Old Mole
Encyclopedia
Old Mole was a radical New Left
oriented underground newspaper
published in Cambridge, Massachusetts
from September 1968 to September 1970. Printed biweekly in a 16-page tabloid format, it was based for most of its existence in a storefront and basement office on Brookline Street in Central Square
. Selling for 15 cents (later raised to a quarter), 47 issues were published in all, with press runs averaging 8000 to 10,000 copies. Subscriptions were free to prisoners and soldiers.
Old Mole was produced by a floating staff of 20 to 30 volunteers, with no more than 4 paid staffers. The staff was split evenly between men and women, almost all white, most of them college graduates and many connected with nearby Harvard University
. About half of the paper's news coverage was local. It was more politically oriented than many of the more hippie, psychedelically oriented underground papers of the period, and its politics tended to reflect the positions of the SDS
chapter at Harvard, supporting the Harvard student strike in 1969.
The paper's name came from a quotation from Karl Marx which appeared in the masthead: "We recognize our old friend, our old mole, who knows so well how to work underground, suddenly to appear: the revolution."
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
oriented underground newspaper
Underground press
The underground press were the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and other western nations....
published in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
from September 1968 to September 1970. Printed biweekly in a 16-page tabloid format, it was based for most of its existence in a storefront and basement office on Brookline Street in Central Square
Central Square (Cambridge)
Central Square is an area in Cambridge, Massachusetts centered on the junction of Massachusetts Avenue, Prospect Street and Western Avenue. , formed by the junction of Massachusetts Avenue, Columbia Street, Sidney Street and Main Street, is also considered a part of the Central Square area...
. Selling for 15 cents (later raised to a quarter), 47 issues were published in all, with press runs averaging 8000 to 10,000 copies. Subscriptions were free to prisoners and soldiers.
Old Mole was produced by a floating staff of 20 to 30 volunteers, with no more than 4 paid staffers. The staff was split evenly between men and women, almost all white, most of them college graduates and many connected with nearby Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. About half of the paper's news coverage was local. It was more politically oriented than many of the more hippie, psychedelically oriented underground papers of the period, and its politics tended to reflect the positions of the SDS
Students for a Democratic Society (1960 organization)
Students for a Democratic Society was a student activist movement in the United States that was one of the main iconic representations of the country's New Left. The organization developed and expanded rapidly in the mid-1960s before dissolving at its last convention in 1969...
chapter at Harvard, supporting the Harvard student strike in 1969.
The paper's name came from a quotation from Karl Marx which appeared in the masthead: "We recognize our old friend, our old mole, who knows so well how to work underground, suddenly to appear: the revolution."