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Brand (Stewart) papers
M1237
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Title: Stewart Brand papers
creator:
Brand, Stewart
source:
Brand, Stewart
Identifier/Call Number: M1237
Physical Description:
53 Linear Feet
(120 manuscript boxes, 4 flat boxes, 17 seven-inch reels, 15 audiocassettes, 140 micro-cassettes, 3 hard disk cartridges)
Date (inclusive): 1954-2000
Abstract: The Steward Brand papers contains correspondence, personal journals, manuscripts, photographs, project records, articles,
and publications.
Physical Location: Special Collections materials are stored offsite and must be paged 36 hours in advance. For more information on paging collections,
see the department's website: http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/spc.html.
Writer, editor, entrepreneur, and futurist Stewart Brand was born December 14, 1938 in Rockford, Illinois. He attended Phillips
Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and attended Stanford University where he studied biology with Paul Ehrlich. After graduating
he joined the U.S. Army and was trained as a parachutist and later photographer. He studied design at the San Francisco Art
Institute and photography at San Francisco State. In 1962, Brand took his first LSD trip in 1962 under the guidance of James
Fadiman at the International Foundation for Advanced Study in Menlo Park. In the mid-60s Brand co-produced the Trips Festival
as well as other happenings such as America Needs Indians. He was loosely associated with the Merry Pranksters, USCO, and
other countercultural groups, and spent much of the 1960s traveling and visiting communal experiments.
Brand created the original Whole Earth Catalog in 1968 to provide practical information on tools that would be useful for
people creating and living in communes. The Catalog went on to gain wide popularity. In 1972 he also co-founded the Point
Foundation, the non-profit organization that runs all Whole Earth activities. Between 1974-1985, Brand founded, edited, and
published CoEvolution Quarterly, which continued as the Whole Earth Review (1985), then later as the Whole Earth Magazine.
Brand was also the editor-in-chief of the short-lived Whole Earth Software Catalog, and in 1984 he organized the first Hacker's
Conference in Marin County. The following year, Brand and Larry Brilliant founded The WELL ("Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link"),
a prototypical online community inspired by Douglas Engelbart's Augmentation work; Brand had been a camera operator for "The
Mother of All Demos" in 1968.
After getting involved with MIT's Media Lab and organizing strategic planning conferences for various corporations, Brand
was one of the founders of the business consulting firm Global Business Network. GBN's parent company the Monitor Group was
acquired by Deloitte in 2013. Brand's most recent venture has been with the Long Now Foundation, which promotes long-term
thinking through a number of projects including the construction of a millenial clock.
His books include
The Clock Of The Long Now (1999),
How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built (1994) and
The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT (1987). In
Two Cybernetic Frontiers (1974), which focused on Gregory Bateson and cutting-edge computer science, he coined the term "personal computer." His most
recent book is 2009's
Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.
The Stewart Brand papers are arranged in the following order:
Series I, Boxes 1-16: Correspondence, 1954-1994
Series II, Boxes 17-22: Personal notebooks, datebooks, address books, 1955-1999
Series III, Boxes 23-29: Biographical, 1952-1997; Series IV, Boxes 30-107: Projects, 1967-2000
Series V, Boxes 108-116: Miscellaneous (includes newspaper/magazine articles)
Series VI, Boxes 117-119: Media
Series VII, Boxes 120-124: Business records, 1962-1993 ((RESTRICTED)
Open for research, with the exception of Series VII: Business Records, which are closed until Brand's death. Note that material
must be requested at least 36 hours in advance of intended use. Audiovisual materials are not available in original format,
and must be reformatted to a digital use copy. Selected audiovisual material has been transferred and is available digitally.
While Special Collections is the owner of the physical and digital items, permission to examine collection materials is not
an authorization to publish. These materials are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Any transmission
or reproduction beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the owners of rights, heir(s) or assigns.
[identification of item], Stewart Brand Papers (M1237). Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University
Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Stewart Brand, 2001. Accessions 2001-163, 2017-252, 2017-331, and 2017-332.
Stanford Special Collections holds many collections related to Brand, including the following:
Interview with Stewart Brand in Bucky Conversations: Conversations on the Life and Work of an Enigmatic Genius, 2002-2003
(M1915)
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/fr963yt9378
Gerd Stern papers (M1954)
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/10176361
Zach Stewart papers, 1964-1974 (M2206)
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/11953459
Whole Earth Catalog records, 1969-1986 (M1045)
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/4320145
Point foundation records, 1964-1975 (M1441)
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/5704614
Global Business Network records, circa 1988-2012 (M1958)
Closed until processed
Fred Turner papers, 1968-2011 (SC1146)
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/10287606
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Moss, Rose
How Buildings Learn
Kesey, Ken
Santa Fe Institute (Santa Fe, N.M.)
Coevolution Quarterly
Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Engelbart, D. C., 1925-2013
Brando, Marlon
Brand, Stewart
Whole Earth Catalog
Fuller, R. Buckminster (Richard Buckminster)
Brand, Stewart
Sausalito (Calif.)
Western Behavioral Sciences Institute
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
Learning Conference
Global Business Network
Long Now Foundation
Point (Foundation)