Mark Shulzinger:  Welcome!  This is our panel on the history of First Fandom.  I’d like to introduce everyone.  This is Sam Moskowitz, author of THE IMMORTAL STORM and other classics.  This is Julie Schwartz, long-time editor of Batman for DC Comics.  This is Dave Kyle, who has done more things for science fiction than anyone can ever remember, and has been very active ever since the first days.  This is Ray Beam, president of First Fandom and I’m Mark Shulzinger, the secretary-treasurer of First Fandom. 

There are two segments to First Fandom and I want everybody to understand this.  The first segment consists of the First Fans.  The second segment is First Fandom, the organization, which came quite a bit later.  Sam, tell us what the First Fans were like.

Sam Moskowitz:  The history of First Fandom is really the history of science fiction.  Most of the fans were under twenty years of age, in a time when a ripe old age was seventeen or eighteen.  Those that had over a dollar a week allowance were in a minority.  And with that, they tried to buy every piece of science fiction published on the face of the earth and see every science fiction film that was made.  There were no conventions until about 1936.  There were no clubs that were totally devoted to science fiction.  Clubs that were started had a scientific gambit, like the International Cosmos Scientific Association (or the ISA, for those in the know).  You were supposed to have a home laboratory and conduct experiments and write scientific articles, which you cribbed out of dead scientific texts, because what sixteen year-old would know enough to contribute something new to a magazine of any type? 

Probably, our genesis was the formation of the Science Fiction League by Hugo Gernsback and Charles D. Hornig in 1934.  The idea was that all fans could join and form chapters in individual cities.  There were even chapters in England.  The different chapters began publishing magazines.  Julie Schwartz was indirectly connected with a magazine called THE PLANET, which was the official organ of the Scienceers back in 1931.  This was a six-page mimeographed sheet.  Strangely enough, even Ackerman contributed to this magazine.  He was a member of the Boys Junior Science Fiction Association, and they published a little hectographed magazine called THE MERCURY.  I never received a copy of it until I was out of the origins of First Fandom.  I’ll now let Julie continue.  May the Schwartz be with you.

Julius Schwartz:  I have in my hands here the history of the organization of First Fandom.  This is the authentic version, contributed by Robert A. Madle, who was supposed to be here but couldn’t make it.  I said, “If you’re not going to make it, I’ll come down there and kill you unless you tell me what happened.  I’m interested in knowing how it all began.”  With your permission, I will now read his letter, which is in first draft, written on First Fandom stationery. 

Robert A. Madle:  The genesis of how it all began.  In 1958 I was working for the Department of Defense and was transferred from Washington D.C. to Indianapolis, Indiana.  I immediately got in touch with Ray Beam and Lee Ann Tremper and we formed a local science fiction club.  This led to Ray and me making several visits to the Cincinnati group, which was about a hundred miles to the east.  Don Ford and Lou Tabakow were the leaders of the club.  And by his own admission, Lou was the dictator.  He stated that he maneuvered to stay on permanently as president by never calling an official meeting.  One day in early October I received a call from Don Ford, saying that C.L. Barrett – “Doc” as he was then known – was having a small group over at his place in Bellefontaine, Ohio and I was invited.  Doc’s place was about a hundred and twenty-five miles from Indianapolis, so I said, “Sure.”

Arriving early that Saturday morning in October 1958, I looked around town and found a magazine store.  They had a few back issues, but not much.  But wait: what was that magazine thrown over there by a pile of LIBERTY magazines?  Could it be?  Yes, it was!  It was a copy of Gernsback’s short-lived TELEVISION NEWS, which I had never seen before.  This was indeed a precursor to the momentous events to follow that day. 

When I arrived at Doc’s office, the group was already there.  They consisted of Doc Barrett, Don Ford, Lou Tabakow, Ben Kiefer – four old-timers – and a youngster named Stan Skirvin.  We all sat around and drank beer and talked of the tumultuous events of the day.  Don had an ongoing feud with Walt Willis of Ireland, pertaining to the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund.  They had different issues with what constituted a fan.  Anyway, I had added to the problem by winning the TAFF in 1957.  The British fans had been pushing Dick Eney and were originally unhappy when I won.  Things worked out well over there for me, but Don was still in the P.O.’d stage. 

It was kind of an opportune coincidence how First Fandom came up.  Someone once claimed that he saw something written on a toilet wall, which said, “First Fandom is not dead!”  Recalling this, I said, “What SF needs is a new organization, one in which the old-time fans are paramount, instead of those young upstarts who wouldn’t know a 1933 AMAZING STORIES if he tripped on it.” 

Don was immediately for it, and said, “Great!  We can give recognition awards to the great authors of the past such as E.E. Smith, because none of them will ever get a Hugo.”  Everyone was enthusiastic about the idea, and great plans were conceived right then and there. Don said, “To be a member, one would have to be active in some phase of science fiction prior to January 1938.”  A magazine would be published periodically.  Don thought it should be a formal organization.  But serious things would be accomplished also, mainly, keeping the history of SF in front of the fans of SF today.  Membership credentials would be required and acceptance would be tough.  It would be a “Last Man Club,” with the last First Fandom member alive in a certain year knocking off a privately held fifth of liquor. 

Don suggested that I be president (this is Madle talking), as it was my idea.  Lou and he would share the secretary and treasurer’s duties.  Lynn Hickman was contacted and he became official editor.  Announcements were sent out, and the first person to join – Member Number One – was Robert Bloch.  Oh yes, I followed Lou’s advice, by never calling an official meeting.  I remained president for over twenty-five years. 

Mark Shulzinger:  As someone who was around when First Fandom was started, I have to point out that there is an historical inaccuracy.  There was no way that “Doc” Smith would ever have gotten a Hugo without First Fandom’s intervention, because First Fandom invented the Hugo.  So, there was no Hugo before First Fandom came around. 

Julius Schwartz:  Was Smith even writing back in those days?

Mark Shulzinger:  Yes, he was still writing.  He was doing those Vortex Blaster stories. 

Ray Beam:  There was one thing that Bob didn’t mention there.  I wasn’t there in the first person, but in the literature that I’ve read within the First Fandom files, the original date was 1934.  They found out that they couldn’t get enough members, so they raised it to 1938 and then somehow it became 1939. 

Julius Schwartz:  Maybe in conjunction with the First Worldcon.

Ray Beam:  Someone once told me that it was in conjunction with when Campbell took over ASTOUNDING.

Julius Schwartz:  You notice that there was nothing written down.  There was no constitution.  It was just passed on by word-of-mouth.  And that was important.  That’s the way it is now.

Mark Shulzinger:  That’s right.  Let’s move on to Dave Kyle.  Dave, tell us.

David A. Kyle:  STARLOG magazine, in 1986, published an article by me, entitled “Remembering First Fandom.”  I have a couple of copies here.  There is a picture of the beanie episode at the 1973 Worldcon, when Bob Bloch was guest of honor.  I embarrassed my wife up at the podium by putting a beanie on top of Bob Bloch’s head.  She said, “What an undignified thing to do.”  And I said, “No.  That’s First Fandom.”  Then there’s a masthead of WONDER STORIES from the time, the Science Fiction League insignia – a few of these were in color – and a few other things including a sketch from a fanzine showing the infamous beanie being worn, and the First Fandom emblem and what the magazines were in 1936.  There were only WEIRD TALES, ASTOUNDING, THRILLING WONDER, AMAZING STORIES and WONDER STORIES itself. 

I saw Lloyd Eshbach not long ago – we’re constantly in touch – and he said, “Here’s something that you can take and show people.”  It was one of the original First Fandom membership cards, with Don Ford as Secretary-Treasurer and a Board of Directors on the back.  Incidentally, there was a constitution and there were by-laws.  On the Board of Directors were President Bob Madle (with his Indianapolis address), Secretary-Treasurer Don Ford, Publisher Lynn Hickman, and others, including “Doc” Barrett, Dale Tarr and Lou Tabakow. 

The other reference that I would make to First Fandom beside the article in STARLOG is a couple of articles I did as reminiscences in Dick and Nicki Lynch’s MIMOSA.  For my information, how many of you read MIMOSA?

Julius Schwartz:  It won the Hugo, by the way.

David A. Kyle:  Those articles are being collected, those reminiscences of mine, and they’ll come out in a book form in another year or so.  The Science Fiction League was covered extensively in one of the articles that I did.  Delving into the past of First Fandom is very interesting, because the actual development of fandom as a group took place by evolution, that is, in the magazines, personal correspondence, and occasional group meeting, some very early fanzines of which Julie is really one of the founders of the fanzine world.  When we date back, probably the crystallizing moment was the First World Convention in 1939, of which Sam was chairman.  I always think of anybody who was active before the World Convention in 1939 is really part of that First Fandom group.  That date has fluctuated a couple of times.  The original application blank said January 1, 1938.  Then, someplace along the line it became January 1, 1939.  So, we know it’s prior to 1940. 

Mark Shulzinger:  Many people wonder what is the significance of the term “First Fandom.”  Those of you who are not old enough to remember – and that seems to include most of the people in this room – do not recall that at one time stages of fandoms were numbered.  And each stage of fandom was characterized by being centered around certain personalities, certain magazines, certain fanzines.  If you go into the huckster room and buy a copy of a detective novel called ZOMBIES OF THE GENE POOL – it’s not a very good detective story, but the writer quotes extensively from Francis Towner Laney, known affectionately as FTL, who was a member of Fourth and a little bit of Fifth Fandom, who finally wrote a tremendous polemic against fandom and then disappeared.

That author researched his work very carefully and has painted a picture of Fourth and Fifth Fandom.  Fandoms were numbered, and that is why some wag wrote the graffiti on a wall that said, “First Fandom is not dead.”  That happened in the late-Fifties, toward the end of Fifth Fandom and the beginning of Sixth Fandom.  After the advent of Harlan Ellison’s proclamation of Seventh Fandom, fandoms were no longer numbered.  Everybody figured it was no fun anymore so they stopped doing it.  So it’s another thing you can blame Harlan for.

Julius Schwartz:  Wait a second.  Didn’t Robert Bloch have a collection called THE EIGHT STAGES OF FANDOM?  It’s very interesting, some of Bloch’s early fanzine writings. 

Mark Shulzinger:  I, myself, am from Fifth Fandom, which was centered around magazines like QUANDRY, which Lee Hoffman brought out.  Everybody thought that Lee was a boy until Lee showed up at Nolacon.  Everybody expected a fellow and here’s this gal.  And, Walt Willis’ HYPHEN from North Ireland.  So that’s where I’m from.  Ray’s a little before me, I think you’re from Fourth Fandom.

Ray Beam:  Somewhere in there.

Mark Shulzinger:  We don’t date ourselves like that anymore.  We’re all old farts.

Ray Beam:  I made some of the trips with Bob Madle when he and Don were talking about the organization, and at that time I was too young to be included.  When Lou died, he literally left me the job of secretary-treasurer on his deathbed.  I took it over.  That was in 1981.  I was the secretary-treasurer until 1992, and then President from then on.  When I was secretary-treasurer, I was doing the job by myself.  I put the report out three times a year, which was all I could handle.  Then I found another workhorse to help me and we got the thing on a quarterly basis.  We have two working officers in the group now.  Mark does the editing and I do the publishing. 

David A. Kyle:  First Fandom can’t take credit for the achievement awards.  That was cooked up by the Philadelphia Convention in 1953.  Nothing was done the following year, when the Worldcon was held in San Francisco and they had their own awards.  The following year the achievement awards were picked up again in Cleveland, and somebody quite naturally referred to them as the Hugo Awards because Gernsback was sort of the genesis of fandom.  That’s how it got started. 

Jack Speer:  I was the one who numbered fandom.  I was ignorant about early – what I now call Eo-fandom – and I began fandom about 1933 and brought First Fandom up in 1936.  There was a transition in 1937 to Second Fandom, which was dominated by the Wollheim group.  In 1938, they fell and there was another transition in 1939 that began Third Fandom.  However, the organization of First Fandom has extended itself into all of those first three fandoms. 

Mark Shulzinger:  Actually, it has extended itself into other fandoms as well because people can become Associate Members of First Fandom after thirty years of noted fannish activity.  You can’t just have sat in a corner and read the stuff for thirty years.  You actually had to be active and done things.  And we do have Sustaining Patrons, as well. 

Sam Moskowitz:  I’d like to make an announcement.  Many of you may not be aware of this, but there was a death recently of a very controversial science fiction fan figure, William S.  Sykora.  He died on June 6.  He was involved in half of the fights described in THE IMMORTAL STORM, and he spent his life getting in and out of arguments and trouble.  He also contributed a great deal before 1940.  He worked with me in putting on the First National Science Fiction Convention in Newark in 1938 and the First World Science Fiction Convention in 1939. 

Julius Schwartz:  He was also a fellow member of the Scienceers back in 1932.

Sam Moskowitz:  Yes.  He became publisher of FANTASY NEWS in 1939 and published it erratically, off and on, until about 1962.  I wrote an obituary for him, which will appear in FANTASY COMMENTATOR in the next couple of months. 

David A. Kyle:  Another thing to note regarding the passing of Sykora.  The ISA was a group that included science hobbyists and science fictionists and there was always this dichotomy, conflict between the two.  Sykora was on the side of the science hobbyists and the fans that came in and really ran the organization – like Wollheim, Pohl and so forth – were science fictionists.  The ISA really became a science fiction club. 

I did the First Fandom emblem, by copying it from what Frank R. Paul did for the cover of AMAZING STORIES.  I added the strip on the bottom that said “First Fandom.”  Actually, the ISA used that emblem, taking out the word “scientifiction” that the pen was writing and having the pen write “ISA.”  It didn’t look too good, but an idea is an idea.  I appropriated that old ISA idea and added the words “First Fandom.”  Not many people remember that.

Mark Shulzinger:  One of our former members – Walt Dennis – was an early member before science fiction fandom split off into two groups.  He went toward the science side.  He was one of the editors of a very early fanzine in Chicago called THE FOURTEEN LEAFLET. 

Jim Tibbetts:  I’d like for someone to discuss F. Orlin Tremaine, who was the editor of ASTOUNDING before Campbell took over.  He did great work and bought some great stories. 

Sam Moskowitz:  After F. Orlin Tremaine graduated from Valparaiso University in 1920 he became editor of several trade magazines.  He was hired by Bernarr MacFadden to be one of the editors of TRUE STORY magazine.  He became the top editor there and raised the circulation to two million.  He moved to a competitor – Clayton Magazines – who published ASTOUNDING STORIES OF SUPER SCIENCE.  He was not connected directly with ASTOUNDING STORIES at that time. Just before Clayton Magazines went bankrupt, Tremaine was made president of Clayton Magazines.  It seems that they wanted a fall guy.

Jim Tibbetts:  Would you say that when he bought those two Lovecraft stories that it might have been – for him – a high water mark?

Julius Schwartz:  I will tell you that story.  I was a correspondent with Lovecraft.  Incidentally, Lovecraft (being very poor) couldn’t afford a two-cent stamp, so most of his correspondence was done on postcards, which cost one penny.  He managed to get two or three hundred words on a postcard.  Upon a visit to New York, two brothers named Donald and Howard Wandrei decided to throw a party for Lovecraft, down in the village where they lived.  I went, along with everyone in town who was involved with science fiction.  Otis Adelbert Kline was there, Mort Weisinger and Otto Binder and others. 

At the party I spoke to Lovecraft.  He knew I was an agent, and I asked him, “Do you have any stories that you have been unable to sell?”  He said, “Yes I have – the longest one I’ve ever written, and one of my best.  Farnsworth Wright, editor of WEIRD TALES rejected it and there’s no other market for it.”  I said, “I think that I might be able to sell it for you if you’ll let me have that story.”  I had mentioned to Tremayne earlier that it might be advantageous for him to get science fiction from other sources to build up the circulation.  I had mentioned WEIRD TALES.  So I went up to the offices of ASTOUNDING and I said, “Mr. Tremaine, I have in my hand here a 35,000 word story by H.P. Lovecraft.  He looked at me and smiled and said, “Sold.” 

That check brought in three hundred fifty dollars, far and away the largest check that Lovecraft ever received.  He usually got paid thirty or forty dollars for a story upon publication, which could be as long as a year after he sold it.  So I took out my thirty-five dollars and sent him the three hundred and fifteen.  As a follow-up, he had another story – I think that it was THE SHADOW OUT OF TIME – which I was supposed to deliver, but Donald Wandrei brought it in ahead of me and that also was sold.  I’m sorry to say I didn’t think that AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS was worth printing, but evidently it served its purpose. 

Sam Moskowitz:  Let me tell you why Frederick Tremaine bought it without reading it.  He was a regular reader of WEIRD TALES in the 1920s and he had sold them a short story under the penname of Orlin Fredericks.  He was thoroughly familiar with Lovecraft and had a high regard for him.  He also put out the first two paperback anthologies of Lovecraft’s work back in the 1940s during World War Two.  I supplied him with the stories for those anthologies because he specifically asked me for them.  He still remembered Lovecraft after all that time.

David A. Kyle:  WEIRD TALES came out in 1923, and it was the first magazine that was devoted to this unusual literature, which had no name.  Science fiction was being published in WEIRD TALES magazine, so it was very important to the field.  Although Gernsback had published science fiction earlier in SCIENCE AND INVENTION, he brought out AMAZING STORIES in 1926 and started the science fiction magazine trend.  Credit is given to Harry Bates of ASTOUNDING and Gernsback, and when AMAZING was lost by Gernsback. T. O’Conner Sloane – an aging individual, and a very nice man – took over.  And, I’m embarrassed to say that as a teenager I wrote a deprecating letter stating that Sloane couldn’t do the job that Gernsback had done.  These editors are well known.  Campbell is the one that is thought of as being the first who made ASTOUNDING so important.  I think that F. Orlin Tremaine deserves as much credit as John W. Campbell, because Tremaine was innovative and put out a good magazine.  For example, he introduced Thought Variant stories.  Campbell polished it up but Tremaine had an enormous influence on the field. 

Julius Schwartz:  Very few people know, however, that Tremaine didn’t do much of the work.  It was his associate editors, originally Desmond Hall who wrote science fiction as D.W. Hall.  Hall was his first assistant at Street and Smith, and eventually Carl Happel took over.  It was Carl Happel who took care of the editing and the destruction of Lovecraft’s AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS.  So Tremaine was like an executive editor and the body of work was done by his assistants. 

Audience member:  How much time was there between the time that the first clubs were formed and the first conventions were held?

Sam Moskowitz:  The first club was formed as far back as 1928, and the first convention – which really was a meeting – was held in 1936.  In a way, the British – in Leeds England in January 1937 – formed the first formal science fiction convention, which anyone could attend.  It was announced in advance and had a program and a booklet and everything like that.  What we call the first convention in 1936 was held in Philadelphia.  A group of fans from New York – of which Dave Kyle was one of them – visited Philadelphia and met with a group of fans there and they decided to call it a convention.

David A. Kyle:  Here are some details about that.  How did this meeting between fans from New York and fans in Philadelphia get to be called the First Eastern Science Fiction Convention?  I’ll tell you how.  It’s very simple how it happened.  It was 1936, and the Democrats had held a convention and the Republicans had held a convention.  When we went to Philadelphia we decided that we were going to be a convention, so we called ourselves a convention. 

Julius Schwartz:  Forry asked me if I attended the banquet at the First World Science Fiction Convention.  I said, “No, I didn’t and I can’t understand why.  The reason must have been that Mort Weisinger, Otto Binder and I went up to the Yankee Stadium for the July Fourth double-header and that was the momentous occasion when Lou Gehrig made his announcement to the world that, because of his ailment he was retiring from baseball.  He said those famous words, “Today, I am the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

Sam Moskowitz:  Someone mentioned feuds.  There were schisms within the organization that go back to 1930.  However, the master of feuds was Donald A. Wollheim.  He specialized in them, and he had a feud with almost everybody. 

Jack Speer:  Remember the Great Staple War?  Bob Tucker had advocated removing the staples from science fiction magazines and Donald A. Wollheim objected.  Wollheim launched a campaign of attacks and counter-attacks.

Audience Member:  Please explain about what it takes to become an Associate Member.

Mark Shulzinger:  There are two classes of membership in First Fandom: Full Members and Associate Members.  A Full Member must have had to be an active fan since 1938.  This is the “Last Man’s Group.”  Associate Members have to demonstrate thirty years of fannish activity (fanac, for those of you who don’t talk fanspeak).

Ray Beam:  They help support the group.  Their dues are the same as the Full Members, they get the right to vote, they have to be vouched for by a Full Member and they receive the magazine just as the Full Members do. 

David A. Kyle:  Associate Members cannot vote.

Ray Beam:  Yeah, they’ve had the vote. 

Mark Shulzinger:  We have a third class, however who are Sustaining Patrons.  They don’t have voting rights.  They are not members.  They support us, they’re nice people.  They send us five bucks a year and we send them SCIENTIFICTION – our quarterly magazine.  They can write us letters and take our photographs.  To be an Associate Member you must demonstrate fanac such as writing letters, publishing stories, people who are vouched for as collectors, attending conventions, being a general pest, you know.  If somebody said, “I lifted up a rock, you know, and Joe Fan crawled out thirty years ago,” you probably qualify as an Associate Member.  That’s what happened with me, I think. 

John Carter Tibbetts:  The fact is that many of the people in First Fandom weren’t writers.  They were the consumers, the readers.  It seems important that there is some acknowledgement of the people who supported it.

Mark Shulzinger:  Oh, yes.  And, as a matter of fact, every year First Fandom honors its own.  We tried to honor our own with a Hugo and it got taken away from us.  We do honor our own with the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award.  Members nominate from the membership and from outside the membership people they want to honor.  We even have a Posthumous Hall of Fame Award, as of this year.  The first award will be made here at this very convention tonight.

Ray Beam:  We probably ought to explain.  There has been a controversy for many years about the Hall of Fame Award.

Mark Shulzinger:  I was going to try and present a monolithic front, but go ahead.

Ray Beam:  They didn’t want to give it to people who had already passed on.  Some did and some didn’t.  So, to alleviate the problem, we established the Posthumous Hall of Fame Award.  We have a committee that selects those each year, and they will not be taken to the world convention.  Those awards will be given at regional conventions like this one.

Mark Shulzinger:  The members that we honor are not necessarily writers.  They all have one thing in common: they are fans.  That’s the important thing, because that’s where the second wave of writers came from in science fiction.  The first wave came from the writers themselves, those who had already been writing and the second wave came from the fans.  And science fiction has been very fortunate.  It continues to pick up writers from among its own membership. 

John L. Coker III:  I’d like to make a comment as a tribute to someone who is not here with us today, Mr. Jack Williamson.  His first story – “The Metal Men” – appeared on the cover of AMAZING STORIES in December 1928, and he attended the First World Science Fiction Convention in 1939.  Jack has been continuously active and is still writing, sixty-five years later. 

Mark Shulzinger:  He’s got to.  That’s the only way he retains his tenure at the university.  That’s what you really call “publish or perish.”

Ray Beam:  There are several more right behind him, including Lloyd A. Eshbach.

John L. Coker III:  And Hugh B. Cave.  And the recent death of Frank Belknap Long limits it to just a small group of men left from those years.

David A. Kyle:  In the Gernsback era, they would publish in SCIENCE WONDER STORIES and AIR WONDER STORIES a small drawing of a featured author.  Those drawings were an inspiration for me to copy (I wouldn’t dare cut them out of the magazine) the artist’s rendition on a 3x5 card, then write down the name of the story and give it a rating.  Among my heroes at that time were Jack Williamson and Raymond Z. Gallun.  I had prepared a card for each of them.  Little did I know that fifty or sixty years later I would be the recipient of the Raymond Z. Gallun Award.  When I was young, I was just an enthusiastic reader of his stories.  And he was someone who, when writing them was just a few years older than me.

Mark Shulzinger:  I’d like to thank everyone for attending our panel discussion and I want to remind you to attend the awards ceremony this evening.  Our official photographer has made a request for members of First Fandom to come to the front of the room to have their picture made.