Carolyn Fath
Lakeside Printing Cooperative moved into its current location on Williamson Street in 1990. The business struggled in recent years as digital media began to dominate.
Jerry Chernow always saw Lakeside Printing Cooperative as more than just a neighborhood shop to get ink on paper.
“The reason I was in printing was to be part of the movement,” says Chernow, who refused induction during the Vietnam war and has long been a pacifist and a war tax resister.
“Printing was something I could do for the movement,” he adds, while folding and collating one of Lakeside’s final newsletter jobs.
A fixture on Madison’s east side for 37 years, Lakeside announced in November that it would close at the end of the year. Changes in the way information is communicated, particularly with the growth of social media during the past decade, have made small print shops an endangered species.
Chernow previously worked at an alternative print shop in Chicago called Omega Graphics from 1974 until 1981. When he moved to Madison in the fall of 1981, he founded Lakeside Press in a small warehouse. “My first jobs came by word of mouth,” he remembers. “But it grew so much I couldn’t do it all myself.”
In 1984, Lakeside moved to Williamson Street in a portion of the old Dolly’s Restaurant (now owned by St. Vincent de Paul), and in 1990 moved across the street to its current location, a former American Legion bar and restaurant. The building was purchased on land contract, and Lakeside Press, which had been a sole proprietorship, re-incorporated as Lakeside Printing Cooperative and added additional collective members.
Lakeside was managed collectively and affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical labor union. “In the first week after I opened the shop, I was approached by the Chamber of Commerce,” Chernow says.
They told him that making Wisconsin a “right-to-work” state was a key item on their agenda. “I called the IWW in Chicago the next day, and said I wanted to join and they were glad to have us as a union shop.”
In the 1980s and 1990s, Lakeside flourished because it was connected to Madison’s progressive movements. “We did a lot of printing for the women’s movement, the environmental movement, a number of labor unions,” Chernow explains. He remembers printing over 500,000 leaflets for the nuclear weapons freeze campaign, the monthly newsletters of countless organizations including the Willy Street and Mifflin Co-ops, as well as handbooks for the Tenant Resource Center, and a national war tax resistance group.
Lakeside was also a go-to destination for many artists, poets, and musicians who needed posters, and insert cards for cassettes and later CDs, printed. It books for many of Madison’s political poets and national figures such as folksinger Utah Phillips.
Madison has a tradition of radical print shops. Lakeside was preceded by both Against the Grain and R.P.M. Lakeside also belonged to a national organization known as the Progressive Printers Network that was started in 1988, connecting alternative print shops — including Oakland’s Inkworks, Chicago’s Salsedo Press, and Boston’s Red Sun — from around the country to share knowledge and resources about techniques, philosophies, and organizational structures. Many other network members have also closed their doors in recent years.
“Now people can produce jobs out of their homes, and a lot of newsletters we used to do are gone or are just online now,” explains Chernow. “A lot of our income has disappeared.” He also notes that the social movements in Madison are less vibrant than they were in previous decades. “There was a peace and justice movement back then,” he recalls. “Now it is in decline, all of the money is trickling up to the rich, and there is not that much left. Our customer base is doing less printing.”
Beginning around 2000, Lakeside moved away from printing presses and embraced digital photocopiers, says Chernow. “It allowed us to do a lot of good quality four-color work for artists and musicians.” But the trend away from newsletters, flyers, and big mailings meant a steady decline in income. “Our losses have been consistent for some time,” say Chernow and co-worker Ralph Shively in a farewell letter to customers.
“People ask me ‘where should I go after you have closed?’ and I can’t think of any other alternative print shops,” laments Chernow. “All I can say is buy local as much as you can.” Lakeside, he points out, is a member of Dane Buy Local. “Where is it going?” he asks. “I don’t know, we are all disappearing into the Amazons of this world.”
Lakeside Printing Cooperative will host a final farewell party on Saturday, Jan. 26, at the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center, 953 Jenifer St., starting at 4 p.m. “Everyone is invited,” says Chernow. “We will have music there, and food and beverages.” It will be a chance to celebrate the contributions of one small print shop to the greater social and cultural fabric of Madison over the past four decades. Lakeside will also be honored at the annual Winter Solstice Sunset Bonfire Celebration in Olbrich Park on Dec. 21. Chernow will light the bonfire at 4 p.m.
Norman Stockwell, the publisher of The Progressive magazine, worked as a printer at Lakeside Press from 1984-1995.
