Letterpress Revolution: The Politics of Anarchist Print Culture

by Kathy E. Ferguson

Overview

While the stock image of the anarchist as a masked bomber or brick thrower prevails in the public eye, a more representative figure should be a printer at a printing press. In Letterpress Revolution, Kathy E. Ferguson explores the importance of printers, whose materials galvanized anarchist movements across the United States and Great Britain from the late nineteenth century to the 1940s. Ferguson shows how printers—whether working at presses in homes, offices, or community centers—arranged text, ink, images, graphic markers, and blank space within the architecture of the page. Printers' extensive correspondence with fellow anarchists and the radical ideas they published created dynamic and entangled networks that brought the decentralized anarchist movements together. Printers and presses did more than report on the movement; they were constitutive of it, and their vitality in anarchist communities helps explain anarchism’s remarkable persistence in the face of continuous harassment, arrest, assault, deportation, and exile. By inquiring into the political, material, and aesthetic practices of anarchist print culture, Ferguson points to possible methods for cultivating contemporary political resistance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478019237
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	02/24/2023
Pages:	348
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.72(d)

About the Author

Kathy E. Ferguson is Professor of Political Science and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and the author of several books, including Emma Goldman: Political Thinking in the Streets.

Table of Contents

Preface  ix
Acknowledgments  xiii
Introduction. Anarchist Letters  1
1. Printers and Presses  21
2. Epistolarity  83
3. Radical Study  129
4. Intersectionality and Thing Power  185
Appendix A. Compositors, Pressmen, and Bookbinders  215
Appendix B. Brief Biographies  225
Appendix C. Printers Interviewed 231
Notes  233
Letters Referenced  281
Bibliography  287
Index  317

What People are Saying About This

The Government of No One: The Theory and Practice of Anarchism - Ruth Kinna author of

“Letterpress Revolution brings poststructuralist and postmaterialist lenses to bear on the rich history of anarchist publishing and printing. Kathy E. Ferguson’s critical study is based on meticulous research and an impressive knowledge of the scholarly literature. Her exploration of the anarchists’ intricate networks of communication provides new perspectives on the constitution of American and Western European movements and anarchism’s theoretical trajectory and biases. The arguments are provocative and stimulating, as is her assessment of anarchism’s empowering legacy.”

The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic - Marcus Rediker

“This labor of love brings back to us an almost-lost world in vivid and exemplary ways, with theoretical sophistication, historical depth, analytical rigor, and literary flair. Letterpress Revolution is a beautiful book—and a hopeful gift to future generations.”

Editorial Reviews

"Letterpress Revolution is essential reading. It is a result of exhaustive and detailed research that clarifies instead of obscures. ... It enriches anarchist history allowing us to appreciate the nuances and bravery of people as well as their complexities."

KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library - Barry Pateman

By focusing on letterpress Ferguson presents a novel way of looking at the history of Anarchism. Letterpress as a way of working generates an active hands-on ambition to build and embody new and creative ideas. . . . Ferguson’s history promotes the message that meaningful radical development builds from face-to-face, hand-to-hand, cooperative endeavour.

Kate Sharpley Library - Peter Good

"Letterpress Revolution is essential reading. It is a result of exhaustive and detailed research that clarifies instead of obscures. ... It enriches anarchist history allowing us to appreciate the nuances and bravery of people as well as their complexities."

--Barry Pateman "KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library" (10/1/2023 12:00:00 AM)

"Ferguson's half-century of involvement in radical politics and her painstaking research in anarchist collections (many of them ill organized) qualifies her to write this dense but compelling history. . . . Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty."--T. S. Martin "Choice" (7/1/2023 12:00:00 AM)

"In fluid prose, Ferguson offers a fresh historical look at the anarchist movement through a focus on lesser-known figures and their lesser-known labours, including printing and letter-writing."--Layla Saleh "LSE Review of Books" (6/7/2023 12:00:00 AM)

"By focusing on letterpress Ferguson presents a novel way of looking at the history of Anarchism. Letterpress as a way of working generates an active hands-on ambition to build and embody new and creative ideas. . . . Ferguson's history promotes the message that meaningful radical development builds from face-to-face, hand-to-hand, cooperative endeavour."--Peter Good "Kate Sharpley Library" (3/1/2023 12:00:00 AM)

From the Publisher

"In fluid prose, Ferguson offers a fresh historical look at the anarchist movement through a focus on lesser-known figures and their lesser-known labours, including printing and letter-writing."

Layla Saleh

"Ferguson's half-century of involvement in radical politics and her painstaking research in anarchist collections (many of them ill organized) qualifies her to write this dense but compelling history. . . . Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty."

Choice - T. S. Martin