June-1896  –  2-19_14-June-1896  –  2-21_28-June-1896  –  2-22_5-July-1896  –  2-23_12-July-1896  –  2-24_19-July-1896  –  2-27_9-August-1896  –  2-30_30-August-1896  –  2-31_6-September-1896  –  2-32_13-September-1896  –  2-34_27-September-1896  –  2-35_4-October-1896  –  2-36_11-October-1896  –  2-37_18-October-1896  –  2-38_25-October-1896  –  2-39_1-November-1896  –  2-40_8-November-1896  –  2-41_15-November-1896  –  2-42_22-November-1896  –  2-43_29-November-1896  –  2-44_6-December-1896  –  2-45_13-December-1896  –  2-46_20-December-1896  –  2-47_27-December-1896  –  2-48_3-January-1897  –  2-49_10-January-1897  –  2-50_17-January-1897  –  2-51_24-January-1897  –  2-52_31-January-1897

Volume 3 – Portland – January 1897-September 1897

31 of approx. 34 issues. (91% complete) – Nos. 1-3, 26 missing

3-4_28-February-1897  –  3-5_7-March-1897  –  3-6_15-March-1897  –  3-7_21-March-1897  –  3-8_28-March-1897  –  3-9_4-April-1897  –  3-10_11-April-1897  –  3-11_18-April-1897  –  3-12_25-April-1897  –  3-13_2-May-1897  –  3-14_9-May-1897  –  3-15_16-May-1897  –  3-16_23-May-1897  –  3-17_30-May-1897  –  3-18_6-June-1897  –  3-19_13-June-1897  –  3-20_20-June-1897  –  3-21_27-June-1897  –  3-22_4-July-1897  –  3-23_11-July-1897  –  3-24_18-July-1897  –  3-25-26_25-July-1897  –  3-27_1-August-1897  –  3-28_15-August-1897  –  3-29_22-August-1897  –  3-30_29-August-1897  –  3-31_5-September-1897  –  3-32_12-September-1897  –  3-33_19-September-1897  –  3-34_26-September-1897

Free Society

“New Series” (Volume 4) – San Francisco – November 1897-November 1898

50 of approx. 52 issues. (96% complete) – Nos. 41, 45 missing

N-1_14-November-1897  –  N-2_21-November-1897  –  N-3_28-November-1897 – N-4_5-December-1897  –  N-5_12-December-1897 – N-6_17-December-1897  –  N-7_26-December-1897  –  N-8_2-January-1898  –  N-9_9-January-1898  –  N-10_16-January-1898  –  N-11_23-January-1898  –  N-12_30-January-1898  –  N-13_6-February-1898  –  N-14_13-February-1898  –  N-15_20-February-1898  –  N-16_27-February-1898  –  N-17_6-March-1898  –  N-18_13-March-1898  –  N-19_20-March-1898  –  N-20_27-March-1898  –  N-21_3-April-1898  –  N-22_10-April-1898  –  N-23_17-April-1898  –  N-24_24-April-1898  –  N-25_1-May-1898  –  N-26_8-May-1898  –  N-27_15-May-1898  –  N-28_22-May-1898  –  N-29_29-May-1898  –  N-30_5-June-1898  –  N-31_12-June-1898  –  N-32_19-June-1898  –  N-33_26-June-1898  –  N-34_3-July-1898  –  N-35_10-July-1898  –  N-36_17-July-1898  –  N-37_24-July-1898  –  N-38_31-July-1898  –  N-39_7-August-1898  –  N-40_14-August-1898  –  N-42_28-August-1898  –  N-43_4-September-1898  –  N-44_11-September-1898  –  N-46_25-August-1898  –  N-47_2-October-1898  –  N-48_9-October-1898  –  N-49_16-October-1898  –  N-50_23-October-1898  –  N-51_30-October-1898  –  N-52_6-November-1898

Volume 5 – San Francisco – November 1898-November 1899

47 of approx. 52 issues. (90% complete) – Nos. 2-4, 9, 18

5-1_13-November-1898  –  5-5_11-December-1898  –  5-6_18-December-1898  –  5-7_25-December-1898  –  5-8_1-January-1899  –  5-10_15-January-1899  –  5-11_22-January-1899  –  5-12_29-January-1899  –  5-13_5-February-1899  –  5-14_12-February-1899  –  5-15_19-February-1899  –  5-16_26-February-1899  –  5-17_5-March-1899  –  5-19_19-March-1899  –  5-20_26-March-1899  –  5-21_2-April-1899  –  5-22_9-April-1899  –  5-23_16-April-1899  –  5-24_23-April-1899  –  5-25_30-April-1899  –  5-26_7-May-1899  –  5-27_14-May-1899  –  5-28_21-May-1899  –  5-29_28-May-1899  –  5-30_4-June-1899  –  5-31_11-June-1899  –  5-32_18-June-1899  –  5-33_25-June-1899  –  5-34_2-July-1899  –  5-35_9-July-1899  –  5-36_16-July-1899  –  5-37_23-July-1899  –  5-38_30-July-1899  –  5-39_6-August-1899  –  5-40_13-August-1899 –  5-41_20-August-1899  –  5-42_27-August-1899  –  5-43_9-September-1899  –  5-44_16-September-1899  –  5-45_24-September-1899  –  5-46_1-October-1899  –  5-47_8-October-1899  –  5-48_15-October-1899  –  5-49_22-October-1899  –  5-50_29-October-1899  –  5-51_2-November-1899  –  5-52_12-November-1899

Volume 6 – San Francisco – November 1899-December 1900

58 of approx. 58 issues. (100% complete) – no known issues missing

6-1_19-November-1899  –  6-2_26-November-1899  –  6-3_3-December-1899  –  6-4_10-December-1899  –  6-5_17-December-1899  –  6-6_24-December-1899  –  6-7_31-December-1899  –  6-8_7-January-1900  –  6-9_14-January-1900  –  6-10_21-January-1900  –  6-11_28-January-1900  –  6-12_4-February-1900  –  6-13_11-February-1900  –  6-14_18-February-1900  –  6-15_25-February-1900  –  6-16_4-March-1900  –  6-17_11-March-1900  –  6-18_18-March-1900  –  6-19_25-March-1900  –  6-20_1-April-1900  –  6-21_8-April-1900  –  6-22_15-April-1900  –  6-23_22-April-1900  –  6-24_29-April-1900  –  6-25_6-May-1900  –  6-26_13-May-1900  –  6-27_20-May-1900  –  6-28_27-May-1900  –  6-29_3-June-1900  –  6-30_10-June-1900  –  6-31_17-June-1900  –  6-32_24-June-1900  –  6-33_1-July-1900  –  6-34_8-July-1900  –  6-35_15-July-1900  –  6-36_22-July-1900  – 6-37_29-July-1900  –  6-38_5-August-1900  –  6-39_12-August-1900  –  6-40_19-August-1900  –  6-41_26-August-1900 – 6-42_2-September-1900  –  6-43_9-September-1900  –  6-44_16-September-1900  –  6-45_23-September-1900  –  6-46_30-September-1900  –  6-47_7-October-1900  –  6-48_14-October-1900  –  6-49_21-October-1900  –  6-50_29-October-1900  –  6-51_4-November-1900  –  6-52_11-November-1900  –  6-53_18-November-1900  –  6-54_25-November-1900  –  6-55_2-December-1900  –  6-56_9-December-1900  –  6-57_16-December-1900  –  6-58_23-December-1900

Volume 7 – Chicago – February 1901-December 1901

43 of approx. 44 issues. (98% complete) – No. 11 missing

7-1_3-February-1901  –  7-2_10-February-1901  –  7-3_17-February-1901  –  7-4_24-February-1901  –  7-5_3-March-1901  –  7-6_10-March-1901  –  7-7_17-March-1901  –  7-8_24-March-1901  –  7-9_31-March-1901  –  7-10_7-April-1901  –  7-12_21-April-1901  –  7-13_28-April-1901  –  7-14_5-May-1901  –  7-15_12-May-1901  –  7-16_19-May-1901  –  7-17_26-May-1901  –  7-18_2-June-1901  –  7-19_9-June-1901  –  7-20_16-June-1901  –  7-21_23-June-1901  –  7-22_30-June-1901  –  7-23_7-July-1901  –  7-24_14-July-1901  –  7-25_21-July-1901  –  7-26_28-July-1901  –  7-27_4-August-1901  –  7-28_11-August-1901  –  7-29_18-August-1901  –  7-30_25-August-1901  –  7-31_1-September-1901  – 7-32_8-September-1901  –  7-33_6-October-1901  –  7-34_13-October-1901  –  7-35_20-October-1901  –  7-36_10-October-1901  –  7-37_10-November-1901  –  7-38_17-November-1901  –  7-39_24-November-1901  –  7-40_1-December-1901  –  7-41_8-December-1901  – 7-42_15-December-1901  –  7-43_22-December-1901  –  7-44_29-December-1901

Volume 8 seems not to exist; issue numbering skips from Volume 7 to Volume 9

Volume 9 – Chicago – January 1902-December 1902

52 of approx. 52 issues. (100% complete) – no known issues missing

9-1_5-January-1902  –  9-2_12-January-1902  –  9-3_19-January-1902  –  9-4_26-January-1902  –  9-5_2-February-1902  –  9-6_9-February-1902  –  9-7_16-February-1902  –  9-8_23-February-1902  –  9-9_2-March-1902  –  9-10_9-March-1902  –  9-11_16-March-1902  –  9-12_23-March-1902  –  9-13_30-March-1902  –  9-14_6-April-1902  –  9-15_13-April-1902  –  9-16_20-April-1902  –  9-17_27-April-1902  –  9-18_5-May-1902  –  9-19_11-May-1902  –  9-20_18-May-1902  –  9-21_25-May-1902  –  9-22_1-June-1902 –  9-23_8-June-1902 –  9-24_15-June-1902 –  9-25_22-June-1902  –  9-26_29-June-1902  –  9-27_6-July-1902  –  9-28_13-July-1902  –  9-29_20-July-1902  –  9-30_27-July-1902  –  9-31_3-August-1902  –  9-32_10-August-1902  –  9-33_17-August-1902  –  9-34_24-August-1902  –  9-35_31-August-1902  –  9-36_7-September-1902  –  9-37_14-September-1902  –  9-38_21-September-1902  –  9-39_28-September-1902  –  9-40_5-October-1902  –  9-41_12-October-1902  –  9-42_19-October-1902  –  9-43_26-October-1902  –  9-44_2-November-1902  –  9-45_9-November-1902  –  9-46_16-November-1902  –  9-47_23-November-1902  –  9-48_30-November-1902  –  9-49_7-December-1902  –  9-50_14-December-1902  –  9-51_21-December-1902  –  9-52_28-December-1902

Volume 10 – Chicago – January 1903-December 1903

52 of approx. 52 issues. (100% complete) – no known issues missing

10-1_4-January-1903  –  10-2_11-January-1903  –  10-3_18-January-1903  –  10-4_25-January-1903  –  10-5_1-February-1903  –  10-6_8-February-1903  –  10-7_15-February-1903  –  10-8_22-February-1903  –  10-9_1-March-1903  –  10-10_8-March-1903  –  10-11_15-March-1903  –  10-12_22-March-1903  –  10-13_29-March-1903  –  10-14_5-April-1903  –  10-15_12-April-1903  –  10-16_19-April-1903  –  10-17_26-April-1903  –  10-18_3-May-1903  –  10-19_10-May-1903  –  10-20_17-May-1903  –  10-21_24-May-1903  –  10-22_31-May-1903  –  10-23_7-June-1903  –  10-24_14-June-1903  –  10-25_21-June-1903  –  10-26_28-June-1903  –  10-27_5-July-1903  –  10-28_12-July-1903  –  10-29_19-July-1903  –  10-30_26-July-1903  –  10-31_2-August-1903  –  10-32_9-August-1903  –  10-33_16-August-1903 –  10-34_23-August-1903  –  10-35_30-August-1903  –  10-36_5-September-1903  –  10-37_12-September-1903  – 10-38_20-September-1903  –  10-39_27-September-1903  –  10-40_4-October-1903  –  10-41_11-October-1903  –  10-42_18-October-1903  – 10-43_25-October-1903  –  10-44_1-November-1903  –  10-45_8-November-1903  –  10-46_15-November-1903  –  10-47_22-November-1903  –  10-48_29-November-1903  –  10-49_6-December-1903  –  10-50_13-December-1903  –  10-51_20-December-1903  –  10-52_27-December-1903

Volume 10b – Chicago & New York – January 1904-November 1904

45 of approx. 45 issues. (100% complete) – no known issues missing

10b-1_3-January-1904  –  10b-2_10-January-1904  –  10b-3_17-January-1904  – 10b-4_24-January-1904  –  10b-5_31-January-1904  –  10b-6_7-February-1904  –  10b-7_14-February-1904  –  10b-8_21-February-1904  – 10b-9_28-February-1904  –  10b-10_13-March-1904  –  10b-11_20-March-1904  –  10b-12_27-March-1904  –  10b-13_3-April-1904  –  10b-14_10-April-1904  –  10b-15_17-April-1904  –  10b-16_24-April-1904  –  10b-17_1-May-1904  –  10b-18_10-May-1904  –  10b-19_15-May-1904  –  10b-20_16-May-1904  –  10b-21_29-May-1904  –  10b-22_5-June-1904  –  10b-23_12-June-1904  –  10b-24_19-June-1904  –  10b-25_26-June-1904  –  10b-26_3-July-1904  –  10b-27_10-July-1904  –  10b-28_17-July-1904  –  10b-29_24-July-1904  –  10b-30_7-August-1904  –  10b-31_14-August-1904  –  10b-32_21-August-1904  –  10b-33_28-August-1904  –  10b-34_4-September-1904  –  10b-35_11-September-1904  –  10b-36_18-September-1904  –  10b-37_25-September-1904  –  10b-38_2-October-1904  –  10b-39_9-October-1904  –  10b-40_16-October-1904  –  10b-41_23-October-1904  –  10b-42_30-October-1904  –  10b-43_6-November-1904  –  10b-44_13-November-1904  –  10b-45_20-November-1904

The Outside Agitator (206)

A Seattle Black Liberation Newsletter, 2015

Outside-Agitator-206_1_MLK-Day-2015

Outside-Agitator-206_2_March-2015

 

Outside Agitators (206) collective was founded during the first wave of Black Lives Matter protests following Michael Brown’s 2014 murder by the police. Their name referenced an old racist myth that protests for black liberation were driven by usually white “outsiders” rather than folks within the community. The group was loosely organized around four points of unity:

• We center Black voices to celebrate and affirm Blackness. We believe that any movement to end anti-Black racism must be led by Black people.
• We believe that everyone has a right to resist their oppressors and what resistance looks like varies for different individuals and different circumstances.
• We don’t directly speak to corporate media, nor do we need them. We are our own voice.
• Fuck the police: As an institution fundamentally rooted in white supremacy and anti-Blackness we reject the police presence in our communities, absolutely. It is our responsibility to hold each other accountable and keep each other safe.

OA206 organized several protests around Seattle throughout 2015 including large marches and walkouts at the University of Washington (also recounted in “State of Emergency” of the newsletter issue 2). The group also held various education events. Some controversial members made headlines for interrupting presidential candidate Bernie Sanders during a June campaign stop in Seattle; media reported OA206s involvement though the rest of the collective had apparently not even been informed.

The Outside Agitator (206) was OA206’s newsletter. Two issues were published in 2015, one for Martin Luther King Day (January) and the other in March. While short-lived the newsletter contains valuable content, from poetry and playlists to accounts of gentrification and past struggles with political co-option. Tales of black history sit alongside individuals accounts of police brutality, reportbacks from protests, and passionate appeals to fight for black liberation.

The same friend’s closet that produced our blog’s other recent digitized contributions held a copy of the OA206 newsletter. Finding a wayback archive was difficult until a little digging revealed the URL of their site to be different than that originally printed in the newsletter (outsideagitator206.com vs outsideagitators206.org). On the wayback machine archive of the site we found PDF copies of both issues of the newsletter. The site was also updated with new articles through early 2016, offering commentary on events like the police eviction of the homeless Camp Dearborn, an attempted march by Hammerskin Neo-Nazis, and various protests against gentrification and racist capitalism.

Intersections

A Pacific Northwest Anarchist Periodical, 2008-2009

Title _ Vol.-No. _ Months-Year

Intersections-1-1_Oct-Nov-2008 Intersections_1-4_June-Aug-2009 Intersections_1-5_Sept-Nov-2009

This weeks entries to Historical Sedition’s May Day digitization drive is a pair of 2000s and 2010s periodicals from the region that linger in the depths of the deleted but archived internet. The first is Intersections, published by the regional anarchist organization Common Action from 2008-2009 or 2010. After finding a wrinkled old copy in a homie’s closet, we dug through the wayback machine and web archives and found three of the six issues still online. We preserve them here as a mirror while also drawing eyes to the archived pages.

Common Action started as the “Class Action Alliance” in June 2008 before members changed the name to Common Action during their next general assembly in September that year. Initial membership included people from Bellingham, Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, and Portland; the Portland and Bellingham groups were later less active but a group in Bremerton was established.

Intersections was launched as the organization’s newsletter and agitational organ when the organizations name was changed to Common Action. It discussed campaigns members of the organization were involved in around labor, racial justice, healthcare, and transit, provided reportbacks from regional Anarchist People of Color Gatherings and other events, discussed issues like gentrification, radical parenting, and direct action tactics.

A handful of reportbacks from some of Common Action’s assemblies are available translated into several languages on anarkismo.net; the dissolution of the organization in 2010 was also announced there. Members of the group remained active in anarchist struggles and some are still around today.

Common Action’s site was active from 2008-2010 and is preserved by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. From these archives issue 4 and issue 5 of Intersections volume 1 were retrievable. Vol, 1 Issue 1 was found archived on the Anarchist Zine Library.

Email us at historicalseditions [at] riseup [dot] net if you have additional copies of Intersections that could be shared for archival purposes.

Storming Heaven

A Seattle Anarchist Periodical, 2013-2015

Title _ No. _ Month/Season-Year

• Storming-Heaven_2_July-2013
• Storming-Heaven_3_Aug-2013
• Storming-Heaven_4_Nov-2013
• Storming-Heaven_5_Spring-2014
• Storming-Heaven_6_Fall-2015
  • Print Imposed

In the lead-up to May Day, Historical Seditions will be releasing a newly digitized anarchist newspaper every week. While some of these are over a century old, our first entry for this weekly series is less than a decade. Even in the era of information born-digitally, it is all too easy for publications to vanish. Servers go offline with no backups, hosting services go bankrupt or change their terms, and archiving services provide imperfect records.

Storming Heaven existed in a weird period for Anarchism in Seattle. It was something of a spiritual successor to the insurrectionary Anarchist Tides of Flame whose last issue came six months before Storming Heaven’s first. Storming Heaven published after the dissipation of the Occupy Movement as well as the Seattle Grand Jury, while most of its issues were published before the August, 2014 police killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson ignited the first wave of “Black Lives Matter” protests. The paper thus offers insight into anarchist discourse and activity sandwiched between these two movements, while the final issue released a year later offers a roundup of many of the local 2014-2015 Black Lives Matter protests.

Issues 3-6 of Storming Heaven were recovered from the still-live blog and thus are being reposted here for archival purposes. Issues 1 and 2 were however hosted on an old version of pugetsoundanarchists.org and the files do not even appear to be on the Internet Archive. Historical Seditions was able to recover a paper copy of Issue 2 from a friend’s closet, which has been scanned and uploaded here. Anyone with access to Issue 1 is welcome to get in contact at historicalseditions [at] riseup [dot] net

West Coast Historical Anarchist Media in Print and Online

Newspapers were first published under the black flag on the Pacific Coast over 130 years ago. Blogs, podcasts, and zine distros carry on that work today.

This incomplete list of digitized anarchist publications from the colonized west of the so-called united states makes accessible that long history of insurgent media. Anarchists seeking inspirations and warnings from the past will hopefully find it useful.

Newspapers and magazines from the late-19th and early 20^th century chronicle everyday organizing and insurrectionary moments during an era when the West Coast was a major node in a globe-spanning anti-colonial, anti-capitalist anarchist movement. Papers published in several languages from Los Angeles to San Francisco, Portland to Home, Washington were backbones of local networks, sometimes attracting global attention. The various publications below are available in various formats, from PDFs of individual issues to searchable web tools.

There is a dearth of publications from the 1940s until the 1960s; not unexpected given the lull of anarchistic movements in these decades. The revival came in the form of independent and often diy bulletins and newsletters. The 70s witnessed a small proliferation of publications from clandestine prison papers to anarchist comic books to the birth of zine culture.

With the rise of the internet, Indymedia became an early hub building on connections established at the 1999 WTO in Seattle. A network of frequently anonymous, sometimes submission-driven anarchist blogs proliferated in the years that followed. Some of these blogs are still active today, but many old sites remain live and are valuable resources for the interested. There was also several anarchist magazines and newspapers published in Seattle and Tacoma during the late 2000s and 2010s with digitized copies available for reading.

There are undoubtedly publications missing from this list. Old periodicals become lost to time or collect dust in archives or on microfilm. Vibrant anonymous blogs become dead links, occasionally accessible in limited form on the Wayback Machine. One aim of Historical Seditions is to seek out and preserve these. More digitized historic newspapers will be added to our site in the future, and we are always on the hunt for forgotten URLs and PDFs. If you have leads to expand this list, contact us at historicalseditions [at] riseup [dot] net.

A growing, global list of digitized anarchist publications is available at lidiap.ficedl.info

Digitized by Historical Seditions

The Beacon

Kakumei/The Revolution

Free Society & The Firebrand

Storming Heaven

Enfant Terrible

Many more coming soon!

 

So-Called PNW

The Firebrand – Portland (Or.), 1895-1897

vol. 1, nos. 1, 8, 10, 12-15, 17-22, 24-25, 27-47, 49-52
vol. 2, nos. 2-8, 10-16, 18-19, 21-24, 27, 30-32, 34-52
vol. 3, nos. 1-34

 

vol. 1, nos. 1, 42
vol. 2, nos. 31-32, 34-45, 47-52
vol. 3, nos. 1-34

Mirror reduced

 

Discontent – Home (Wash.), 1898-1902

vol. 1, nos. 5, 10, 27, 38, 43, 45, 49-50
vol. 2, nos. 2, 5, 7, 10-14, 43, 48-52
vol. 3, nos. 2-12, 14-20, 22-23, 25-28, 30-43, 46-52
vol. 4, nos. 2-4, 6-13, 15-19, 21-23, 25-31

 

Clothed with the Sun – Home (Wash.), 1900-1904

vol. 3, nos. 3, 10

vol. 1, nos. 2-3, 10-12

vol. 2, nos. 1-12

vol. 3, nos. 1,3,10

 

The Demonstrator – Home (Wash.), 1903-1908?

vol. 1, nos. 1-25, 27-31

nos. 1-142

 

The Industrial Worker – Spokane, Seattle, 1909-1931

vol. 1 – vol. 5

 

The Agitator – Home (Wash.), 1910-1912

Complete Set

 

Hammerslag – Seattle, 1911-1912

nos. 1-2, 4

 

Why? – Tacoma, 1913-1914

Complete Set

Mirror

Mirror

 

The Dawn – Seattle, 1922-?

vol. 1 nos. 1-8

 

The Seattle Group Bulletins – Seattle, 1965-1971

no. 1-60 text only

Original Scans

 

Lilith – Seattle, 1968-1970

nos. 1-3

 

Earth and Fire – Vancouver, 1972

nos. 1, 2

 

Revolutionary Anarchist – 1973-?

no. 3

 

Open Road – Vancouver, 1976-1990

Complete Set

Mirror

 

Anarchist Black Dragon – Walla Walla, 1978-1983

nos. 2-6, special issue, 8-11

 

British Columbia’s blackout – Vancouver, 1978-1984?

nos. 1-4, 6, 66, 74-75, 77, 79, 82-85, 91, 109, 117

 

The Spark: A Newsletter of Contemporary Anarchist Thought – Port Townsend, 1982-1984

nos. 1-5

 

Ecomedia – Vancouver, 1988-1991?

nos. 1-2, 4-6

nos. 12-21, 23-39, 41-51, 54-69, 72-76, 78-81, 83, 85, 87-92, 94-100

 

The Insurgent – Eugene, 1991-Present

2010-present issues

 

New World Disorder – Tacoma, 1992

no. 1

 

Spontaneous Combustion – Seattle and Portland, 1992

no. 1

 

NWAC Northwest Anarchist Collective – Seattle, 1992-1993?

nos. 1-2

 

Anti-Power – Seattle, 1993

no. 1

 

Black Autonomy: A Journal of Anarchism and Black Revolution – 1994-1997

v. 1 nos. 1-5

v. 2 no. 5

v. 3 nos. 1, 3-5

 

Crimethinc – Olympia and Elsewhere, 1996-Present

Legacy Article Search: crimethinc.com/library

 

Parascope – Seattle, 1999?-2000?

no. 4

 

Indymedia – Seattle, 1999-2013 Portland, 2000-2020

Seattle Wayback Machine

Portland Wayback Machine

 

Green Anarchy – Eugene, 2000-2008

nos. 5, 7
nos. 6-25

 

Face to Face with the Enemy – Vancouver, 2004-2007?

facetofacewiththeenemy.wordpress.com

 

Rad Dad – Portland, 2005-2013

no. 20

 

Unfinished Business – Portland, 2005

no. 3

 

A Murder of Crows – Seattle, 2006-2007

nos. 1-2

 

Prisoner’s Dillema – Seattle, 2006-?

no. 1

 

CrimethInc. Worker Bulletin – Olympia, 2007

no. 47
no. 47/74

 

Wii’nimkiikaa – 2007-2010

wiinimkiikaa.wordpress.com

 

Aint No Party Like a West Coast Party – Olympia, 2008

no. 1

 

Intersections – Portland and Tacoma, 2008-2009

nos. 1, 4, 5

 

Pink and Black Attack – Olympia, 2008-2010

nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

 

Vancouver Anarchist Online Archive – Vancouver, 2009-2010

vanarchive.wordpress.com

 

The Rebel – Tacoma, 2009

no. 1

 

Autonomy//253 – Tacoma, 2010-2011

autonomy253.wordpress.com

Magazine Issue 3

nos. 1-5

 

Lunaria Press – Tacoma, 2010-2011

lunariapress.blogspot.com

 

Unmanageable Outlaws – 2010-2011

amiableoutlaws.wordpress.com

 

Continual War – 2010-2012

2010-2011 continualwar.wordpress.com

2011-2012 continwar.noblogs.org

 

Autonomy Acres – Rural PNW, 2010-2015

autonomyacres.wordpress.com

 

Tides of Flame – Seattle, 2011-2012

Complete Set

 

Puget Sound Anarchists – 2011-Present

PugetSoundAnarchists.org (Current Site, 2014-Present)

Wayback Machine (2011-2013)

 

Warrior Publications – Occupied Coast Salish Territory, Vancouver BC, 2011-Present

warriorpublications.wordpress.com

 

Gray Coast – Pacific Northwest, 2011-2013

greycoast.wordpress.com

 

Portland Occupier – Portland, 2011-Present

portlandoccupier.org

 

BCBlackOut – So-Called British Columbia, 2011-Present

bcblackout.wordpress.com

 

(A) Wild Harbor – Aberdeen, 2012

awildharbor.wordpress.com

 

Seattle Free Press – Seattle, 2012-2015

Wayback Machine (2012-2015)

 

Anarres Press – Seattle, 2013-2015?

anarrespress.wordpress.com

 

Storming Heaven – Seattle, 2013-2015

nos. 2-6

 

Warzone Distro – Chicago, Portland, elsewhere – 2013 – Present

warzonedistro.noblogs.org

 

Outside Agitator (206) – Seattle, 2015-2016

nos. 1-2

Blog Wayback Machine (2015-2016)

 

Black and Green Review – Salem, 2015-2018

no. 1

 

The Transmetropolitan Review – Seattle, 2015-2018 (Magazine), 2015-Present (Blog)

nos. 1-6, 7, 8

thetransmetropolitanreview.wordpress.com

 

Wreck – Vancouver, 2015-2016

Complete Set

 

Salish Sea Black Autonomists – Olympia, 2017-2020

blackautonomynetwork.noblogs.org

 

1312press – Seattle, 2018?-Present

Published Zines – 1312press.noblogs.org/1312-published-titles

 

Rose City Counter-Info – Portland, 2020-Present

rosecitycounterinfo.noblogs.org/

 

PNW Youth Liberation Front – 2020-2021

pnwylf.noblogs.org/

youthliberation.noblogs.org/

 

no more city – Vancouver, 2020-2022

2020-20201 Issues – nomore.city/archive

 

Fugitive Distro – Olympia, 2021-Present

autistici.org/fugitivedistro

 

Rose City Radical – Portland, 2021-2022

nos. 1-4 rosecityradical.com/past-issues

Sabot Media – Aberdeen, 2021-Present

Blog

Black Cat Distro Zines

The Communique Newsletter nos. 1-3

 

Creeker – Fairy Creek, Vancouver Island, 2021-Present

vol. 1-4

 

BC Counter-Information – so-called British Columbia, 2022-Present

bccounterinfo.org

 

The Occupied West

The Beacon – San Francisco, 1889-1891

vol. 1, nos. 12-13, 15-17
vol. 2, nos. 1-2, 6-8, 18

 

Egoism – San Francisco, 1890-1897

vol. 1
vol. 2
vol. 3, nos. 1, 18, 23
vol. 4, nos 1-2

 

Enfant Terrible – San Francisco, 1891-92

nos. 3, 6

 

Secolo Nuovo – San Francisco, 1894-1906

vol. 7 no. 17

vol. 9 no. 26

 

Free Society (Sucessor of Portland’s The Firebrand) – San Francisco/Chicago, 1897-1904

vol. 4, no. 1
vol. 5, nos. 31, 34-35, 39-41, 48
vol. 6, nos. 7-21, 24-26, 28-33, 35-58
vol. 7, nos. 1-3, 5, 8, 14-15, 31, 36
vol. 9, nos. 1-52
vol. 10, nos. 19-20, 33, 38, 42, 52
vol. 10b, nos. 1-3, 7-8

Mirror vol. 9
vol. 10, no. 20

 

Regeneración – Los Angeles and elsewhere, 1900-1901, 1904-1906, 1910-1918

Complete Set

 

La Protesta Umana – San Francisco and Chicago, 1900-1905

1902-1903

 

Kakumei/The Revolution – Berkeley, 1906-1907

no. 1

 

Revolución – Los Angeles, 1907-1908

nos. 1-4, 6-11, 13-17, 19-29

 

Regeneración. Sezione Italiana – Los Angeles, 1911

Complete Set

 

Hindustan Ghadar – San Francisco, 1913-192?

Assorted 1913-1917 issues

 

The Blast – San Francisco, 1916-1917

Complete Set

 

Man! – San Francisco, 1933-1940

vol. 3, no. 7/8

 

Now & After – San Francisco, 1977-1978

no. 1

 

Anarchy Comics – San Francisco, 1978-1987

Complete Set

 

Slingshot – Berkeley, 1988-Present

nos. 58-137

 

Anarchist Labor Bulletin – San Francisco (Calif.), 1989?-1990?

nos. 18-19

 

Willful Disobedience – Los Angeles, 1996-2006

vol. 3, no. 5
vol. 5, nos. 1-2

 

Ignite! – Denver, 2011-2012

Complete Set

 

Black Flag – Los Angeles, 2012-2016

Complete Set

 

Black Seed  – Berkeley, 2014 – Present

nos. 1-6

 

It’s Going Down – Bay Area and Elsewhere, 2015-Present

itsgoingdown.org

2015/Old Legacy Articles via Wayback Machine

Winter-Spring 2016 Print Compilation

Spring 2017 Print Compilation

Berkeley, California’s Japanese Anarchist Newspaper

Kakumei_1_12-20-1906

The San Francisco Bay Area was a central node in a globe-spanning, empire-challenging anarchist movement in the first years of the 20^th century. Perhaps the most prominent Japanese anarchist during these years was journalist Kōtoku Shūsui. When Kōtoku’s set foot in San Francisco in November, 1905, his radical conscience had been developing for years. His 1901 book Imperialism: Monster of the Twentieth Century remains a seminal early condemnation of global imperialism. A couple years later he helped launch the Heimin Shinbun in Tokyo, a socialist anti-war daily newspaper. Kōtoku’s vocal opposition to the Russo-Japanese war in the pages of the Heimin Shinbun led to his imprisonment and the paper’s shuttering.

While incarcerated, Kōtoku struck up a correspondence with San Francisco-based Anarchist Albert Johnson. Upon release Kōtoku entered a short self-exile by crossing the Pacific to California. In California, Kōtoku’s contacts with the Industrial Workers of the World and experiences with grassroots mutual aid in the wake of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake made him a convinced anarchist.

Kōtoku also struck up a relationship with local Japanese migrants. A former colleague, Shigeki Oka, was involved in the local branch of the Heiminsha, the organization that had published the Heimin Shinbun. Before Kōtoku returned to Japan in June, 1906, he brought many of these new contacts together to form a Social Revolutionary Party. The initial membership counted 52 names, most from the nearby Bay area cities but also including contacts in Chicago, Boston, and New York.

The Social Revolutionary Party’s members soon launched a paper in Berkeley: Kakumei, or Revolution in English. Its first issue has been preserved in the University of California, Berkeley library and is now made available as a digitized copy. The first page of the eight-page paper contained English-language articles directed toward the broader radical movement, while the remainder was written in Japanese.

The English articles offered an introduction to the emerging Japanese Anarchist movement. As a solution the increasingly brutal poverty faced by many under capitalism, Kakumei clearly rejected “the trifiling legislation which the capitalist class may from time to time flink to the workers” as being “about as effective as the tiny stream from a baby’s water-gun thrown in a raging fire.” Instead, Kakumei clearly called for “the overthrow of Mikado, King, President as representing the Capitalist Class as soon as possible, and we do not hesitate as to the means.”¹

The paper also spoke to the “ignorance of the white fellow workers as to the actual interests of the working class the world over.” 1907 was a high-point for racist exclusion movements in California. The mayor of San Francisco, Eugene Schmitz, was a Musician’s Union labor leader who was a prominent figure in the Japanese-Korean Exclusion League. That latter body would morph into the Asiatic Exclusion League in 1907, initiating branches in many white settler-colonial cities along the Pacific Rim. Kakumei argued that the economic troubles their “foolish white fellow workers” often blamed on Japanese laborers was in fact the fault of capital. The only solution was the classic motto, “Working Men of All Countries Unite!”²

Though Kakumei was ultimately short-lived, its contributors played a significant role in the trans-pacific anarchist movement of the years to follow. Tetsugoro Takeuchi, who had written an article suggesting the American president might be assassinated, was forced to move to Fresno. There he helped organize thousands of farmworkers into the Japanese Fresno Federation of Labor. Five thousand of them struck in 1908 with the support of Italian and Mexican IWW members. Takeguchi also published Rodo (Labor) as the organ of the Japanese Fresno Federation of Labor. Another founding member of the Social Revolutionary Party was Iwasa Sakutarō, who became a lifelong anarchist-communist until his death in 1967.

Further Reading

The Proletarian: digitized Japanese-English bilingual IWW paper 1909-1910

Stafan Anarkowic, Against the God Emperor: The Anarchist Treason Trials in Japan

Masayo Umezawa Duus, The Japanese Conspiracy: The Oahu Sugar Strike of 1920

Robert Thomas Tierney, Monster of the Twentieth Century: Kōtoku Shūsui and Japan’s First Imperialist Movement

Kenyon Zimmer, Immigrants Against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America

We are happy to release six short mini-zines covering forgotten radical history of the so-called Pacific Northwest. Each is available as a PDF for printing, and only use between one and three sheets of paper. Older texts have been sourced for these; future short-form zines will feature original writings.

The Kitsap Ferry Riot tells the story of the restrictive old Seattle Teen Dance Ordinance and a punk riot that occurred on the ferry from Bremerton as a result. The text is pulled from the defunct website of a documentary about the riot by Chris Loomey, accessible here. (2 sheets letter)

Download The Kitsap Ferry Riot

 

The remainder of these mini-zines were sourced from articles published a decade ago in Tides of Flame, a Seattle Anarchist paper published 2011-2012. The first was a one-off article, the rest are drawn from its recurring ‘Forgotten History’ feature. A complete run of Tides of Flame can be found here.

The Eyes of a Monster is the tale of Chris Monfort. Appalled by police brutality in his community, Chris looked the monster in the eye and refused to blink. He launched a one-man war against Seattle Police in 2009, bombing vehicles and killing one SPD officer in an ambush. Chris mysteriously died in Walla Walla State Penitentiary in 2017. (3 sheets letter)

Download The Eyes of a Monster

 

1856: The Battle in Seattle is the tale of Chief Leschi, the Nisqually, and other warriors who fought to expel the settler-colonial leviathan in its infancy. (2 sheets letter)

Download 1856: The Battle in Seattle

 

 

Anarchists and Rebellion in Walla Walla State Prison is an account of the Anarchist Black Dragon, an imprisoned anarchist collective who published an underground newspaper and helped spur several prisoner uprisings. (1 sheet letter)

Download Anarchists and Rebellion in Walla Walla State Prison

 

The Centralia IWW tells of the lumberjacks and hobos who organized a revolutionary union in this small Washington town. The intense repression they faced culminated in the so-called Centralia Tragedy in 1919. (2 sheets letter)

Download The Centralia IWW

 

The Dude Smashed the Federal Courthouse, Too! recalls the nationwide uprising in 1970 over the trial of Black Panther Bobby Seale and the Chicago Seven. The rowdiest solidarity action occurred in Seattle, where the federal courthouse was smashed. One of the most famous arrestees was Jeff Dowd, inspiration for “The Dude” in “The Big Lebowski” (1 sheet letter)

Download The Dude Smashed the Federal Courthouse, Too!