Doctoral Dissertations

Leo J. Weddle

Date of Award

5-2003

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Communication

Major Professor

Edward Caudill

Abstract

During the years 1960 through 1971, a period generally known in publishing history as the era of the "mimeograph revolution," husband and wife team of Jon Edgar Webb and Louise "Gypsy Lou" Webb owned and operated the Loujon Press. Loujon published four issues of a literary journal, The Outsider, and two books each by poet Charles Bukowski and novelist Henry Miller. Though Loujon published many of the Beat Generation, Black Mountain, and other avant-garde poets and writers whose work appeared in the scores of cheaply produced mimeograph publications of the era, Jon and Louise Webb published The Outsider and their four books in high quality, labor-intensive editions. These publications received at least as much praise for their quality as physical artifacts as they did for the poems and prose that made up their editorial matter. As such, the Loujon Press stands as an exemplar for the small press and little magazines of its era. The arc of the Loujon Press's functional existence is shown through extensive correspondence between Jon Edgar Webb and dozens of friends, acquaintances and advisors. As many of Webb's correspondents were fellow small press editors and publishers, and many others were frequent contributors to small press publications, this correspondence reveals the prevalence and function of networking within small press publishing during the decade of the 1960s. This cooperative model stands in contrast to the profit-based model of commercial publishing houses. Finally, the failure of the Loujon Press to survive the 1971 death of Jon Edgar Webb suggests an inherent flaw in Loujon's business model, that of failing to distribute assets, liabilities, skills and duties among a broader range of individuals. The day-to-day responsibilities of maintaining the Loujon Press were difficult for two people to maintain. They proved impossible for one person. Loujon, which has been chiefly remembered as a publisher of Bukowski's early books, was instead a broadly based publishing enterprise. This press’s ambitions, struggles, achievements and failures help to illuminate the broader small press world of the 1960s.

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