Mosher, Pamela; Suntree, Philip

Original Photograph: Philip Suntree (a/k/a Philip Daughtry) at Proposition 15 Rally-Reading (1976)

San Francisco, CA: Pamela Mosher, 1976. First Edition. Single Sheet. Captioned, signed, and dated by photographer Pamela Mosher. “The California Nuclear Safeguards Initiative represents the first serious attempt to halt the unchecked proliferation of nuclear power plants.” (Rolling Stone, 1976) Pictured here is Philip Suntree (a/k/a Philip Daughtry, b. 1942) speaking at a 1976 rally in support of Proposition 15, a California ballot initiative that, if successful, would have prohibited new nuclear plant construction and phased out existing plants if the industry couldn’t convince the state legislature its safeguard and waste disposal plans were effective. Daughtry/Suntree, who traces his ancestry to the legendary Frank & Jesse James, was a major member of the Baby Beat Generation/ Second San Francisco Renaissance during the 1970s. The ballot initiative was several years in advance of the Three Mile Island incident, and was supported by younger, liberal, and the less affluent voters with a Northern/Southern California divide. “[The Proposition 15 Rally-Reading]...was to draw attention to the fact that the state of California didn’t have sufficient nuclear safeguards for the plants that were already online and any that would be built in the future...[The rally-reading] was held in Union Square Park in the epicenter of the business district of San Francisco and was staged right at the lunch hour when business people would be out and about on lunch break and would wander into the park and be confronted by the speakers and the issues they were supporting. It was a huge success, as it was as much a literary event (with the huge list of headliners) as it was an activist event.” - Thomas Rain Crowe, Thomas Rain Crowe Archive, pg 67. The rally-reading lineup was impressive, including: Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021), Michael McClure (1932-2020), Robert Duncan (1919-1988), Jack Hirschman (1933-2021), Bob Kaufman (1925-1986), Neeli Cherkovski (1945-2024), and Thomas Dawson (b. 1949), a.k.a Thomas Rain Crowe, among many others. Their support, however, wasn’t enough to win at the ballot box. A nuclear industry-led, well-funded anti-Proposition 15-campaign was successful, and the initiative failed by a 2 to 1 margin. From the archive of Thomas Rain Crowe, the legendary American poet and co-authorial founder of the Second San Francisco Renaissance. For more information on the Thomas Rain Crowe archive (assembled & curated by Third Mind Books), see our book Starting From San Francisco: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation with Third Mind Books (item #3071) & the catalog for the Crowe archive (see item #1010), which contains several excerpts and quotations from the book as well as a full listing of the archive’s contents, which are now being offered for sale individually on the Third Mind Books site. Signed, titled, and dated at bottom by photographer Pamela Mosher. Handwritten note in upper right corner of verso reads, "Union Sq Park, SF" in thin, black ink. Original photograph (approx. 7 & 6/8" x 9 & 6/8" including margins). First & presumably only printing. In very fine condition with only slight wear at fine edges, and very minimal smudging to front and back. Very Fine. [Item #7845]

Price: $100.00