The Counterculture's Whole Earth Movement and the 20th Century Alternative Health Interest

The Counterculture's Whole Earth Movement and the 20th Century
Alternative Health Interest
Bernard Pyron     This is the original post of this article on December 19, 2011 on a blog which
went down recently.


I have been aware that the 20th century alternative health movement
had one point of its origin in the
very late sixties and early seventies part of the counterculture which
we called the "Whole Earth Movement," After the Whole Earth Catalog of
that era.

I was in Madison, Wisconsin at that time and was familiar with the
counterculture at the University of Wisconsin.

There were several movements then associated with the core
counterculture, the hippies and the drug movement, such as the art
bohemians, self psychology, feminism and the New Left.

So there were many people I knew in Madison who were influenced by the
counterculture and its associated movements who were not hippies and
did not use drugs, including myself.

The hippies were into sex, drugs and an anti-Christian attitude. But
by 1970 there was that agrarian commune movement as part of the
counterculture, which had young people going into the country and
starting up communes. Of course, many of these people were not
university people, that is, not those who had been students at the
University of Wisconsin or Michigan. But some were university people
and I was part of one network that included a smaller group, I call
the Judy Anderson Group, who did live in a rural commune in northern
Idaho in the seventies. No, I was never there.

In the early seventies I wrote a book called Forest Culture: Essays
In Total Human Ecology, which was sold in several Madison places,
including in the Whole Earth Coop on East Johnson Street. For a while
I lived a couple of blocks away from the Whole Earth Coop. I lived on
Lake Mendota.

The counterculture's back to the earth movement then included an
emphasis on nutrition, on eating fresh vegetables and fruit, and on
whole grains. It also was into some forms of food supplements, those
available in health food stores back then. This is one of the few
positive things of the counterculture.

It was one origin of the present alternative health movement. The 20th century
alternative health care movement grew over the years to become
somewhat of a challenge to the medical establishment. The FDA, which
is an arm of that establishment, is fighting even in 2011 to reduce the
popularity of the alternative health care movement, which tries to
keep as many people as possible out of the clutches of the doctors.

http://www.avclub.com/madison/articles/the-spirits-of-madison-activism-show-up-in-sign-fo,40427/

"The spirits of Madison activism show up in sign form...
Former site WHOLE EARTH CO-OP Established 1969
Whole Earth Co-Op stood at the forefront of Madison's natural foods
movement, promoting do-it-yourself resourcefulness, environmental
consciousness, and the benefits of local and organic products.
Incorporated in 1969, Whole Earth Co-Op was modeled after the Whole
Earth Catalog, a book aimed at providing its readers with the "tools"
and knowledge necessary to a lifestyle in harmony with the natural
environment and based on self-sufficiency. The store supplied the
community with low-cost and high quality organic bulk goods and raw
materials; books on ecology and DIY projects; and free, in-store
information work-shops on organic cooking, vegetable and herb
gardening, self-prepration for organic gardening and other topics on
sustainable living."
Read it and weep, Madison.
by Mark Riechers April 23, 2010

Madison's status as a progressive bubble has long been tied to
cultural hotspots scattered throughout the city. But unfortunately,
many of these progressive institutions have completely vanished. So
the Madison Museum Of Contemporary Art is presenting Milwaukee artist
Nicolas Lampert's project, "Then And Again,” designed to memorialize
these spaces by placing signs at six sites (on display from April
24-Sept. 26) remembering Madison institutions lost. The A.V. Club
investigated a few of them to find out if the new tenants would please
the ghosts of Madison activism."

I do not remember what the Whole Earth Co-Op building looked like at
817 East Johnsson Street in the seventies. From an online map of
Madison, it looks like the Co-op was on the south side of the street
between the north-south cross streets of North Livingston and North
Patterson. Bernie's Rock Shop is one business on that block which is now operating. In an E Mail message to me they said on December 20, 2011 that "Looks like that space located at 817 E. is now called THE PROJECT LODGE."

I went to the Co-op fairly often in the seventies, and when I was
living on University Avenue next to El Rancho, my older brother George
and our mother with Louise and Poppe came to visit me. I took George
to see the Whole Earth Co-op, because at the time, in the summer of
1973, he still owned his small chain of grocery and other stores in
South Texas. George looked about the Whole Earth Co-op and said they
were his competitors. Actually, the Whole Earth Co-op was one of the
earliest of the many whole food stores that sprung up at the
counterculture watering holes, including the hippie whole food stores
of Austin, Texas.

"Whole Earth Co-op (817 East Johnson St.)
Like the other co-ops that sprang up around Madison in the '70s, Whole
Earth emphasized local foods away from grocery store chains.
Specifically focusing on self-reliant baking, selling home-ground
flour, lentils, and oats, Whole Earth unfortunately closed in 1996
after volunteer support for the co-op dried up.

http://www.mmoca.org/aboutus/pressroom/NicolasLampertPR.php

"MADISON, WI—Drawing on the city's long tradition of politically
charged graphic design in public settings, the Madison Museum of
Contemporary Art presents Then and Again: A Public Project by Nicolas
Lampert. The exhibition, comprised of six signs created by Lampert,
will be on view in outdoor locations in Madison's downtown this spring
and summer.

Lampert's signs commemorate important institutions in Madison's recent
history: Lysistrata Restaurant, Mifflin Street Co-op, Whole Earth
Co-op... Each of these organizations contributed to the city's
reputation for political and cultural activism. For example, the Whole
Earth Co-op was one of the first institutions in the country to foster
living in harmony with nature and the benefits of do-it-yourself
resourcefulness.

Many of these institutions represent Madison's counterculture of the
1960s and 1970s, which contributed to the city's informal status as
the "Berkeley of the Midwest.” Then and Again reinvigorates interest
in our collective past for individuals who knew these institutions,
while also introducing them to a new generation.

Mifflin Street Co-op: 32 North Basset Street

Whole Earth Coop: 817 East Johnson Street

My note: The Mifflin Street Co-op was probably an earlier model
for the Whole Earth Coop. Both stores were counterculture-oriented
and owned and run by counterculture people.

But the Mifflin Street Co-op was right in the heart of hippie-Madison
and sold canned goods as well as bulk food. The Whole Earth Coop was
almost on Lake Mendota, a little east of the Square and downtown
Madison. In was in a little more upscale or less "ghetto" part of the
city.

Paul Soglin, famous former mayor of Madison, wrote an intro to the
history of the Mifflin Street Co-op:

http://www.waxingamerica.com/2006/05/history_of_the_.html

"The media always played up the colorful aspects of those times of
turbulence and creative fertility: the drugs, the riots, the
threatening new leaders, the perceived sexual freedoms and social
nonchalance. But these images, while showing one side of what was
going on, yield a stereotyped analysis of the sixties in our minds, an
analysis that never attains much depth or profundity for those who
lived through it. Those who didn't experience that era, tend to see a
simplistic, over romanticized fairyland scenario that is either
naively embraced or seen as naive itself.

The sixties were a time of affluence. Jobs weren't as scarce as they
are now. This made it easier for middle class students to dream, and
attempt to realize their dreams....

The Mifflin Street Community Co-op is one of those projects which has
an interesting history that reveals many sides of the sixties legacy:
its flamboyance as well as its skilled, practical grass roots
organizing, its visionary politics, vulnerable humanness, isolated
idealism and blatant hucksterism.

The cast of characters includes martyrs, hustlers, ordinary folks,
drug addicts, police, students, rip-offs and businesspeople. Some had
definite ideas, some were mostly confused, and not all of them might
seem interesting. This series of articles on the co-op's history will
attempt to review the co-op's stormy life, with an eye toward
illuminating the strength and depth of the counterculture, as well as
gaining increased understanding of both the co-op as a business and
part of our community...."

In the seventies I used the Mifflin Steet Co-op every few days to buy
much of my food, though at one point in that decade I lived next door
to El Rancho supermarket on University Ave.