Hammer and Steel Newsletter [five issues]

Mattapan Station, Boston: Hammer & Steel, 1964-67. Five issues of the mimeographed newsletter, various formats, generally 4 to 6 pages per issue; some issues are fold-creased, have handling wear or soil, or have uneven toning. Issues present are April, July, October 1964; January 1965; and Nov/Dec. 1966. Also included is a four-panel leaflet in similar format, publishing a message to the editors from a group of students at Oberlin in October 1967.

Homer Chase, a Maoist, created Hammer and Steel under the organizational name of the New England Party of Labor. Aside from critiques of the Communist Party USA and discussion of Marxist-Leninist politics, there is some early protest against the Vietnam War, the 1964 Civil Rights bill, etc. George Thayer wrote in 1968: "The smallest New Left group is the New England Party of Labor which publishes Hammer and Steel, a mimeographed sheet that some people believe expresses 'pure Maoist views.' The man behind the organization is Homer Chase from New Hampshire. He wants to have a hammer and sickle carved on his father's headstone and has been fighting the town fathers for years on this issue. 'This headstone seems more important to Homer than anything else,' says critic Communist Gus Hall. 'But he gets written up by the press as a big factor in the Sino-Soviet split.' For once perhaps Gus Hall is right." -- from The Farther Shores of Politics, 2nd edition (1968), p.433.

Cat.No: 248770

Price: $45.00