Staff meeting at Dumont... a really energetic crew. From left to right: Jane Harding, John Dufort, Michael Kelly, Lake Sagaris, and Kae Elgie.

It was an eclectic crew that came together to establish Dumont Press Graphix. A worker-controlled co-op, tools to publish community-based alternative newspapers and magazines, a resource to offer to progressive groups and publications around southern Ontario, and of course, an opportunity to put theory into practice. What dreamers we all were!

Here are some of the folks who facilitated that dream.

At the heart of Dumont Press Graphix was the typesetting machine. The Compugraphic 2961 was a state of the art (for 1971) electronic beast that automated (more or less) the process of turning one’s thoughts into readable images that could eventually be printed on paper. This was accomplished by first typing one’s thoughts on a separate machine (compositor) that produced a paper tape perforated with holes representing letters, numbers and punctuation that was then fed into the typesetting machine. The paper tape also included instructions about which font and type-size would be used. Inside the machine a strobe light and lens were situated inside a spinning drum surrounded by a negative film strip containing the character forms of a given font. By timing the spin of the film strip with the flash of the strobe, a roll of photographic paper was exposed to the various characters and a column of type was the result. By moving the lens inside the spinning drum closer or further away from the film strip, different sizes of type could be created. The film strip could have more than one font on it and the lens could be moved from side to side depending on which font was to be used.

This was not a silent process. The machine produced all manner of clicks and clanks and rat-a-tat-tats as the spinning drum stopped and started and the lens moved in and out and from side to side depending on which font and which size of type was being photographed. The noise wasn’t too bad if you were creating a long article using only one font and one size of type. For example, an article like this one. But it could get quite noisy if you wanted something with a number of different sizes or fonts. Each change was accompanied by some sort of sound as it required the parts inside the machine to move around. For example, an ad for a newspaper could include several different sizes of type and font changes. Regular, boldface and italic type each had its own separate character set on the film strip and changing from one to the other produced some sort of sound.

Usually, this cacophony of random sounds just became part of the background noise accompanying every day life in the shop. You got used to it and ignored it since you couldn’t do anything about it except close the door to typesetting room. Too bad if you were on compositor duty that shift. 

One day, I was working in the typesetting room and I fed a tape into the machine for processing. This time, the tape was programmed with a lot of changes, frequent changes, rhythmic changes, groovy changes! The sound was literally musical! Ho ho, I thought (at least, I think I thought that), this one’s a keeper, so instead of discarding it in the garbage as usual, I rolled up the tape and put it aside for safe-keeping. 

Soon after, Bruce Steele happened to be in the shop. Bruce was a freelancer for the CBC at the time and knew everything there was to know about sound. He also had his brand-new reel-to-reel tape-recorder with him. I motioned him into the typesetting room and made him listen to this special tape I had saved. He was only too eager to set up his machine and record it for posterity. It was one of my prouder moments working there.

You can imagine my delight a few days later when Bruce appeared on Peter Gzowski’s morning show on CBC Radio with his story of a musical typesetting machine in Kitchener complete with a recording of same. A national audience!  For Dumont’s very own typesetter! Oh, frabjous day! Fame and fortune, at last!

Well, a guy can dream, can’t he?

Alas, the musical tape is now lost to history, as is Bruce’s reel-to-reel, not to mention Mr. Gzowski. Fame and fortune did not follow, although Bruce went on to a long and illustrious career in broadcasting and TV. I’d like to think Dumont’s musical typesetting machine had something to do with his success. A guy can dream, right?

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.

I finished a Bachelor of Independent Studies degree researching the background of a specific legal case that determined the division of powers in labour matters in Canada; so broadly speaking, I studied labour history, labour relations, economic history and political ideology of the Left. Between that and being a denizen (and later champion – see dumontpressgraphix.blogspot.com) of the House of Zonk, Dumont was a logical next step. It was 1985.

In one year I saw a Dumont that was going backwards technologically, economically unsustainable and ideologically misguided.

After we put Dumont out of its misery in 1986, Deb Connors rescued Alternatives: Perspectives on Society, Technology and Environment, moved it to the Faculty of Environmental Studies at UW, and within a year had a grant to ease it into the digital age of “desktop publishing”. I was lucky to get in on the second year of this. The skills I learned in my six years of Alternatives – proofing, editing, design, marketing, grant applications, financial and business management – I still use today. But it was because of my experience at Dumont – under/unpaid, ruthless hours, denial of the financial acumen needed to run the business and pay the workers (months behind invoicing major projects that had already been expensed; paying people who no longer worked there to make up for their not being paid when they worked there, contributing to the people working there not getting paid…..) that I made sure that we earned a decent wage at Alternatives, got a modest paid vacation and dental benefit, didn’t work for free “because it was a good cause”, and kept on top of the technology of our industry.

Alternatives was stripped down to its core value – its copy – and was freed from all the dead weight of Dumont so it could be reinvented. It didn’t need the VIP, the SIM, not the “new” blind boards we got for cheap, the camera, dark room and chemistry, light tables, not the press in the back or the kitchen with its coffee grinder mounted really low so everyone would be equally disadvantaged using it, not the garlic drying on the desks, the countless elastics that broke bundling tapes, “check in”, personal politics, the good graces of Steve Izma to come and fix the VIP (“in my copious free time”) and general clutter and disorganization.

In retrospect, the Dumont of 1986 collided with the Dumont of 1971 and faced the same scale of technological revolution in 15 years that, like our lead-typesetting predecessors, we were unable or unwilling to navigate. We did not have the tech savvy of early members, nor was it available to us, or the vision that went with it. Without these, no amount of ideology could run the shop. And Dumont needed someone like me who understood that running a business effectively - even profitably - and having a social agenda, do not have to be in conflict.

Lasting influence of Dumont: I was cured of the Left and politics forever, and rediscovered plants – who have no ideology - for my enjoyment, inspiration, and eventual livelihood. Amor fati.

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.

• 1969

  • June: I drop out of my third term in Engineering at U of W, and join The Chevron. The first person I meet is Carol [Stevenson? later Carol Verdun], who pointed out that she had babysat me in the early 1950s. She had grown up next door to us on Krug St. in Kitchener. I remembered nothing of that (to my embarassment).
  • August: I'm accepted into the first year of the Integrated Studies programme, where I meet a number of people who were later closely involved with Dumont Press Graphix.
  • December: I submit a letter to the CUP commission, chaired by Stewart Saxe, that is investigating the conflict between staff of The Chevron and its editor, Bob Verdun. Verdun resigns the editorship during these meetings, and a collective (more-or-less) takes over the running of the newspaper.

• 1970

  • January: At the end of the month I move into 296 Guelph St. (now demolished) with a number of students from Integrated Studies, including Marie Kennedy, Cynthia Campbell, and Rick Degrass.
  • April: [I think] I begin to take photographs for On the Line.

• 1971

  • May: I'm invited, probably by Ed Hale or Gary Robins, to join the collective at Dumont, especially because of the need for people with photography skills.
  • June: I start work on the first issue of The Chevron to be produced at Dumont.

My memories of the Dumont collective are mixed up of caring and conflict.  I remember good times of laughter, play, trying new things, the delight and relief of getting a big job done well, and deep comradeship. I remember arguments, anxiety, and tension between specialization and collectivity. The years 1978-1981 were very difficult to keep the shop going as major contracts disappeared, bills piled up, deadlines and production suffered, and debates about direction, efficiency and commitment tore at the core of the Dumont community.

As said at a crucial meeting in December 1979 when discussing whether we’d restructure to stay alive, or dissolve the shop:

”We despair of ourselves and others to act efficiently and well without change....
We have to be careful to understand our past and how came here through energy of past Dumont workers.”
“It has been said that typesetting will be obsolete in 5 years. We should be planning ahead for our lives.”

My memory is not good of those turbulent times. Thankfully this Dumont People’s History project has unearthed the minutes of those debates, and a paper I wrote to try to describe what I was good at and could learn more about, what I could back-up and what would be a challenge to do, but needed attention.  I’ve attached it as a snapshot of life at the shop when we teetered between life and dispersal. 

What happened in 1980 for me, was a shift to part-time work at Dumont in  until 1983, job-sharing with Kae between Waterloo PIRG and Dumont.
In 1983 I moved to Toronto Island, where I still live.

by John Dufort

My first contact with members of the Kitchener-Waterloo community was at the 1967 Ontario Regional Conference of Canadian University Press (CUP), held at the Walper Hotel in Kitchener. I was there as an employee of CUP and as a resource person, having been a staff member for a number of years at the McGill Daily in Montreal.

The conference was put on by members of the University of Waterloo’s student newspaper, The Chevron, and I remember them as hard partyers. Later, I was pleased to discover that many of them were also politically progressive.

Over the next few years, through extensive travel and regular attendance at annual CUP national conventions, I got to make friends with others from progressive student papers across the country. I especially remember the CUP Conferences in Toronto in 1968 and Waterloo in 1969, where friendship circles widened and solidified.

In the late 60s and early 70s, I lived in a co-op house in Montreal, and received many a visit from these new friends, and I of course visited them in their co-op houses as well. I visited the legendary 192 King Street more than once, and marvelled at the ideas and joyfulness around the place.

I was really drawn to the Kitchener community, but when at one point I decided to leave Montreal, finance considerations led me to accept a job at UBC’s student newspaper in Vancouver. Contact was not broken, however, and I remember going to a Grateful Dead concert (warmed up by Commander Cody) with Gary Robins and several other visiting friends at the Vancouver Arena.

Vancouver too popular

Vancouver was becoming an impossible place to live, housing-wise, what with people moving in from all over. Having made and saved a little money, I yearned to go to Europe. But nobody in B.C. ever talked about crossing the Atlantic, so I thought I’d build up my enthusiasm by moving back east, and took the opportunity to join my friends in Kitchener-Waterloo.

Dumont Press Graphix had recently gotten going, started in part by ex-members of the Chevron staff. A few people were thinking of starting a community newspaper, and since I was on Unemployment Insurance and didn’t need a job, I started helping out with that, and as an unofficial member of the Dumont staff. The paper, The Kitchener-Waterloo Free Press, was short-lived, but wove me more into the fabric of the community.

However, my desire to go to Europe persisted. And in 1975, I had a ticket to go. After a cross-Canada farewell tour, I ended up back in Kitchener.

The morning I was to leave for the airport (driven by Gary Robins), I went to Dumont to make my final goodbyes, and noticed the latest copy of The Chevron (which had been put together at the Shop the night before, and couldn’t help but notice the headline: Dufort Goes to Europe (finally), with a picture of me coming out of my favourite snack bar in Montreal with a Pepsi in one hand and a May West in the other. There was also a story (fictitious), written by Rosco Bell. A photo of the front and back pages of the paper can be seen in another upload.

I, of course, was completely shocked that they had put this rather “in” story on a paper that would be distributed all over the University of Waterloo campus - just because they were the typesetters. Well, it turned out that it was just a special run of a few copies, done for my benefit. I was really touched.

I was even more touched when I was presented with sets of business cards, one in English, but three others translated (badly as it turned out) into three different languages, French, Spanish, and German. I was to be the Overseas Representative of Dumont World Enterprises. I also got a box of cards identifying me as a journalist, in case that might help. This amazing gesture cemented in my mind my desire and intention to return after my year in Europe to a life in Kitchener and a job at my beloved Dumont Press Graphix.

Europe and back

I spent ten months zig-zagging around Europe, and found an inexpensive passage home in early December on the SS Stefan Batory, a Polish ocean liner making its last trip of the season back to Quebec City. My plans were to spend Christmas with my mom and family in Montreal, and then proceed to Kitchener to see if I could get on staff at Dumont.

As it turned out, the annual CUP Conference was being held in Montreal over Christmas, so I dropped in to see who I knew. It turns out I knew lots of folks, including a contingent from Kitchener as well as one from Regina. I remember a great New Year’s Eve dance at the Students Union, followed by a “scoff” with eight or ten friends in Chinatown.

By that time, I’d already succumbed to the charms of an attractive woman who I had met at a previous CUP Conference, and she was working on me to go to Regina (where I had a number of friends) to “save the Students Union” from financial ruin and trusteeship at the hands of the University there. In the end, I promised her three months to go in, see what I could do, and turn things around if I could. So I went, and in three months, after having successfully turned the organization around, I was back in Kitchener.

I did indeed get on at Dumont, and also lived in a couple of interesting places during my time there. I am an alumnus of the House of Zonk and its city cousin, “Lanc”. But that’s another story…

I worked at Dumont for two years, during which several of my KW friends moved away, some of them to Regina, of all places. So when I got a call that my old job at the University of Regina was again available, and this time it would be “smooth sailing”, I decided to return to Saskatchewan, where I ended up living (both fulltime and later part time) until the present.

I have attended all the Dumont reunions I was able to get to. A few were not possible because of work. But they have been a good way to keep up with this wonderful community I have been so warmly welcomed into.

I am presently retired, and splitting my time between Regina, Montreal, and Puerto Escondido Mexico (which I have been visiting for over 25 years). My profile photo was taken on my 75th birthday at the Hotel Ben-Zaa in lovely Puerto Escondido.

In my life, when I got all riled up about a situation or issue (to the point of not being able to sleep at night), I often resorted to writing what would be likened to a “rant”, expressing the raw feelings I was having. Putting everything that was going around in my head down on paper allowed me to emotionally detach from it at least somewhat.

I present one such document (see below), garnered from the Dumont archives. As one can gather from reading it, there were philosophical divisions going on among the staff, and the direction and viability of the operation was centerpoint.

I was probably off-base in some of my assertions. For example, Dumont was able to continue to make a “contribution to progressive movements”, not least of which by being involved in the establishment of Between the Lines publishing house. But the need for the operation to become more productive continued to plague Dumont (see Alison Stirling’s “Remembering… 1979-80” and Cheryl Hendrickson’s “Class of ‘86”) to the end.

Though connected to Dumont for a long time previously, I became an actual staff member, I believe, in the fall of 1976. As stated in the document, I wrote the list of reasons why I did so in May 1977, and the rest of the piece in April 1978, after which I presented it to a staff meeting.

I was lured back to a job in Regina later that year.

In retrospect, I ended up getting a lot out of Dumont - technical skills, experience working in a collective environment, life-long friends. In fact, a couple of my friends, Gary Robins and Rosco Bell, had preceded me to Regina. I continued to be in touch with people from my days in Kitchener-Waterloo, and have attended as many reunions as I could. I’ve got to say the extended Dumont community molded my life.

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."

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.

Typesetting and closely related activities – like proofreading, pasteup, and camerawork – constituted the vast majority of work done at Dumont. In the early years, the unit next to Dumont (on the other side of the bathrooms) was occupied by Moir Press. We got along well with Geoff and Marianne Moir (can’t remember how to spell their names) and the two operations often shared jobs.

Sometime in the mid-1970s, I’d guess around 1976, the Moirs moved to a new facility on Gage St., but we continued to do typesetting work for them and sometimes we would sent them printing jobs. But once they moved out of 97 Victoria St., we decided to add the space to our lease, increasing our area by about 500 square feet.

One of the first things we did was build a second darkroom, intending to use it for processing and enlarging 35 mm film. But that took up only part of the space. We ended up purchasing an AM Multilith 1850 offset press, pursuing further the adage that “Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.”

Douglas Epps was the first person to learn how to use it, and hopefully at some point he will enlighten us as to how he managed it. I learned from him later on, probably around 1978. Eliza Moore, Bill Culp and Barb Droese also ran the press a lot, although during Barb’s time we also purchased a smaller AB Dick 350, which she was more familiar with, and which was quicker to set up for small, letter-sized jobs.

Probably about half the things I printed on the press were non-commercial jobs, especially for myself and various anarchist friends. I started to use the label Black Thumb Press, which seemed suitable to an anarchist needing to avoid leaving fingerprints on clandestine publications.

Running this press was probably the most difficult technical activity I've ever put myself through. It took a long time to get good at ink-and-water balance, to get the impression pressures right, and to fine-tune the ink coverage, especially across the full 18-inch roller widths.

In another article, I’ll display many of the posters, pamphlets, and postcards I printed on the press between about 1978 and 1987.

Here is the beginning of a collection of items I printed on Dumont’s Multi 1850 offset press.

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. 

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.

It’s been over 30 years since the doors were shut on Dumont Press for the final time. We might ask, why this current flurry of activity to examine our history together? Well, we can blame the pandemic to a certain extent. Our isolation has prompted many of us to reach out to old friends, colleagues, even former lovers. At the same time, we are coming to the growing realization that we’re not all still here on this mortal plane anymore. We have all lost good friends, and family too, and with that, their experience and knowledge, their wisdom, their values and dreams – and for all of us – cherished and important relationships.

Accordingly, many of us are noticing gaps in the collective memory banks. We can probably blame the pandemic for much of that as well, and now as we try to reimagine and rebuild our sense of a new normal, it becomes valuable and useful to draw on the lessons of the past. This 50th anniversary thing is merely a clever ruse.

Dumont Press had a huge impact on several hundred people and more. It allowed the assembly of resources, particularly around publishing, but also around community grassroots activism, and other related progressive issues. That’s all part of it.  

But Dumont was also an expression of the times, culturally and politically. It was one of those places where we were able to assemble a critical mass for a while, for a long while, for a number of years – all to be able to achieve our particular expression.

It was a place that attracted people who came from other parts of Canada because they wanted to become a part of it all, to work there with the rest of us, to learn and to grow. That continued, always shifting and evolving as the cast of characters shifted and evolved. As well, priorities shifted and moved in different directions as other opportunities presented, or as other realities confronted us.  

Hopes and Dreams

As I reflected on this Dumont anniversary project, I first envisioned a massive collaborative collections of photographs, but then quickly realized that there ought to be stories to chronicle people’s life experiences around Dumont and the informal extended family that sprung up around it. It should also include our collective social and political activities, and all the community-based initiatives that we supported and facilitated, both within our own community and throughout southwestern Ontario.  All of this is what lies at the core of a people’s history. 

Further to this are the questions: What did we learn? What did we contribute – and how has it shaped our later lives?

Certainly, Dumont gave us the skills, the tools, and the sense of where we wanted to go. It was that melting pot of activism, of new thoughts and new ideas, that carried so many people on to really interesting adventures that we just hadn't foreseen.  

All of those things became part of our collective and our collaborative history. What was the glue that stuck us together? Where were the ideas, whether it was how to paste up copy more efficiently and attractively, how to work more cooperatively – or the ideas and notions that eventually sent us off in different directions?

I am hoping that this collaborative history will be fun, informative and particularly valuable for rekindling that sense of solidarity, camaraderie, community and social justice that brought us all together at one (or more) point – and then helped to move us forward into a variety of professions, interests and initiatives to help make the world a better place.

It seems straightforward enough, eh. But I also think we all still have a lot we can learn from each other, and goodness knows, that’s more important than ever in these turbulent and chaotic times.

Just a few thoughts along the pandemic trail… I don’t think we have yet come to a full understanding of where we might go with this history project, and that, of course, will be shaped by all the participants eager to come along for the ride. I think we are all just trail guides pushing the bus uphill. We’ll have to see where it takes us all. Dumont was all about community and trying to change the world. We had lofty goals, and sometimes we screwed up.

We all know better now… Mind you, these are perilous times, and the task now is not just to change the world, but to save it. Storm clouds continue to emerge on the horizon, and I continue to feel there’s a tsunami of chaos and stupidity out there that will not subside anytime soon…

Paper trails: The Dumont Archives

Some of the information we recovered from the shop’s archives is tedious, and won’t be all that valuable to most of us, but much of the other material that’s been found and shared really helps put together a broader and more concrete picture of the kind of challenges that people were confronted with in a unique workplace. Some were resolved really well, some fractured relationships, and some resulted in people leaving

There may be situations where some of us made comments, and we look back on them now and think “What a goofball I was in those days”, or “how arrogant”, or perhaps at the time we just weren’t seeing the big picture.

As Phil Elsworthy often tells me, most of us continue to share the same values we always had. It's important to understand those values, how they evolved and adjusted and changed over the years, as we continued to do meaningful work in our lives. This is what keeps a lot of us going, to be engaged in meaningful work on whatever level, whether it's fighting racism or poverty, volunteering at the food bank, working with a local nonprofit, or participating with your neighbourhood community association trying to fight some self-serving and questionable development project.

We were cooperative. We operated collaboratively and collectively as best we could at the time, and our sense of decision-making, our view of what was going on around us certainly changed as the world changed…  and that continues.

How were we able to adapt to all of those different sociopolitical conditions and maintain a reasonable lifestyle, within a creative and supportive community? Sometimes that was really meaningful and relevant, sometimes it became less relevant or engaging, and some of us just moved on to other things.

Eventually, it all brings us back to that time-honoured, poetic and well-considered question, “Will the Circle be unbroken?” In these uncertain times, we’ll just have to see.

—Gary Robins (with Peter Lang)
April 2021

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The dates below are gleaned from payroll books, attendance lists at meetings and from names mentioned in the meeting minutes. Many people had extended times away from Dumont and many others did essentially volunteer work which has not been and cannot be independently verified. A comprehensive listing of Dumont workers appears here.

1971

A group of visionaries and optimists are busy finding income producing work, a place to do it, getting that place ready for the work and navigating the business world. These people include Ed Hale, Trudy Chippier/ Harrington, Winnie Lang/Pietrykowski, Gary Robins, Bryan (Notes) Anderson, Ron Colpitts, Liz Willick, Rod Hay, Bill Aird, Peter Lang, and Brenda Wilson. Steve Izma warrants special mention. He is the only person who was actively engaged at both the beginning and at the end of Dumont, weathering all the waxing and waning of the optimism and changing visions over the years. He is still involved in this website, perhaps an indication that there will be only one way his involvement with Dumont will ever finally end.

June 6: Dumont Press Graphix is incorporated.

June 18: Trudy and Winnie become the first employees.

August 1:  The first Dumont Hiring Call. 

August 13: John Stafford leads the pack.

September 10: The first of the annual fall group of new staffers includes Rick Astley, Mike Canivet, Cynthia Campbell, Dan Chabot, Philippe Elsworthy, Ed Hale, Steve Izma, Liz Janzen, Peter Lang, Mike Mears, and Nick Sullivan.

October 8: Dan was having such fun that Diane Chabot joined us just after Phil left, having built all the light tables and other useful items.

November 26: Peter, John and Nick all go on sabbatical; we will see them again sometime in the future.

December 1: Rick departs after only a few months. 

1972

January: Short term employment for Gord Cassleman and Ken Hanley still leaves us short staffed.

February: Reinforcements arrive in the form of Bill Aird, Bob Driscoll, Rod Hay, and Bob Mason.

March: Mike Mears departs, replaced by Marty Pollack but only for a two week work term.

April: Trudy and Bob Driscoll depart while Liz Janzen and Bob Mason go on their sabbaticals. Bill Cino comes in to replace all four.

May: John Stafford rejoins the group.

August: Ed Hale moves on to the bright lights of Toronto.

September: Mass hiring for the upcoming year: Lesley Buresh, Ron Colpitts, Liz Willick, Mary Holmes, Evalina Pan, Gary Robins, Reevin Vinetsky, and Brenda Wilson comprise the bright-eyed group of eager workers. We did re-acquire a game hardened veteran in Nick (Savage) Sullivan to help show them the ropes. 

October: Having trained their replacements, both Dan and Diane Chabot leave along with Evalina who lasted only one month.

December: Cindy, Bill Cino, and Winnie depart while Mary goes on sabbatical.

1973

January: Candace Doff joins us and Liz Janzen returns.

February: More recruits in the form of Douglas Epps and Jan Johnson.

April: A cruel month sees Jan depart after only 30 days service, along with Reevin, Candace, and Nick Sullivan, while Liz also makes her final departure.

August: Rosco Bell, Janet Stoody, and Susan Phillips get hired while Mike Canivet goes on sabbatical. John Stafford says his final goodbyes.

September: The annual fall hiring brings in Ken Epps, Joanne Kennedy, Alice Mills, Alison Stirling, and Jann Van Horne. Susan leaves after only one month.

October: Murray Noll joins -- better late than never.

November: Bill Aird departs, replaced by the returning Bob Mason.

December: A cold winter begins with the departures of Rod Hay and Janet Stoody.

1974

January: Sue Calhoun comes in out of the cold.

February: Neither Joanne nor Jann fear the cold so both depart the warm but draughty shop.

May: Alison Stirling departs for a few years.

July: Ron and Liz depart.

September: The fall hiring flurry sees Mike Canivet and Mary Holmes return from their sabbaticals, joined by first timers Jane Harding, Doug Roberts, Carol Beam, and Michael Rohatynsky. Carol shows up in the minutes for the first time although she may well have been involved previously. The experienced Lesley Buresh and Alice Mills depart, leaving the new folks with big shoes to fill.

1975

March: Ken Epps begins a sabbatical while Mary Holmes departs.

September: Claire Powers is the only fall hire.

1976

January: Carol Beam and Doug Roberts leave for new adventures.

February: Ken Epps returns, joined by Linda Lounsberry.

March: Charlotte von Bezold brings in her unique style.

April: Sue Calhoun and Bob Mason depart.

May: Brenda Wilson leaves and is missed by all.

July: Murrray Noll departs for the nation's capital and continues typesetting for many more years.

September: The fall hire catches John Dufort, John Hofstetter, and Moe Lyons.

October: Not to be outdone, Bill Culp joins us.

December: Rosco Bell hears the call of the west and inexplicably heads to frozen Regina.

1977

January: Charlotte departs but is replaced by the returning Pete Lang and Kerrie Atkinson.

March: Pete and Kerrie depart after wintering at Dumont; Douglas Epps heads west.

April: Gary Robins begins a leave of absence.

September: The fall call for recruits brings in David Arnault, Barb Droese, Kae Elgie, and Lake Sagaris. Gary Robins ends his leave of absence but just cannot ignore the call of the west and heads in that direction.

1978

January: Another busy year begins with the departure of Claire Powers.

February: It continues with the departure of Lake Sagaris.

March: And the departure of Mike Canivet.

May: Then even more with the departures of Linda Lounsberry and John Dufort.

December: The final departure for the year is Ken Epps. A short term replacement arrives in the person of Jim Morton.

1979

January: Short term replacement Jim Morton leaves but Shirley Tillotson takes his place. Alison Stirling returns to the fold, after wandering awhile.

February: Michael Kelley joins the firm.

May: David Arsenault (better known as Jacob) leaves to become the renowned Australian author David Arnault.

June: Eliza Moore is hired. There is no September hiring spree but ...

December: The outflow of staffers continues with Michael Kelley, Jane Harding, John Hofstetter, Eliza Moore, and Michael Rohatynsky all leaving.

1980

January: Catherine Edwards joins us but Kae Elgie departs.

March: Pat Ferrin stays only this one month. Shirley Tillotson also departs, along with Bill Culp, but Barb Marshall bolsters the work force.

April: Diane Ritza is hired.

June: Barb Marshall ends a short three month stay.

August: Joe Szalai joins us along with Larry Caesar.

September: No hiring blitz this year, however Larry says goodbye after his month and Barb Droese ends her three years at Dumont.

1981

June: Ralph Reiner arrives.

July: Becky Kane arrives.

August: Alison Stirling departs for the second time and Karen Luks takes her place. Alison remains as a volunteer and frequent part-timer for several more years. 

September: Mary Spies is the only fall recruit. Ralph Reiner departs after only three months.

1982

January: Eliza Moore begins her second work term.

April: April Fool's Day sees the departure of Karen Luks ...

May: ... but Marie Koebel celebrates May Day in grand style by becoming a Dumonteer.

July: Diane Ritza becomes a part-time worker while Eliza ends her second work term.

1983

January: Bruce Andor rings in the New Year by getting hired.

March: Lisa Willms begins a short stint at Dumont.

July: Larry Caesar begins another period of employment.

September: Lisa's short time ends although she appears later as a part-timer.

December: Mary Spies switches to part-time for the foreseeable future and Larry ends his second go-round.

1984

March: Greg Meadows reverses the trend by starting as a part time worker and switching to full time in November.

July: Paul Hartford decides to spend the hot summer in the shop.

September: Paul leaves as the weather cools and is joined by Diane Ritza. Catherine Edwards hangs up her pica ruler but remains available to be called in whenever needed. This is also the last official month for Steve Izma although he remains a valuable resource and part-time worker until the end. 

October: Joe Szalai ends his full time employment but pops in occasionally afterwards.

1985

January: The paying work seems to be very uneven and unpredictable so people come and go as the work load changes. Mary Spies comes back part time until August and Catherine Edwards comes back, also part time, for January, February, March, and October.

March: Bruce Andor leaves after two years. Lin McInnes and Kathy Zinger sign up for full time work from March to August.

April: Greg Meadows leaves after only one year.

June: Pam Andrews gets part time work until August while both Debbie Connors and Madeleine Clin get to stay until October.

September: Lisa Willms comes back for three months of part time work. Cheryl Hendrickson gets hired full time.

August: Larry Caesar is hired a third time, possibly a record.

1986

The last year of the struggle. Work is intermittent and hard to schedule. By the fall, discussions have begun about winding up operations and disposition of the collective's assets.

Debbie Connors returns for some part time work in April. Annette Beingessner does some work in that month as well.

New part time workers include Leslie Millard (Feb., Mar., and April), Daryl Marquette (Mar., April, and May), and Rebekah Abra (May and June).

As for the remaining full timers, Larry Caesar's third work term ends in April.

Debra Elson is a new full time hire in May while Chris Bechtel works full time as a new hire only in September.

Experienced Kathy Zinger is back for a few months beginning in April and Joe Szalai comes back in August.

Guiding the ship all year long are Cheryl Hendrickson and long time stalwarts Becky Kane and Moe Lyons.

From September 1986 to April 1987 it is unclear whether people were paid for their work. It seems that those months were spent taking care of unfinished business and the income was used to pay operating expenses and back debts.

After April 1987, all work was essentially non-commercial, performed by volunteers without pay, but collecting money to pay for the overhead of the shop. We believe that such work continued until sometime in 1989, when the shop was converted to a photography studio by Steve, Brian Cere, and Paul Hartford. That arrangement continued until around 1996 when the lease was finally given up and all remaining Dumont property was moved out.

Some records of interest:

Steve's longevity, as previously noted.

Moe Lyons has the longest, mostly continuous tenure at Dumont. She began in September, 1976 and was there until the end. 

Annette Beingessner served the shortest amount of paid time at Dumont. On April 14, 1986 she worked 5 hours and made $25. However, the government stepped in and took 61 cents as her UIC dues so she ended up with $24.39 take home.

Jim Campbell owns another dubious record according to UIC. His period of employment as our shipper/receiver began in June 1970 and ended in September, 1979. We can hope he never had to explain exactly what he was shipping during his first year.  

A Moral Imperative

Ah, yes, I remember it well - but not so very well (it seems) without the helpful prodding of girlfriends with a shared history from the early 1970s. Back then, if you didn’t work at Dumont you knew someone who did.

For some, Dumont was the embodiment of “praxis” or “theory put into practice.” For others, it was this funky co-op typesetting shop on the second floor of the old Mitchell button factory on the corner of Weber and Victoria Streets in Kitchener. From the very beginning (for me) Dumont Press Graphix had this air of spent enterprise, Depression-era politics, and mysterious past encounters. Its musty wood smell, rickety unreliable freight elevator, high-beamed ceilings, exposed piping and tall multi-paned windows (some of which were cracked or broken) hinted at something more durable and larger than me.

In the early 1970s, we were all searching for something. The world we grew up in (when we learned more about it) proved not that attractive or inviting. Our studies at university provided insights but not necessarily answers. How might we begin to make sense of the world we inherited? How might we reshape it or improve its systems to better reflect our deepest heartfelt values? Isn’t this both the challenge and the burden that every new generation faces? At the time, it wasn’t so much a choice as a moral imperative.

Bridging Two Silos

I arrived at Dumont by way of the Eby Street commune, a political collective composed of two separate houses that lasted less than a year (perhaps a little over 6 months). The commune was an ambitious venture, an experiment into shared living that went beyond co-op housing. We pooled our financial resources, scheduled household responsibilities, cooked and ate together, and met as a collective at least once a week to discuss possible actions that might reflect our commitment to change.

There were, if I remember correctly, 12 of us altogether. The individuals I remember well are those I grew closer to while at Eby Street or those I had met on campus at University of Waterloo: Betty Burcher, Vicki Mees (a frequent visitor), Randy and Joy, Wally, David Monoogian, Peter Warrian, Heather Webster.

While at Eby Street I met Bill Aird, perhaps through Peter Lang (my partner and husband) or perhaps at RSM (Radical Student Movement) meetings on campus. One of our ongoing, recurring topics was how to bridge the gap between the two silos of university and community. We were all in some way connected to university either as teachers or students and we debated ad infinitum how we might share what we were learning with the community at large, how we might work to bridge the gap between the privileged and working classes.

I remember asking Rod Hay, when I was very new to the RSM, why were we so preoccupied with the working classes when so many universities did not question their “ivory tower” status. I remember his smile and simple response: We are the children of working class men and women. We are numerous. There are more of us than there are jobs. To keep us off the street (so to speak) the “powers that be” made it easier for us to enter university. We are learning about ourselves and in the process we are learning about privilege. And because we are the children of working men and women we see things differently. The balance seems uneven.

Rod may not have used these exact words. But, this is what I retained. There were large numbers of we so-called “baby boomers” at Waterloo and we did not come from wealth. Our loyalties lay elsewhere. Outside the universities, Kitchener-Waterloo was largely a working class city.

On the Line

I remember Bill Aird as one of the key players in the community newspaper On the Line. I liked Bill, his thoughtful way of speaking and his passion for the underprivileged. I decided to help distribute On the Line in downtown Kitchener. I also participated in the Dare Strike (front page news in On the Line) as one of many students showing their support for the Dare factory workers. I became friends with one of the families involved in the strike and later rented an attic apartment from them.

As has been described in other articles on this website, On the Line was inspired by the insight that information is powerful and that the press plays a key role in sharing and disseminating information. It didn’t take long to carry this insight one step further: Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one! Owning the means of production was also one way to reduce costs for creative and independent journalism.

Dumont – A Precarious Tolerance

When I started at Dumont in 1971, I knew nothing about photocomposition, perforating machines, punch-hole tapes, paste-up boards, layout tables, waxing machines, proofreading, editing, photography, organizing payrolls, scheduling, and shift work. But I did know how to type (and yes to this day I believe I can type faster than Nick Sullivan, aka Nicky Savage) and I was a seasoned worker.

By the time I arrived at Dumont I already had several years work experience. I graduated from high school in Montreal when I was 16. Instead of immediately going to university I enrolled in Business College (the former Mother House at the corner of University Avenue and Sherbrooke Street West) and for two years afterwards I helped send my brothers to university. Mine, was a working class household from the Montreal East End: Catholic, dominated by a widowed war bride whose modest hope for her daughter was that she marry well.

I think that the black and white photos of Dumont’s early days capture some of my fondest memories of Dumont. It was a difficult place to work at times – not everyone shared the same work ethic or “praxis.” But, it was a world where creativity and best efforts were respected and encouraged, where we struggled to learn and to improve our skills, where techniques were shared and judgments (for the most part) withheld. Bit by bit, we were learning from each other and sharing – no matter how difficult or painful.

This precarious tolerance applied to our personal lives as well as our daily tasks at Dumont. We were all in and out of relationships, trying to make “head or tail” of marriage, couples, sexuality, commitment, personal freedom, individualism and collective growth. We took on so much!

It takes a Village to raise a child, it takes a Community to sustain a Collective.

A significant key to Dumont’s early success and certainly to much of its vitality were the relationships the shop established outside the workplace. These were centred around things like the Dumont Ducks (players and fans), the Food Co-op, the Awarehouse Books Co-operative, trade union support, Running Dog concerts, OPIRG, the K-W Women’s Centre and an endless array of communal gatherings, potlucks and festive gatherings celebrating a wide array of significant and/or eclectic cultural and political milestones.

It was this environment of communalism and co-operation that nurtured and sustained the social lives of the staff of Dumont Press, their housemates, co-conspirators, fellow travelers and assorted vagabonds through our years together. It was a time not without its share of bumps and hiccups, from relationship breakups to political discord to friction over individual work styles. All of these were part of the picture, but to a large extent, it was that sense of community that kept us rolling, and encouraged us to look out for each other.