Underground Press Syndicate

The Underground Press Syndicate (UPS), later known as the Alternative Press Syndicate (APS), was a network of countercultural newspapers and magazines formed in mid-1966 by the publishers of five early underground papers: the East Village Other, the Los Angeles Free Press, the Berkeley Barb, The Paper, and Fifth Estate. Walter Bowart and John Wilcock of EVO, with Michael Kindman of The Paper in East Lansing, Michigan, took the lead in inviting the other papers to join. It was hoped that the syndicate would sell national advertising space that would run in all five papers, but this never happened.