Radical History for Your Phone

Want to get your anarcho-communist freak on while strutting Portland’s streets? If you're an Android-user, you're in luck.

Portland State University's student-run publisher, Ooligan Press, is releasing an Android app to accompany its launch of the second edition of The Portland Red Guide, a history of the city written as a guidebook to events of interest to Portland’s left-leaning citizens.

From journalist John Reed (think Warren Beatty in Reds) to the militant unionists The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), The Portland Red Guide covers the city’s radical history, now made easier with a GPS-enabled Android app.

The app was developed by Digital Bindery, a Portland-based start-up created by a small group of Ooligan Press graduates. According to app designer Amanda Gomm, her group’s guided tour will lead users through 193 important radical spots in Portland.

Locations include: 2337 N Williams Ave. (now a funeral home), where, in 1970, the Black Panther Party created a free dental clinic; NW 3rd Ave. and Burnside St. (just down from Voodoo Doughnut) former site of the Portland IWW’s union hall; and the Selling Building at 610 SW Alder St., headquarters for Portland’s suffragist movement (now an office building).  
 
Currently the application, called the Portland Red Guide Interactive, is a little limited in its functionality. Users get a Google Map with dots marking important spots. Tapping dots gives you an explanation of what happened there and when. Gomm says the app’s next version will include significant improvements including proximity alerts telling users when they are close to radical spots.

“When you are walking around” says Gomm, “the app will alert you and say ‘hey you’re near a site where events took place say in the 1920s, and here’s some information about it.’”

The second edition of The Portland Red Guide launched at the May Day celebrations on May 1. The app is available for download through the Android Market

.

WWeek 2015