Payseur and Schmidt was founded in Cauheegan, Wisconsin
in 1912 by Martina Faye Payseur and Hilde Frauke Schmidt, two young women
concerned with social
justice and true human equality. Armed with a Pearl
Improved #11 letterpress, they began producing tracts of a feminist and
socialist nature, which, in the early decades
of the 20th century, were
either received with arms or hostility, both open.
Payseur & Schmidt began its legendary and controversial reputation with the release of Zelda P. Elliott's feminist Utopian novel, Womyn's Moon, which was banned in rural Arkansas for the better part of the 20th century. By 1926, the company had grown from a two-person operation to a staff of thirty-five, and their growing socialist leanings inspired the release of F.R. Laramie's seminal "Scarlet SF" novel, Red Moon Rising.
Decades of best-sellers and subversive screeds from Payseur & Schmidt have resulted in an overall output that strikes a delicate balance between cool rationality and tear-your-clothes-off anarcho-bacchanalia. One need only walk into the Cauheegan offices of Payseur & Schmidt to feel the humming tension in the air. It could be the recurring supernovae of creative inspiration. Or perhaps faulty wiring.
As we come to understand the full implications of this construct called the World Wide Web, we will continue to unfold the long and detailed history of Payseur & Schmidt.