Thanks to a curious patron and a generous donor, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County now has the complete run of the Independent Eye newspapers in its collection—both digitally and in bound books.
The Independent Eye was a counterculture newspaper printed out of a house in Clifton in the late 1960s into the mid-1970s. Last November, Mark Neeley was reading the book Free Press by Jean-François Bizot about underground newspapers published in the late 1960s. He noticed that one of them, Independent Eye, was published in Cincinnati. This unexpected piece of information sparked his interest and, after doing some research at the Library, he tracked down one of the paper’s staff, Ellen Bierhorst, who still lives in the Clifton house that was home to the paper.
With Bierhorst's permission, the Library digitized the entire collection of the Independent Eye. To honor this digital addition to the collection, a special panel discussion moderated by Reference Librarian Chris Smith is being held at 7 p.m. Wednesday Nov. 13 at the Downtown Main Library. Panelists include Neeley, Bierhorst, and former Cincinnati City Councilmember and Vice-Mayor Jim Tarbell.
“The artwork, social commentary, artist interviews, photos and concert advertisements are what caught the eye of many who read the paper during its publication,” said Smith. “I hope that people who read the paper now can get a better understanding of Cincinnati and all the great things that were happening here at the time.”
For more information about the Independent Eye event, call the Genealogy & Local History Department at 513-369-6909. To read the Independent Eye online, visit the Digital Library at cinlib.org/independenteye.
