Press Gang Printers and Publishers
I don't recall the exact dates these photos were taken but they would have been mid 70s, during either International Women's Day events or political demonstrations. The photo below looks to be in front of the old Sun/Province newspaper building on South Granville.
Press Gang was a women-only feminist and anti-capitalist collective as of 1974. They operated a printshop (offset lithography, bindery) that served many progressive political, cultural, advocacy, and self-help organizations, as well as cooperative businesses in Vancouver. Members of the Press Gang collective trained themselves in the use of printing equipment and graphic design. I occasionally supplied drawings and graphics for the group. Alas, the artwork for any of those projects has been lost.
Press Gang had a policy of rejecting sexist or racist material for publication. For clients, it drew largely from local feminist, radicalist, activist and community groups. The organization took financial chances, and often printed material that mainstream publishers would not. Throughout its history Press Gang published books primarily, but not exclusively, by Canadian women authors and artists. Their nonfiction titles addressed social issues including racism, labour activism, lesbian identity, lesbophobia, censorship, and women in conflict with the mental health and criminal justice systems. Politics were central to Press Gang Printers' mandate.
In the later 1980s, facing changes in technology, the advent of the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States, and increasing competition from larger corporate printshops created insurmountable financial difficulties for the printing collective, and in 1993 Press Gang Printers was forced to cease operations.
The publishing arm of Press Gang continued activity, yet were also squeezed by structural changes to the Canadian publishing industry and an increasingly harsh economic climate for Canadian book publishers in the later 1990s. In 2000, Press Gang Publishers formed an alliance with Polestar Publishers of Victoria, British Columbia. Soon after this, Polestar was bought by Raincoast Books. In 2002 Press Gang Publishers were pushed to declare bankruptcy. Most of their titles remain unavailable.
