Scans of anarchist/sexual freedom magazine published in 1901


Shawn P. Wilbur blogs,

Lucifer the Lightbearer, aside from having one of the more provocative and wonderful names ever, was an important anarchist newspaper. Originally the Kansas Liberal of Valley Falls, and eventually the American Journal of Eugenics, it was, throughout its incarnations, it was concerned with marital and sexual freedom, as well as more strictly political aspects of anarchism. I have made a number of issues available in scanned pdf form.

Link, which points to PDF scans and partial transcripts. The sex stuff is interesting, and there's an anti-war love poem that pulls on familiar strings. But my favorite part was a rant about evil coal companies gaming the price of fuel and artificially constricting supply — the writer warns of a forthcoming peak coal crisis. Here's how it begins:

The time was in this country when the question of fuel was not one of absorbing interest to the great mass of population. The abounding forests furnished what seemed a never-ending supply of material for heating the dwellings of the people, as well as for driving machinery, smelting ores, etc., etc.

To monopolize and control this seemingly exhaustless supply of fuel appeared quite impossible, and hence the question of whether a monopoly of the supply of coal was within the power of the conscienceless speculator did not greatly trouble the average householder or small manufacturer.

Looks like this was also recently blogged on Reason. (thanks, John)