A History of Fandom in 100 Documents
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What hundred documents tell the story of fandom? We're not talking history books here, but documents and articles which themselves formed our culture from the earliest days until today.
The list is just starting.
| Year | Document | Author/Editor | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1926 | Amazing Stories (April) | Hugo Gernsback | Inaugural issue of the first science-fiction magazine. |
| 1927 | First Fan Letter with Address, Amazing Stories (August) |
John Mackay | The first letter written to a prozine letter column published with a fan's address, a necessary baby step towards fandom. |
| 1930 | First ish of The Planet (July) | Allen Glasser | The clubzine of The Scienceers, considered the First Fanzine. |
| 1934 | Announcement of the formation of the Science Fiction League, Wonder Stories (May) |
Hugo Gernsback | The SFL, probably the single most important fan organization of the 1930s, advanced the first protofans’ collective self awareness. |
| Announcement of the Society for the Prevention of Wire Staples in Science Fiction Magazines, Astounding Stories (November) | Bob Tucker | Launch of the Great Staple War. | |
| 1936 | Photo of fans at the First Convention (October 22) | Herbert E. Goudket | |
| 1937 | First mailing of FAPA (August) | Don Wollheim and John Michel | The first fan apa. |
| “Mutation or Death!” (October 30) | John B. Michel | Transcript of the speech delivered by Donald A. Wollheim for Michel at the Third Eastern Science Fiction Convention, Philadelphia: A Michelist manifesto. | |
| 1938 | “Science Fiction Internationale” (May 29) | John B. Michel | Michelist anthem song sheet passed out at the Newark Convention — the first filksong? |
| S. F. Checklist 1 (October) | R. D. and F. N. Swisher | Launch of a project of making a listing of all the fanzines that ever appeared anywhere, now being continued on this site. | |
| 1939 | Program Book of the First Worldcon (July 2) | Nycon concom | |
| A Warning! (July 2) | Dave Kyle | The yellow pamflet of Michelist agitprop that Kyle pubbed for the First Worldcon, triggering the first Exclusion Act. | |
| Loc in the lettercol of the August 1939 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories (published in July) | Neil A. Lafferty, Jr. | It begins: “Gosh! Wow! Boyoh-boy!, and so forth and so on.” | |
| “Amazing! Astounding!” (July 10) | Time Magazine | Mundane news coverage of the SF field and NyCon, which commented,” “Scientifiction's fans, mostly boys of 16 to 20, are the jitterbugs of the pulp magazine field” and drew attention to the letter above. | |
| 1948 | Ah! Sweet Idiocy! | Francis Towner Laney | FTL’s gafiation fanoir. |
| 1949 | “Introduction to Roscoism”, Spacewarp 27 (June 1949) | Art Rapp | The Word of Roscoe. |
| 1954 | The Enchanted Duplicator | Walt Willis and Bob Shaw | Possibly the most reprinted work in fandom, The Enchanted Duplicator is an allegory which crystallized a particular image of what fandom ought to be and gave shape to fandom's future. |
| 1955 | The Neo-Fan's Guide | Bob Tucker | Tucker’s essential introduction to fandom. |
| “The March of Slime” (April) | MaD Productions | The introduction of blog, presented at Cytricon I. | |
| 1960 | Who Killed Science Fiction? | Earl and Nancy Kemp | Results of a poll on the subject by 71 BNFs and pros, aka SaFari Annual 1. |
| Ex-Inchmery Fan Diary | Vin¢ Clarke | Clarke’s gafiation zine, covering Inchmery Fandom and its dissolution plus 1950s fandom in the U.K. and U.S., TAFF Wars and the WSFS, Inc., brangle. | |
| 1961 | Why Is a Fan? | Earl and Nancy Kemp | Dozens of fans' opinions on what brought people into fandom, aka SaFari Annual 2. |
| 1963 | The Great Breen Boondoggle, or All Berkeley Is Plunged into War | Bill Donaho | The first public sally in the Breendoggle. |
| 1965 | Con-Committee Chairman's Guide | George Scithers | A long document describing how Scithers ran Discon I, the 1963 Worldcon. It is noteworthy because it describes in interesting detail how a Worldcon was run back when they were still small. |
| 1971 | “An Open Letter to the British Tolkien Society” | Steven Parry and Grahame Lamb | Suggests the creation of local groups (smials) of the Tolkien Society. |
| 1974 | Whichness of the Why | Bill Fesselmeyer | A poll on alternative methods of limiting attendance at Worldcon, specifically MidAmeriCon, in reaction to the rising Alarm and Despondency at the increase in convention sizes in the 1970s. |
| 1975 | MidAmeriCon Progress Report 2 | Tom Reamy | Along with stunningly high production values, this PR is notable for two articles, MAC Chairman Ken Keller’s “You Think You’ve Got Trouble,” announcing MAC’s policies to sharply escalate membership fees culminating in at-the-door rates of an unheard of $50, and to eliminate any programming on special interest areas of comics, Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, and the Society for Creative Anachronism — as fandoms that had “out grown the need of a ‘shelter’ under the wing of the World Science Fiction Convention” and were “independent and have their own conventions (or large gatherings) and exist completely apart from mainstream science fiction fandom” — and “How the GRINCH Stole Worldcon” by Bill "The Galactic" Fesselmeyer, a classic of smoffish faan fiction. |
| 2001 | The CONTACT! Fanthology (October) | Dick and Leah Smith | 72 fans on how they made contact with fandom, aka Spirits of Things Past 4, pubbed for Ditto 14/FanHistoricon 11. |
| 2024 | 2023 Hugos Nominations Statistics | Dave McCarty and the Chengdu Worldcon Hugo Awards subcommittee |
| Fanhistory | 1926— |
| This is a fanhistory page. Please add more detail. |
