Women's Liberation & Counterculture Publications
Design in the Feminist Underground Press, 1968-1972
With my brain rather muddled this week, I am processing and planning for the future by looking through feminist counterculture publications…
I’ve written on here before about some of my research looking through underground press publications, their design, and how fashion was written about in them (scroll to the bottom for links)—research that contributed to the history I wrote of the counterculture fashion magazine Rags for its fiftieth-anniversary box set and book and a chapter on Rags in the just released academic volume, Fashion in American Life.
Below are covers of a variety of feminist publications, all published between 1968 and 1972. Unlike Ms., whose premiere issue in July 1972 sold 425,000 copies, these publications had very small circulations and primarily more localized distribution; Washington D.C. based Off Our Backs had a circulation of 10,000 around 1972, while the Venice, CA, Everywoman only sold 3,000 an issue.
“United principally by the desire to gain women full equality, the women's liberation movement is made up of many factions that sometimes seem to agree only that women get a bad deal. With so many viewpoints, it is not surprising that the movement has given birth to many newspapers, magazines, and newsletters. By 1972, according to PM, a movement newsletter, there were over 150 such publications.
Many have lively and challenging names: Ms., Ain't I a Woman!, It Ain't Me Babe, Free and Proud, Off Our Backs, Pissed Off Pink, Underground Woman, and Velvet Fist. The publications cover a wide range of sisterhood concerns: equal pay for equal work, day care centers for working women, an end to sexism in the media. Some, like Off Our Backs, are highly political and seek radical change. Others, like Women: A Journal of Liberation, resemble scholarly journals, with measured language and intellectual rationale for political and social positions.” - Everette E. Dennis & William L. Rivers, Other Voices: The New Journalism in America (1974)
Limited funds and small circulations did not hinder them from creating radical magazines/newspapers with powerful covers and design, though the design styles were as varied as their viewpoints—from graphic and stylized, to messy, hand-drawn and immediate. I’ve included the names of designers, artists, and photographers, where credited.
