The Digger Papers

The Digger Papers was a free publication associated with the Diggers, an improvisational theatre and social-activist collective active in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district during the 1960s. Rather than operating as a conventional commercial magazine, it functioned as an informal communications vehicle for the Diggers' cultural critique, political imagination, and experiments in community life. Its production and distribution reflected the collective's opposition to commercial publishing, conventional authorship, and the packaging of counterculture as a consumer lifestyle. The publication emerged from broadsides and leaflets circulated by the Diggers. Early materials were produced by using a Gestetner duplicating machine at the local Students for a Democratic Society office without authorization. These short sheets were later identified collectively as The Digger Papers and developed into small pamphlets containing poetry, psychedelic artwork, polemical essays, aphorisms, and practical or satirical commentary on life in the Haight-Ashbury scene. The papers were generally distributed free of charge, consistent with the Diggers' wider emphasis on free food, communal resources, and resistance to the commercial exploitation of youth culture. The publication's tone was deliberately irreverent and often confrontational. It mocked what its contributors regarded as the more marketable or passive forms of the counterculture, including attitudes associated with the Haight-Independent Proprietors, Timothy Leary, and Richard Alpert. One early paper challenged the romanticized imagery surrounding psychedelic culture rather than simply celebrating it. The Digger Papers therefore occupied a distinctive position within the San Francisco underground press: it was less a stable editorial institution than an evolving collective intervention in public space and cultural debate. Many pieces were published without conventional bylines. Some used pseudonyms, including “George Metevsky,” a name derived from the notorious bomber George Metesky. This approach reinforced the collective character of the publication and made individual authorship secondary to the circulation of ideas. The papers are also associated with phrases that entered wider countercultural vocabulary, including “Do your own thing” and “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Their later popularity illustrates the tension at the heart of the Diggers' work: language created as an anti-commercial challenge could eventually be detached from its original context and absorbed into popular culture. In early 1967, Chester Anderson and Claude and Helene Hayward helped establish the Communications Company, commonly abbreviated as ComCo, as the Diggers' publishing arm. ComCo assumed responsibility for producing The Digger Papers and used two Gestetner mimeograph machines obtained through the offices of Ramparts magazine. This arrangement gave the publication a more organized means of reproduction while preserving its low-cost, decentralized, and noncommercial character. The final known issue appeared in August 1968. It included a reprint of Richard Brautigan's poem “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace,” linking the publication to the period's literary and technological anxieties. The Digger Papers ended as a periodical in 1968, but surviving issues and archives remain important records of San Francisco's 1960s counterculture, the underground press, and alternative approaches to publishing. The title is best understood as a historical publication and cultural artifact rather than an active contemporary media brand.

The Digger Papers developed within the Diggers, an improvisational theatre and community-action collective active in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district during the 1960s. The Diggers rejected the idea that cultural dissent should be separated from everyday life. Their activities included public performances, free-food initiatives, distribution of printed materials, and experiments in creating noncommercial forms of social exchange. The publication became one of their principal means of communicating ideas and intervening in the rapidly changing Haight-Ashbury scene. The earliest materials were broadsides and leaflets. They were produced by using a Gestetner duplicating machine at the local Students for a Democratic Society office without authorization. These sheets were eventually grouped under the name The Digger Papers. The format expanded from isolated leaflets into small pamphlets, allowing the collective to combine poetry, psychedelic imagery, essays, jokes, slogans, and criticism. The resulting publication was free rather than sold through ordinary retail channels, reflecting the Diggers' opposition to the commodification of culture and their preference for direct circulation. The papers did not present a conventional editorial voice. Articles were rarely signed, and some used pseudonyms, including “George Metevsky,” a reference to the bomber George Metesky. Anonymous and collective authorship helped make the publication an extension of Digger activity rather than a platform built around individual writers. Peter Berg was among the regular contributors. The content frequently challenged the optimistic or commercialized image of the psychedelic movement. It criticized figures and organizations viewed by the Diggers as representative of a more respectable, marketable, or passive counterculture, including the Haight-Independent Proprietors, Timothy Leary, and Richard Alpert. The Digger Papers also circulated language that later became widely recognized beyond the original San Francisco context. Phrases such as “Do your own thing” and “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” are associated with the publication and the broader Digger milieu. Their subsequent movement into popular usage demonstrates how countercultural expressions could be detached from radical collective practices and incorporated into mainstream culture. A significant organizational change occurred in early 1967, when Chester Anderson and Claude and Helene Hayward helped establish the Communications Company, or ComCo. It served as the Diggers' publishing arm and assumed responsibility for The Digger Papers. ComCo used two Gestetner mimeograph machines obtained through the offices of Ramparts magazine. This gave the group greater capacity to reproduce its material while maintaining the publication's inexpensive, improvised, and decentralized character. The final issue was published in August 1968. It reprinted Richard Brautigan's poem “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace,” a selection that connected the publication with contemporary literary experimentation and concerns about technology, nature, and social organization. The periodical then ceased publication. Surviving issues and archival collections have continued to document the Diggers' distinctive approach to underground publishing, in which print was used not merely to report on a movement but to enact its values of free distribution, collective creation, and resistance to established cultural institutions.

1. 1968Final issue

   The last issue is published in August, featuring a reprint of a Richard Brautigan poem.

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2. 1967Communications Company is formed

   Chester Anderson and Claude and Helene Hayward help establish ComCo, which becomes the Diggers' publishing arm and takes over production of the papers.

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3. 1965The publication begins

   The Diggers' broadsides and leaflets develop into The Digger Papers, a free pamphlet publication associated with San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district.

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A free, collectively produced underground publication that used poetry, visual art, satire, and essays to challenge the commercialization and conventional assumptions of 1960s counterculture.

• The Digger PapersUnderground publication1965

  A free series of broadsides and small pamphlets produced by the Diggers in San Francisco. Issues combined poetry, psychedelic artwork, essays, satire, and commentary on the Haight-Ashbury counterculture. The publication generally avoided conventional bylines and treated print as a tool for collective expression and direct distribution rather than as a commercial product. Production later moved to the Communications Company, which used Gestetner mimeograph machines to reproduce the material. The series ended with its final known issue in August 1968.

• 1968Publication endsOther

  The Digger Papers had circulated as part of the Diggers' short-lived San Francisco countercultural publishing activity.

  What changed. The last known issue was published in August 1968.

  Aftermath. The title became a historical artifact and archival record of the 1960s underground press.

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• 1967Production is centralized in the Communications CompanyStrategy

  The Digger Papers had originated as improvised broadsides and leaflets produced with borrowed or unauthorized duplicating access.

  What changed. Chester Anderson and Claude and Helene Hayward helped form the Communications Company as the Diggers' publishing arm. ComCo assumed responsibility for publication and used two Gestetner mimeograph machines.

  Aftermath. The change provided a more organized production base while preserving the publication's free and noncommercial distribution model.

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• 1968Final issue of The Digger Papers is published

  The last known issue appeared in August 1968 and included a reprint of Richard Brautigan's poem “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.”

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• 1967Communications Company takes over publication

  Chester Anderson and Claude and Helene Hayward helped form the Communications Company, which became the Diggers' publishing arm and continued producing The Digger Papers with mimeograph equipment.

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• 1965The Digger Papers begins publication in San Francisco

  The Diggers' broadsides and leaflets developed into The Digger Papers, a free publication circulated in the Haight-Ashbury district and containing poetry, psychedelic art, essays, and countercultural commentary.

  Product launch
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1. The Digger Papers