Walt Crowley Served the Greatest Number
Historylink cofounder Walt Crowley’s widow Marie McCaffrey just stepped down from the executive director role there. Got me thinking about good ol’ Walt: hippie graphic designer, Seattle historian and a well-liked good guy. A talented artist and writer who did many great covers for Seattle’s first underground newspaper - Helix.
In his later years Walt got a gig writing a book for Group Health Cooperative — a local chain of hospitals — called To Serve the Greatest Number.
Our kids were born at Group Health. It’s now called Kaiser Permanente and the spirit of actual altruistic doctors creating a hospital system, as chronicled in the book, instead of investors … is long gone. KP enjoys nonprofit status, but the CEO makes well over a million dollars a month.
—Alex
“Helix, Seattle's first "underground" newspaper, debuted in March 1967, and for more than three years and 125 issues provided its readers news, reviews, opinions, musings, letters, more opinions, poetry, personal classifieds (often sexual in nature), and much, much more. Unburdened by any pretense of objectivity, Helix documented and supported the youth rebellion of the late 1960s. It was satirical, sarcastic, ironic, often funny, sometimes silly, frequently outraged, occasionally brilliant. At its best it was cogent, thought-provoking, perceptive, and persuasive; at its worst, particularly near the end, it could be shrill, scolding, and somewhat incoherent. Above all, Helix was a creature of its tumultuous times, and it documented that era from a perspective and with a panache that Seattle's two daily papers could not have matched if they'd tried. But as America in the late 1960s grew increasingly dark, so did Helix, and there was a price to be paid. On June 11, 1970, five weeks after National Guardsmen killed four students at Kent State University, the demoralized and exhausted staff finally threw in the towel, and Helix was no more.”
-From Historylink.org: Helix (1967-1970)
JSTOR has a huge collection of Helix issues including their incredible cover art, with many covers by Walt Crowley.
HistoryLink Celebrates 25 Years, Welcomes New Executive Director
Formally launched in 1999 by McCaffrey, her husband Walt Crowley, and historian Paul Dorpat, the organization just celebrated its 25th anniversary as McCaffrey hands the reins over to her assistant director of over six years, Jennifer Ott.
—South Seattle Emerald
Of course I sold Helix on street corners back then ! I bought a few copied from the original printers down at the Market flea market in the 90’s.