A History of Fandom in 100 Documents

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	Herbert E. Goudket
1937	First mailing of FAPA, August	Don Wollheim and John Michel	The first fan apa.
	“Mutation or Death!,” October	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”	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	Nycon concom
	A Warning!	Dave Kyle	The yellow pamflet of Michelist agitprop that Kyle pubbed for the First Worldcon, triggering the first Exclusion Act.
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”	MaD Productions	The introduction of blog.
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.
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.

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