The Rebel Worker (1 of 2)

Dossier

The Rebel Worker (1 of 2)

• 1964-1966 (Production)

"Rosement, Franklin (editor). 8 Issues, with Related Pamphlets. Chicago, IL and London: Chicago GRU Branch of the IWW / Solidarity Bookshop, 1964-1966. First Edition. 10 quarto issues (ca. 20.5 cm x 22.5 cm - 21.5 cm x 28 cm); mimeographed in black and red on variously-colored stock, side-stapled... Substantial, nearly-complete run of Franklin and Penelope Rosemont's anarcho-surrealist journal. The Rosemont's were members of the IWW and founded the Chicago Surrealist Group, which hosted a numer of surrealist exhibits from their Gallery Bugs Bunny. Franklin Rosemont produced the first issues of The Rebel Worker on a hand-crank AB Dick mimeo he borrowed from the Chicago IWW Hall; roughly 1,000 copies of the earlier issues were run off, with the peak of their circulation (No.7) reaching 2,000 copies. 'We took the name Rebel Worker from an old Wobbly paper, circa 1919. For us it signified not only the worker as rebel, but also -and no less important- rebellion against work.' Issues were sold and distributed primarily from the Solidarity Bookshop in Chicago, which the Rosemont's opened in mid-summer of 1964. The shop was a mainstay for anarchists, beats, SDS members, surralists, and artists, considered 'the hub of hippie activity in Chicago long before there were hippies.' Much of the original content was produced by the Rosemonts, Bernard Marszalek, Robert Green, and Tor Faegre, and nearly all issues of Rebel Worker reprinted material created by Paris surrealists. (Rosemont, Franklin and Radcliffe, Charles. Dancin' in the Streets; pp. 1-80) By Rosemont's admission, the seven issues of The Rebel Worker had 'a circulation that never exceeded two thousand' -a fact which explains the scarcity of individual issues. Of the seven published issues of The Rebel Worker, would go on to publish the short-lived, Sutationist-oriented journal Heat Wave, the British sister publicatin to Rebel Worker). Offered together with Blackout by H.W. Morton (Robert Calese) and Revolutionary Consciousness - Rebel Worker Pamphlets nos. 2 and 3 respectively - published by the Rosemont's at the Solidarity Bookshop." -Lorne Bair