Great Companions

Allons! After the GREAT COMPANIONS! and to belong to them!
They too are on the road! they are the swift and majestic men! they are the greatest women.
~Walt Whitman. “Song of the Open Road”

The Great Companions are an underground network of citizens, hackers, and educators dedicated to protecting writers and works of literature from forces determined to censor and suppress them. The organization first formed in the late 19th century following the emergence of the Society for the Suppression of Vice and the subsequent passage of the 1872-73 Comstock Law which made it illegal to send “obscene” or “offensive” materials through the US mail. After a local Boston chapter of the Society forced James R. Osgood and Company to halt publication of the seventh edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass over their objections to certain passages in the book, a coalition of Whitman supporters and concerned citizens formed to organize protests and demonstrations in response.

These early efforts to protect the work, however, were frequently marred by violence and a decision was made to switch to covert acts of strategic resistance that maximized the skills and resources of the group. Thereafter, every member received an agent name to protect their identity and the group began utilizing a system of coded telegraph messages to coordinate efforts and share intelligence. This use of the telegraph became the first of many “hacks” which leveraged new technologies in order to achieve organizational objectives. Over the years, the number of agents in the organization has grown along with the sophistication of its technological assets and communication methods, helping to thwart countless attacks on writers and literary works from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Harry Potter. In honor of their connection to Walt Whitman, the group formally adopted the name “Great Companions” from his poem “Song of the Open Road.”