Project: Mother Earth Reprint, from Jamie..

This is a request from my friend Jamie. I've removed her adresses, but let me know in the comments if you'd like to help and I'll give you her information.
-S
-------

February 25, 2007

Dear Friends,
As many of you know I have been working on historical political
project where I am reprinting and distributing Mother Earth. You
may ask what is Mother Earth? (and no its not the
journal/magazine you can find in supermarkets today)
Mother Earth was a political journal that advocated radical political
causes, labor agitation, and opposition to the U.S. government on a
variety of issues. Its subscribers and supporters formed a virtual
'who's who' of the radical left in America in the years prior to
1920.
The first issue of Mother Earth, with a print run of 3000 copies,
hit newsstands in March 1906. For a dime, readers got a showcase of
anarchist and radical writings on current events, as well as poetry
and fiction. Editor Emma Goldman kept the monthly in circulation
until August 1917, despite conflicts with the U.S. Postal Service
and law enforcement authorities who found its content "treasonable."
Goldman's circle of friends and associates -- especially Alexander
Berkman, a professional typesetter -- helped shape each issue at meetings
in Goldman's apartment. "My room was the living-room, dining room, and
Mother Earth office, all in one," she said.
By 1918, in a repressive wartime environment, federal authorities had
seized lists naming over 8,000 subscribers to Mother Earth, targeting them
for investigation.

I am writing to ask you to help support this project.
It is inspiring to read writing by; Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman,
Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Peter Kropotkin, Voltairine de Cleyre and more.
With the current oppressive political climate it is easy to draw
comparisons and feel the passion that sparked the writings found in Mother
Earth. No person interested in history or currently involved in radical
politics should go with out getting their hands on these writings. We all
should invest in keeping anarchist history alive. There are currently no
one else working on creating reprints of Mother Earth in its original
form.

Please give what you can. All donations can be tax deductible.

You can pay on line via pay at
XXXXXX (leave a message in the comments)

or snail mail at
Mother Earth
c/o J. Gooley
XXXXXXXXX
Berkley CA, 94703.

With every donation over $20 dollars you will receive all four new reprints.
With every donation of $25 dollars you will receive all five reprints.
With every donation of $100 dollars or more you will receive all five
reprints and a surprise thank you gift!

So where will your kind donations be going?
The story and the logistics:
I was able to find a purchase 22 of the original copies ranging from
the years 1909 – 1916. At a cost of
$20 - $250 it cost well over $2,000 dollars to acquire the original copies
(the magazine originally cost a mere 10 cents).
It is shameful and unacceptable that in order to retrieve and read
irreplaceable radical history it would cost this much. I decided
right then and there that I would copy and distribute this magazine
so that no one would pay more than 3 dollars again. I found an
amazing radical printer who was/is just excited about this project as
I. We did our first print run in 2005 with a 500 copies of an issues
from 1914. Distributors both large and small have gotten excited to
carry mother earth including AK press -
http://www.akpress.org/2005/items/motherearthvol9.
I have sent off to the printer four more original Mother
Earth’s to have printed in time for the 12th annual anarchist
book fair March 17th and 18th , 2007.
So this March there will be a total of five reprints available in the
original form, done with a letter press, by a leading independent
radical printer in Tucson AZ.
This current print run will be a count of 250 for each of the four
issues that I have sent to print. I decided to scale back the print
run to get more issues out there even though ordering less than 500
increases the cost per unit. The total cost with out shipping for
the reprinting of the next 4 issues is $1,500.00.

Total project costs are:
* Current Reprint Order (4 issues at 250 copies of each) = $1,500.00
* Reprint 250 copies of the remaining 17 originals = $6,375.00
* Shipping related cost ($50 - $ 100) from Tucson and out to
distros/individuals = $ 1,700.00

Total Estimates cost to complete project: $9,575


Thank You for You time energy, and making this project possible.

- Jamie Gooley