ABOUT THIS BOOK

The use of print to challenge prevailing ideas and conventions has a long history in American public life. As dissenters in America sought social change, they used print to document, articulate, and disseminate their ideas to others. Protest always begins on the margins, but print is the medium that allows it to reach a larger audience. In Protest on the Page, scholars in multiple disciplines offer ten original essays that examine protest print culture in America since 1865. They explore the surprising range of dissidents who enlisted print in their causes—from vegetarians and anarchists at the advent of the twentieth century, to midcentury evangelicals and tween comic book readers, to GIs and feminists in the 1970s–80s. Together they demonstrate that print has never been a neutral medium, but rather has been instrumental in shaping the substance of protest and its audiences.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

James L. Baughman is the Fetzer Bascom Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His many publications include Republic of Mass Culture: Journalism, Filmmaking and Broadcasting in America since 1941 (Third Edition). Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen is the Merle Curti Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas. James P. Danky is the cofounder of the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and retired librarian for periodicals and newspapers at the Wisconsin Historical Society. He is many books include Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix.

REVIEWS

"These are fresh, fascinating inquiries into the unknown byways of American journalistic history. Protest on the Page amounts to an alternative history of the press, far different from the familiar triumphant and establishment-celebrating narrative."—Nicholas Lemann, Columbia University

"How great it is to have a book about the history of the press that's not about the New York Times or Washington Post, and not about the glories of a free press in a democracy. The journalism of visionary movements—anarchism, feminism, dissent in the military—is part of our heritage too, and it's great to see it get some of the attention it deserves."—Adam Hochschild, co-founder of Mother Jones magazine and the author of To End All Wars

"Historians of social change have always drawn upon ephemeral publications from the fringes of politics and culture. But the essays in this splendid collection show that the printed word has actually been a central player in the politics of social movements, from anarchism to vegetarianism. This sharp focus on media provides valuable new insight into how movement politics has worked in American history."—David Paul Nord, author of Faith in Reading

"A substantial contribution to the histories of print culture, media, journalism, and non-mainstream movements, groups, and ideas."—John Nerone, author of Violence Against the Press

“The latest addition to the outstanding University of Wisconsin Press series 'History of Print and Digital Culture,' deftly organized into three major sections (Revolt and Reaction, Consensus Contested, and Dangerous Print), Protest on the Page should be considered a critically important addition to academic library collections in communications and journalism.”—Midwest Book Review

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface: Protest and Print Culture in America
James P. Danky

“A Necessary Relation”: Protest and American Print Culture
James L. Baughman

Part 1: Revolt and Reaction

Writing Redemption: Racially Ambiguous Carpetbaggers and the Southern Print Culture Campaign against Reconstruction
Adam Thomas

The Inky Protest of an Anarchist Printmaker: Carlo Abate’s Newspaper Illustrations and the Artist’s Hand in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Andrew D. Hoyt

Spanish-Language Anarchist Periodicals in Early Twentieth-Century United States
Nicolás Kanellos

Pamphlets of Self-Determination: Dissident Literature, Productive Fiction
Trevor Joy Sangrey

Part 2: Consensus Contested

By the Pinch and the Pound: Less and More Protest in American Vegetarian Cookbooks from the Nineteenth Century to the Present
Laura J. Miller and Emilie Hardman

Meeting the Modernistic Tide: The Book as Evangelical Battleground in the 1940s
Daniel Vaca

Children and the Comics: Young Readers Take On the Critics
Carol L. Tilley

Part 3: Dangerous Print

Paper Soldiers: The Ally and the GI Underground Press during the Vietnam War
Derek Seidman

The Clowning of Richard Nixon in the Underground Press
Micah Robbins

Off / On Our Backs: The Feminist Press in the “Sex Wars” of the 1980s
Joyce M. Latham

Contributors

Index

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