The ladies never materialized and the truck quickly faded, but half a year later the first Whole Earth Catalog was published and Brand’s handwritten business plan exploded as an overnight national bestseller that would ultimately sell more than 2 million copies and, in 1972, win the National Book Award. Prime item of course would be the catalog.”Īs an afterthought, in a riff on a then-popular backpacking catalog with a cult following, he added: “Notion: every catalog item pictured is held by a naked lady.” Including dandy survival and camping equipment, catalogs, design plans, periodical subscriptions, copy equipment (+ other gathering equipment - some element of barter here). On the inside cover of Barbara Ward’s “Spaceship Earth,” Stewart Brand wrote: “What I’m visualizing is an Access Mobile with all manner of access materials + advice for sale cheap. As the nation’s heartland scrolled beneath his plane’s window, he jotted down ideas for a new business that would encompass a mail-order catalog and a delivery truck that doubled as a mobile store. Fifty years ago this month, a 29-year-old former Army paratrooper flew back to his home in California from his father’s funeral in Illinois.
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