'''Mel Tappan''' ('''Melrose H. Tappan III''')(1933 - 1980), is considered to be the "grand daddy" of the [[Preparedness]] movement<ref>http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19810331&id=ixsMAAAAIBAJ&sjid=61kDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6691,4779572 Accessed December 27, 2014</ref> as the editor of the newsletter ''Personal Survival ("P.S.") Letter''. Tappan wrote ''[[Survival Guns]]'' and ''[[Tappan on Survival]]''.
A graduate of [[Stanford University]], Mr. Tappan was one of the earliest [[survivalist]]s to promote the idea of [[strategic relocation]] to a "[[free state]]" from a more [[liberal]] state. Like [[James Wesley Rawles]] and [[Joel Skousen]], Mr. Tappan advocated creating [[survivalist retreat]]s in [[population density|lightly populated]] [[rural]] regions of the United States.<ref>[http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/532445.html Mitchell, Dancing at Armageddon, excerpt Accessed December 27, 2014</ref>
==Books==
* ''[[Survival Guns]]'' Paperback: 480 pages, Paladin Press (November 1, 2009) ISBN 978- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/15816071991581607192* ''[[Tappan on Survival]]'' - httpsPaperback://www.amazon.com/gp/product/218 pages, Paladin Press (July 1, 2006) ISBN 978-1581605099
==Continuing Influence on Modern Survivalism==