The Rebel Worker (a near complete run)

Chicago: Chicago branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, 1964-66. A near complete run (lacking only the first issue) of this important mimeographed journal published in Chicago by members of the IWW's General Recruiting Union - most notably Franklin and Penelope Rosemont. The magazine appeared at a moment when the IWW was organizationally small and frequently regarded as a relic of early twentieth-century labor radicalism. But the Rebel Worker rejected that characterization and treated Wobbly ideas—direct action, workers’ self-management, opposition to bureaucracy, internationalism, and the abolition of the wage system—as living principles applicable to contemporary struggles.

The Rebel Worker helped introduce these principles to a new generation of radicals by linking revolutionary unionism with the New Left, anarchism, surrealism, and the emerging counterculture. It opposed both capitalism and the bureaucratic tendencies of conventional unions and Communist organizations, emphasizing direct action, workers’ control, and personal liberation. Its coverage extended beyond labor to antiwar activism, racism, Indigenous struggles, music, poetry, and everyday life. Produced inexpensively by Chicago’s Solidarity Bookshop circle, it also connected American radicals with British Solidarity members (most importantly, Charles Radcliffe who edited issue 6 from London and which he followed up with two issues of Heatwave), surrealists, and future Situationists. Although only seven issues appeared between 1964 and 1966, the journal became an important precursor to the Chicago Surrealist Group and the underground press of the later 1960s. Other contributors besides the Rosemonts included T-bone Slim, Torvald Faegre, Robert Calese, Benjamin Peret, A. S. Neill, Louise Crowley, Bernard Marszalek, and others.

All issues consist of stapled, mimeographed sheets; 30 pp.; 36 pp.; 34 pp.; 22 pp.; 22 pp.; 52 pp.; all illustrated. Item #15179

Price: $1,200.00