Ross Winn:
digging up a Tennessee anarchist
newspaper publisher

When I was living in Nashville a few years back, my historian friend Bob Helms tipped me off to the little-known existance of an anarchist publisher named Ross Winn in the town of Mount Juliet, which was just down the interstate from where I lived. Winn was a publisher of anarchist literature, mainly newspapers which he edited and printed himself, between 1894 and 1912. As if his Southern placement as an anarchist publisher wasn't unique enough, his story became something of an obsession as it began to unfold through steady research by myself and collaborator Ally Reeves. There had been, before this project, very little ever written about Winn, despite his friendship with more prominant radical writers of the day like Emma Goldman and Joseph Labadie. He and his family lived in continual poverty and Winn eventually died of tuberculosis, setting type on the new issue of his last paper on his deathbed.

This research project continues. Ally Reeves and I self-published a zine about Winn's life and the journey that our research became in the fall of 2004. You can get it through Justseeds, AK Press, or Microcosm Publishing. The zine also toured on the Bookmobile/Mobilivre in 2005, and is cataloged in several libraries in the United States and Europe. A collection of transcriptions of Winn's writings copied by myself and fellow researcher Ryan Kaldari can be browsed here. For more information or updates about this project: rosswinn(at)riseup(dot)net

Click here to read a current biographical sketch of Winn.

Ross Winn, Augusta "Gussie" Winn (Smith), and Ross Winn Jr.
(photo circa 1900)