Finding aid to the Friends of Perfection Records MS 4008

Finding aid prepared by Processed by Jennifer Schaffner; machine-readable finding aid created by James Lake.
California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105-4014
(415) 357-1848
reference@calhist.org
© 1999


Title: Friends of Perfection Records
Date: 1968-1972
Collection Identifier: MS 4008
Creator: Friends of Perfection
Extent: 4 boxes, 2 flat boxes, 1 trunk
Contributing Institution: California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105-4014
(415) 357-1848
reference@calhist.org
URL: http://californiahistoricalsociety.org/
Location of Materials: Collection is stored onsite.
Language of Materials: Collection materials are in English.
Abstract: Collection consists of a complete set of volumes 1-4 of the intercommunal newspaper Kaliflower next hit (April 24, 1969-June 22, 1972), with some supplements, and a large but incomplete collection of flyers, broadsides, pamphlets, newsletters, and other materials printed by the Free Print Shop between the years 1968 and 1972. There are also some miscellaneous related items, including one of the original previous hit Kaliflower next hit clipboards, and the trunk in which the archives were delivered to California Historical Society.

Access

CHS is not taking appointments for research at this time. Please check the Library's website updates: https://californiahistoricalsociety.org/collections/north-baker-research-library/ 

Publication Rights

All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Director of Library and Archives, North Baker Research Library, California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94105. Consent is given on behalf of the California Historical Society as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner. Restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research and educational purposes.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Friends of Perfection Records, MS 4008, California Historical Society.

Additional Colletion Guides

A list of the complete oeuvre of the Free Print Shop, compiled by the creators, including the title and dates of many items no longer available, or not included in the CHS collection.

Related Collections

California Historical Society also has a related manuscript collection, MS 3159, on the Haight Street Diggers, which is closely related to the Friends of Perfection collection. There are also some new series issues of previous hit Kaliflower next hit , printed at later dates for special occasions, some of which are among California Historical Society's collections.

Acquisition Information

The Sutter Street Commune donated the Friends of Perfection collection to California Historical Society in 1973. Known informally as the Sutter Street Commune or the Scott Street Commune, depending on the street on which they lived, this intentional community used the name Friends of Perfection for things like sales receipts, information requests or legalities, such as the deed to CHS for the collection. The "front" name, Friends of Perfection, derived from the commune's interest in the Oneida Community and the philosophy of Perfectionism of John Humphrey Noyes. This interest is reflected, for example, in "Communal Archaeology," the cover article (p.1) of previous hit Kaliflower next hit Vol. 3, No. 1 (May 6, 1971). " previous hit Kaliflower next hit ," as the Friends of Perfection were often known, also derived their practices of complex marriage, third persons, criticism, and self-criticism from Noyes and the Oneida Community.

Organizational History

The Free Print Shop, one of several work projects of the Sutter Street Commune, published the intercommunal newsletter previous hit Kaliflower next hit in San Francisco from April 24, 1969 through June 22, 1972. The Sutter Street Commune was one of several hundred communes in the 1960s in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Free Print Shop was in the basement of the commune's Victorian house in the redevelopment-owned area of the city, near where Japantown now stands.
Part 1: The Sutter Street Commune and the Diggers: The Sutter Street Commune consciously adopted the Diggers' "Free philosophy." The Diggers (1966-1968) were one of the groups in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury District, a center of 1960s counterculture. Often cloaked in anonymity, the Diggers took their name from the original English Diggers (1649-1650), who had promulgated a vision of society free from private property and all forms of buying and selling.
The Diggers combined street theater, direct action, and art happenings in their social agenda of creating a Free City. Their most famous activities revolved around distributing free food every day in Golden Gate Park and distributing "surplus energy" at a series of Free Stores. Digger events, editorial comments of the day, pronouncements, manifestos and miscellaneous communications were broadcast through broadsides, leaflets and posters distributed by hand on Haight Street. The Sutter Street Commune set out to implement the blueprint for action that the Diggers had outlined a few months earlier in 1967.
Part 2: The Free Print Shop and previous hit Kaliflower next hit : The announcement of the opening of the Free Print Shop was printed on silk cloth-faced paper, which the commune obtained from a large paper company in San Francisco that sold odd lots of paper very cheaply. Over the next several years, the Free Print Shop published a variety of materials, including flyers for other communal groups, free services, ecology groups, free arts groups, and the occasional political protest. California Historical Society's collection includes hundreds of Free Print Shop broadsides and flyers on various topics, such as "Free the Presidio 27," "Bring Huey Home," "Hells Angels Party," "The Non-Violent Revolution of India a talk," and "Gay Liberation Now."
In the spring of 1969, the Sutter Street Commune began weekly publication of the intercommunal newspaper previous hit Kaliflower next hit . The name comes from Kali Yuga, the Hindu name for last and most violent age of humankind. The title suggests a flower growing out of the ashes of destruction. For three years previous hit Kaliflower next hit circulation grew, until nearly three hundred communes received previous hit Kaliflower next hit every Thursday. The burgeoning circulation compromised ideals of staying small, local and anonymous, so publication was eventually suspended.
" previous hit Kaliflower next hit Day," as the name by which Thursdays became known, was the day of the week when previous hit Kaliflower next hit was bound and distributed to all the other communes. In the beginning, each commune that received previous hit Kaliflower next hit had a plywood board located in a communal space, where the messengers would hand-deliver the Kaliflowers. California Historical Society has one of the plywood boards used for delivery. A bamboo tube attached to the board held any free messages waiting for the deliverer to pick up. Members from other households would show up at Sutter Street, and later Scott Street when the commune moved. They spent the morning binding previous hit Kaliflower next hit , using a Japanese sewing method of side stitching.
Commune members lived in two successive Victorian houses for their first seven years. In the 1960s in San Francisco, the Redevelopment Agency tore down many Victorian buildings in Japantown and the Western Addition. Commune members would go into the old Victorians and salvage as much as they could. California Historical Society's copies of previous hit Kaliflower next hit were donated in an old Japanese steamer trunk salvaged from one of these abandoned houses.
Each previous hit Kaliflower next hit was printed on a Chief 15 and bound by hand. Every ten weeks or so, a commune member would gather a sequence of the issues and put them into an elaborately decorated envelope. For example, volume 4 has 7 issues, which are organized in order in a envelope silk-screened with images depicting the Free Bakery and Free Food in three colors.
previous hit Kaliflower next hit became an important mode of communication among the communes. It was common for people who delivered previous hit Kaliflower next hit to come back with stories of travelling from one commune to another and being fêted at each in various ways. The messengers would pick up announcements and ads -- always free ads -- that would appear in the next week's issue. California Historical Society also has a set of broadsides, posters and other printed matter distributed with previous hit Kaliflower next hit from time to time.

Scope and Content

Collection consists of a complete set of volumes 1-4 of the intercommunal newspaper previous hit Kaliflower next hit (April 24, 1969-June 22, 1972), with some supplements, and a large but incomplete collection of flyers, broadsides, pamphlets, newsletters, and other materials printed by the Free Print Shop between the years 1968 and 1972. There are also some miscellaneous related items, including one of the original previous hit Kaliflower next hit clipboards, and the trunk in which the archives were delivered to California Historical Society.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog:
Diggers
Free Print Shop
previous hit Kaliflower next hit
Sutter Street Commune
Communal living--California--San Francisco
Experimental theater--California--San Francisco
Free material
Gay liberation movement--California--San Francisco.
Hippies--California--San Francisco
New Left--California--San Francisco
San Francisco (Calif.)--History--20th century
Underground literature--California--San Francisco
Underground press--California--San Francisco


 

Series 1:  previous hit Kaliflower next hit 1969 April 24-1972 June 22

General note

The arrangement of the previous hit Kaliflower next hit collection follows as closely as possible the provenance of the materials as the creators arranged them in the trunk. The silk-screened folder covers have been emptied, protected in mylar sleeves, and placed before the first issue of the sequence of previous hit Kaliflower next hit issues that they contained.
Box 1, Folders 1-61

previous hit Kaliflower next hit , v. 1, nos. 1-52½ 1969 April 24-1970 April 23

Box 2, Folders 1-6

previous hit Kaliflower next hit , v. 2, nos. 1-52 1970 April 30-1971 April 22

Box 2, Folders 7-11, Box 3, Folders 1-5

previous hit Kaliflower next hit , v. 3, nos. 1-52 1971 May 6-1972 April 27

Box 3, Folder 6

previous hit Kaliflower next hit , v. 4, nos. 1-7 1972 May 11-1972 June 22

 

Series 2:  Free Print Shop Archives 1968-1972

General note

Each of the items has a small pencil notation included by the creators, often on the back of the piece, which indicates the number and the date of the piece.
Box 3, Folder 7

"Print-outs" [catalogue raisonné] undated

Scope and Contents

A list of the complete oeuvre of the Free Print Shop, compiled by the creators, including the title and dates of many items no longer available, or not included in the CHS collection.
Box 3, Folder 8

Nos. 1-2, 4, 6, 10-11 1968

Box 3, Folder 9

Nos. 14-17, 19-20, 22-23, 25-28, 30-33, 35-36, 40-43, 45, 48-51, 53-54, 56, 58, 69, 72, 75-76, 78-85, 88 1969

Box 3, Folder 10

Nos. 125, 128, 131-135, 138, 140, 142, 147-149, 153, 160-163 1970

Box 3, Folder 11

Nos. 167, 169, 171-177, 179, 182-185, 187-190, 192-197, 202-204, 206, 208-209, 213 1971

Box 3, Folder 12

Nos. 214-216, 218-222, 224-245, 247-252, 254-257, 259-265, 267-271, 273-285 1972

Box 5, Folder 5

Nos. 5, 7, 8, 9, 18, 130, 144, 265 (oversize print-outs) 1968-1972

 

Series 3:  Miscellany

Box 4

Earth/life defense and reclamation (oversize previous hit Kaliflower next hit supplement, rolled) circa 1970

Box 5, Folder 1

Our Lady of the Rubble and Kali over Uncle Sam posters (oversize previous hit Kaliflower next hit supplements) circa 1970

Box 5, Folders 2-4

Broadsides, posters, and other printed material distributed with previous hit Kaliflower next hit circa 1969-1972

Box 5, Folder 6

Good Times, v. 4, no. 1 1971 January 8

Box 6

Clipboard, with CHS contract clipped in as if it were an issue of previous hit Kaliflower undated

 

Trunk undated