 "Fifth Estate" was started by Harvey Ovshinsky, a seventeen-year-old youth from Detroit.He was inspired by a 1965 summer trip to California where he worked on the "Los Angeles Free Press", the first underground paper in the United States; Harvey's father, inventor Stan Ovshinsky, knew the editor of the "Free Press", Art Kunkin, from their years as comrades in the Socialist Party.The name "Fifth Estate" was inspired by The Fifth Estate coffee house on the Sunset Strip, where the "Free Press" had its office in the basement.