The Communication Company

Publishing Arm of the Diggers

San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, January to August, 1967

[Member of the Underground Press Syndicate]

The collective members of the Communication Company fashioned themselves the publishing arm of the Diggers. As such, their record of broadsides, manifestos, leaflets and street sheets leaves us a rich slice of Digger philosophy as it played out on the streets of the Haight-Ashbury during the spring and summer months of 1967. Many of the anonymous sheets came from the Diggers themselves; others had been penned by Chester Anderson, one of the Beat survivors from North Beach who gravitated to the new scene in the Haight. Inspired by the Diggers and their Free philosophy, Chester and his partners Claude and Helene Hayward set up a printing operation with two "beautiful" Gestetner mimeograph machines that had been nefariously obtained through the offices of Ramparts magazine. Everything (or nearly so) was free of charge. If someone heard a rumor of a bust, or had a good lead on free food, or wanted to announce a poetry reading, the Communication Company had roving reporters on the street who could rush at a moment's notice back to the flat where the Gestetners were kept. Within a short time, a new street sheet would appear, distributed by the volunteers who used the street poles as their community bulletin board.

I started collecting ComCo sheets, as we called them, in 1971. Chester once told me that he estimated there were around 900 unique sheets. To this day, I've collected around 350. My plan for these Web pages is to create a history of the Diggers out of the enormous archive of writings and publications they left behind. This collection of street sheets is a vital link to that history. I only hope they will bring as much pleasure to my audience as they have me over the years.

Note on the format: I have used the catalog numbers that I assigned to the Digger and Communication Company materials as I collected them. Thus, the very first ComCo sheet that I collected is CC001. (It also happens to be the first ComCo sheet that was printed, as far as I know.) I have included a title for each item, although in many cases this is simply the first line of the broadside.