Among the many collections of photographic history contained here in the Dumont Archives, one of our favourites is Brian Cere's portfolio of B/W exhibition prints from the Dumont Press Fifth Anniversary Celebration (with about 125 attendees, the first big Dumont gathering), held at the Chicopee farm in June of 1976. Brian produced a portfolio of 28  individually-numbered 11" x 14" archival black and white prints. Many of them have been scanned, restored and reproduced here on this website. Unfortunately, a number of those prints, numbered 22 to 28, disappeared about 14 years ago, and have not yet been found.

Since then, other copies of two of those photographs, #27 and more recently #25, have turned up and have been digitized to be included in the overall portfolio. Print #25 is still in the process of restoration, but we felt this might be a good opportunity to share it here, as a work in progress, and perhaps a bit of a prompt to help us locate the rest of the missing portfolio prints.

Dumont started working on the Iron Warrior, a publicaiton of the Engineering Society, in 1981. During one memorable typesetting session in 1983, PC gremlins infiltrated the shop and somehow managed to alter references to 'he' and 'his' in an article to 's/he' and 'her/his'. This exercise in correct ideas did not go unnoticed by the editors of Iron Warrior who were not amused.

Staff meetings were a regular, if underappreciated, part of life at Dumont. As the accompanying minutes show, meetings dealt with a wide range of issues not found in more traditional workplaces, including the taking of minutes itself. There was no one person tasked with recording the meetings’ proceedings and the sample shown here was done apparently anonymously. One can only assume the attendees knew who the droll scribe was but he/she has not yet been identified by the website’s editors. Readers with better memories and fewer axes to grind are welcome to reveal their choice of culprit. Hint: it was someone at the meeting.

By 1973, the staff at Dumont felt it was desirable to unionize to show solidarity with the workers whose causes they espoused and supported through their efforts. As a worker-controlled enterprise, however, there were complications in the worker/employer relationship that conflicted with the rules governing traditional union organizing campaigns. 

Thanks to the legal acumen of Brian Iler, it was determined that an employees' association was a more appropriate vehicle to accomplish the staff's goals and on December 17, 1973 the Dumont Press Graphix Employees' Assocation was born.

Shortly thereafter, the staff decided that it was better to be affiliated with an actual union and sought to organize under the auspices of the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CNTU). A union charter was issued on March 24, 1974.

One of the first steps in establishing Dumont was securing the typesetting contracts that would make the enterprise viable. To this end, Dumont started negotiating in the fall of 1970 with The Chevron, WLU's Cord Weekly, U of Guelph's The Ontarion, and Conestoga College's The Spoke. The first issue of The Chevron to be produced at Dumont was on May 12, 1971. The first issue of The Spoke followed on Sept. 18 and the Cord Weekly on Sept. 28.

In the fall of 1968 the Federation of Students, led by president Brian Iler, took issue with the university's plans for a new student residence, Habitat 69, saying it was poorly designed and unliveable for students. A mock up of a typical room in the residence was set up in the campus centre followed by a picket line on the construction site. Nevertheless, the university went ahead with its plans for what is now known as the Ron Eydt Village, named after the then Student Village warden.

Funding for the library became a major issue for the Radical Student Movement in 1969. Despite a surplus in the university's budget, the share of funding for the library had not kept up with other funding priorities and the RSM alleged the administration favoured spending on capital projects at the expense of operations. The RSM ogranized a "study-in" at the library to protest the funding disparities. Despite it being a peaceful protest, Chevron managing editor Bob Verdun was arrested for disturbing the peace by banging on a door. 

In 1968, as opposition to the war in Vietman gathered strength globally, Waterloo's Radical Student Movement staged a symbolic burning of a dog to protest the American military's use of napalm. The demonstration set the authorities' hair on fire until it was revealed that the dog to be sacrificed was a hot dog.

Although this document and its introduction were pulled from Dumont's 1975 archives folder, The accompanying report from the Contracts Committee was actually written and presented a year earlier. Apparently, based on the strong suggestions from Bob Mason and Steve Izma, you can revisit history and learn from your strengths and challenges.

Although Dumont Press operated as a worker-owned and worker-controlled cooperative, the official operating structure was much more complicated than that. Indeed, the actual working model changed several times over the history of the shop. The documents attached here refer solely to the formal legal authority within the entity known as Dumont Press Graphix Limited. More astute observers will note, however, that Dumont, while always striving to be professional and progressive, was anything but formal.

As the staff at Dumont Press continued to develop as a collective unit, as skilled workers and service providers within a unique environment of shared ownership and shared responsibilities, they attracted a lot of interest and attention.

Managing a cooperative workplace without bosses, offering technical and production support to a number of alternative and community-based publishing projects, working to build solidarity and trust and common values both within the shop and in our own community was a huge agenda. Even when things were going well there were massive challenges. New ideas, extensive dialog, long meetings, passionate debates continuing late into the night (or until Last Call at the Station Hotel). We were, after all, trying to change the World.

Dumont Press was a progressive social/political phenomenon, stumbling sometimes, but for the most part trying to be the change we wanted to see. It was no surprise then that a number of writers, political analysts and historians would be interested in telling the tale, and assessing the achievements. One of the earlier attempts to document and understand the nature and dynamics of the Dumont collective came from a good friend of the shop, Terry Moore in 1975.

Terry never worked at the shop, but his proposal to compile an analytical history of Dumont Press offered a sound and thorough framework of the life and times and debates we were engaged in. Terry felt he was close enough to the shop and the staff to appreciate the problems we were faced with, but "sufficiently removed from the day-to-day struggle to be able to place specific problems within an overall context."

Terry was well-known and highly regarded, staff at Dumont were happy to participate. Although several interviews were conducted over the following year, the overall work (like so many other good ideas in all our lives) was never completed, and unfortunately, has now been lost. The accompanying document here is the initial proposal, which we felt was valuable for what it attempted to accomplish.

As the '70s were drawing to a close, the collective at Dumont Press found itself confronting an increasing number of significant challenges. On a financial level, some major ongoing contracts (most notably, the Chevron) had been lost, undermining economic stability, the new partnership with Between the Lines was unsteady, leading to additional cashflow pressures, and desktop publishing was looming as a new technological challenge.

In addition, staff turnover had led to inequities in both technical and organizational skills, the political landscape was shifting and factionalizing, and all of these things compromised working and interpersonal relationships, and ultimately eroded trust.

On the other hand, nobody ever figured it would be easy. The shop continued to hold a strong level of community support, and Dumont Press was seen as a valuable resource by activists and progressive organizations across the region and the country.

Solidarity may have faltered, and these were indeed difficult personal times for many of the Dumont staff, but a strong effort and extensive discussions to try to address the big issues. This report from a Dumont staff meeting in December 1979, along with related proposals and discussion papers, offers a handy overview of the challenges, and the options to be explored.

This story contains several digitally remastered documents, scanned from the originals in October 2020, and later edited solely for spelling and punctuation, and then reformatted for Web publication. Raw scans of the original documents are available on request from The Archivist.

Many people worked at the shop over the years, some for just a few days, others for several years. This list is compiled from Dumont’s admittedly sketchy payroll records. Our apologies for anyone we missed. If you can provide further information, please add it in the comments.

Although the early days of Dumont Press carried a lot of excitement, there was no shortage of challenges... not ever, really. This letter, written by Winnie Pietrykowski (Lang in those days) in Dumonts first year of operation, attempts to build and broaden the discussion of how to make it all work. It was written around March 1972 and scanned from the original document in January 2021, and then digitally remastered, edited solely for spelling and punctuation and reformatted for Web publication. PDF copies of the original document are available, from the Archivist. 

Throughout Dumont'd history, staff at the shop were engaged in ongoing discussions about how to create a workplace that was equitable, efficient, respectful, engaging, democratic and fulfilling. It didn't aleways work out. Differences in experience, technical skills, commitment, vision, a work ethic and personal situations all brought their own challenges into the collective. It wasn't always pretty, often reminiscent of your basic shared-housework debates, but on a somewhat larger scale.

Happily, Dumont's staffing complement included a number of innovative and energetic young activists hoping to put theory into practice in a worker-contolled environment, good people with a vision (or several, actually) who wanterd to build a strong community within a better world. This position paper, written by Mary Holmes in 1975, proses a process for crafting and building that greater vision.

This recently-unearthed document from the Dumont archives takes a look at the ongoing struggle (discussion, conflict, conundrum, concern?) between the needs of the individual and the needs of the collective. Yes, there were so many levels to our worklives together.

Written in 1975, it offers a fairly valuable and timely reflection on what we were trying to achieve together:

"I see no reason to despair of the shop. All of the people working here are good people trying to build something important to them. Of course we have plenty of problems, plenty of areas needing improvements, but then we're (so rumour has it) human. And we often forget that we are supportive of one another even if we aren't patting one another on the back. There is some way to go before we develop the trust where we can offer criticism without fear of hurting but it's not so impossible for the future. Since I began at the shop my life has never been so 'full', and despite the confusion, hopeful for the future. I don't see why that, at least, should change."

Never ones to lose sight of a great idea, the planning committee for Dumont's sixth anniversary celebrations came up with a unique and allegedly easy-to-organize proposal: "Last year's party was such a blast! Let's do it all over again!"

And so, the plan for a new series of annual festve frolics was announced, and soon consummated. Memories are hazy and the records are spotted as to how many years these recurring, time-insensitive Fifth Anniversary gatherings actually took place (perhaps there are t-shirts out there that might reveal the truth), but we do know that by 1981, common sense had again prevailed, and that year's anniversary gatherings were duly and correctly acknowledged as The Dumont Tenth.

Any excuse to get together for music, great food, sofyball and political struggle!...

When Dumont Press was first getting established, the criteria for employment was fairly broad and general. Working in a non-hierarchical environment was pretty new to all of us, we had lots to learn and figure out. This relatively unknown document emerged from the Dumont Archives recently, apparently written in early 1974 by the noted Lennonist scholar and paste-up specialist Anon. This is a digitally remastered document, scanned from the original in December 2020, edited solely for spelling and punctuation, and then reformatted for Web publication.

Commitment:  a process, a sometimes elusive goal, a way of working and being, an important component to any collective process. Process was a big deal to the staff at Dumont Press. This document was part of an ongoing discussion.

By Ken Epps

What better way to launch the first official history of Dumont Press Graphix than by handing it out as party favours at the big fifth anniversary celebration in June 1976. Five years was once a long time (when we were younger), and it seemed like an appropriate and opportune chunk of time to acknowledge and commemorate with a good kick-ass part and a bit of serious reflection. This documant covers the latter.

Written by a young, once-promising math scholar, lured astray by a band of rowdy, fun-loving socialist typesetters, this volume, Dumont – The First Five Years, was a critical success, establishing the author, a Mr. Kenneth Epps of Waterloo, as a promising historian and a fairly decent proofreader. This is a good read.

Recently unearthed from the dusty bins of the Dumont Press archives, these ancient docket sheets provide provide essential clues as to how the newly-formed collective tracked commercial clients and production workflow. It was all learn-as-you-go, but it mostly seemed to work.

In an organization as complex as Dumont Press, consistency in standards and production techniques was essential. This recently-unearthed rare first edition procedures manual introduces the new Dumont worker to the finer points of typography and page design and establishes a set of technical and moral standards for effective workflow within a co-operative environment, along with a passion for excellence in the creation of a printed page.

After four months of set-up and initial operation, the workers at Dumont Press prepared to move into the next stage of production with an expanded publishing workload. This of course would require additional staff and a set of guidelines for anyone interested. Not quite a Help Wanted ad, but much more than your regular job description, Dumont's very first hiring criteria was published in August of 1971.

Note:  This is currently a work in progress...

One of the early treasures of the current People's History project, this half-forgotten and mostly unknown document was discovered in the Dumont Archives just a few months ago. It was written around March 1971 and scanned from the original document in August 2020, and then digitally remastered, edited solely for spelling and punctuation and reformatted for Web publication in October 2020. The Need to Print is a foundational document outlining the process and the vision which guided the establishment of Dumont Press Graphix that same year, and many more after that. The writing of the document was probably a collaborative effort. Gary Robins was one of the co-authors, but beyond that we are just not sure. What we do have here, however, are the roots to the whole Dumont Press adventure.