Thorne Webb Dreyer is an American writer, editor, publisher, and political activist who played a major role in the 1960s-1970s counterculture, New Left, and underground press movements. Dreyer now lives in Austin, Texas, where he edits the progressive internet news magazine, The Rag Blog, hosts Rag Radio on KOOP 91.7-FM, and is a director of the New Journalism Project.
Thorne Webb Dreyer, 2009. Photo by Cynthia Bloom.
Thorne Dreyer (right) and University of Texas campus cop, October 1966.
Thorne Dreyer (far left) at first underground newspaper gathering, Stinson Beach, California, March 1967.
Cover of Space City!, Houston, Texas, Vol. 3, No. 1, June 8, 1971, with photo of the paper's staff. Thorne Dreyer is second from right in front row.
The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant group.
In specific recent Asian, American and Western European context, the term "underground press" has most frequently been employed to refer to the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s in India and Bangladesh in Asia, in the United States and Canada in North America, and the United Kingdom and other western nations. It can also refer to the newspapers produced independently in repressive regimes. In German occupied Europe, for example, a thriving underground press operated, usually in association with the Resistance. Other notable examples include the samizdat and bibuła, which operated in the Soviet Union and Poland respectively, during the Cold War.
Oz magazine, number 33
La Libre Belgique, an underground newspaper produced in German-occupied Belgium during World War I
East Village Other (April 16 – May 1, 1967)
Fatigue Press was created by GIs at the Fort Hood U.S. Army base in Texas.