Date: Sat, 15 Oct 2022 17:04:24 -0400
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Bob Madle (1920-2022)
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
From: Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net>

On 10/15/2022 4:38 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:

[...]
>
> mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us> wrote:
>> So, we should start a Fandom, the Next Generation?
>
> For a while there were lots of numbered fandoms.  They seem to have
> fizzled out with 8th or 9th fandom sometime in the late '50s or
> early '60s.  I don't think any of them were formal organizations with
> bylaws and dues.

Jack Speer promulgated the theory of numbered fandoms in the early '40s.
The concept did not refer to groups you could join, but to historical
eras, a way of segmenting the history of fandom by characterizing the
nature of each era or "fandom."

By common agreement, the last "fandom" to be accepted as such by all was
Sixth Fandom, which started around 1950 and ended a few years later.
Its stars were Lee Hoffman and Walt Willis.  Most people credit the end
of Sixth Fandom with the cessation of publication of Lee's QUANDRY.

In 1953 Harlan Ellison got together with some of his friends (including
WSFAn John Magnus) the weekend before Midwestcon, and decided that they,
the new and upcoming fans, were "7th Fandom."  They stormed the
Midwestcon as 7th Fandomers and launched a new APA, 7APA.

There was some resistance to the idea, and much mockery, and 7th Fandom
faded.  The APA didn't last more than a year.  Nothing subsequent jelled
into a "fandom" in the following years.  Fandom was becoming too large
and becoming fragmented.  The center disappeared.  The numbered fandoms
concept was dropped.

--Ted White