1948 Open ESFA

The 1948 Open ESFA (the first named as such) was a one-day convention held March 7, 1948 at Slovak Sokol Hall in Newark, NJ. It didn't have a GoH as such, but the main speakers were Sam Merwin, Ted Sturgeon, and George O. Smith.

The theme of the convention was "The Place of Science Fiction in Modern Society" and speeches on that topic were given by Sam Merwin, Edward L Simons, Thomas S. Gardner and Sam Moskowitz.

This was the notorious meeting where two fans, Ron Christensen and Bob Gaulin, gotten into the hall's rafters and placed ammonium sulfide there. Ammonium sulfide decomposes to yield hydrogen sulfide and the attendees learned something about breathing the atmospheres of alien planets.

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