The Whole Earth Catalog

…as an extension of his Whole Earth Catalog, the WELL was one of the first electronic communities organized around forums dedicated to particular subjects such as parenting and Grateful Dead concerts. The latter were an especially popular topic of online conversation, but it was in the parenting forum where a…

For many The Whole Earth Catalog, which first appeared in 1968, became a source for the necessities of life. It was crucial for former urban dwellers who practiced semi-subsistence farming in rural areas (in what came to be called the back-to-the-land movement). Hippies tended to be dropouts…