Starting in the 1970's, feminist bookstores opened in North America in conjunction with the burgeoning Women in Print movement that included women's presses, women's publishers, and women's bookstores - all promoting and sharing the words of women writers. BookWoman's 1975 mission statement explains the connection of this work to community: by bringing both women's words and women themselves “together in one place,“ we can define our own context. As more feminist, lesbian, and women's studies related texts appear on the shelves of general and chain bookstores, many people have begun to ask whether or not we still need feminist bookstores. To approach this question, I provide here some history of the feminist bookstore movement and an abbreviated list of the living activism generated by and through many North American feminist bookstores. Since feminist bookstores are based on the premise that we must understand where our movement has come from (as chronicled in stories, songs, images, and books) as well as where it is going, I will very briefly trace the state of feminist bookstores from the founding of the feminist bookstore movement to the present day. This history includes the numbers of how many feminist bookstores we used to have with us and how many have closed their doors; I intend these numbers both to make readers aware of the dire situation of today's feminist (and independent) bookstores, and to invite readers to newly appreciate those feminist bookstores which, as we read, are transforming themselves into community centres, non-profit institutions, women's advocacy centres, finding forms that better enable them to meet the needs of today's communities.

In 1970, Amazon Bookstore opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota as the first feminist bookstore in the U.S. The growing number of feminist bookstores spread the possibility of such spaces across the continent, as demonstrated in this 1975 interview in an Austin, Texas publication (Women Acting on Austin) with Nancy Lee Marquis, one of the founders of Austin’s feminist bookstore: “We visited Oakland and other women’s centers and saw that a store could help overcome isolation and create a new culture.” In the 1980’s, feminist bookstores continued to open internationally, including Narigrantha Prabartana Bookstore and Publishing House in Bangladesh in 1989, Asmita Publication House in Nepal in 1988, and Silver Moon Women’s Bookshop in London in 1984 (Silver Moon now lives on one of the floors in Foyles bookshop in London).

In May of 1992, Judith Rosen reported continued success for feminist bookstores in a Publisher’s Weekly article: “In a year in which many general bookstores reported sales that were essentially flat, if not down, women’s bookstores, with little advertising or promotion, continued to survive and—in most cases—thrive.” Rosen interviewed Carol Seajay, co-founder of the now closed Old Wives Tales in San Francisco, California and founder of the now defunct Feminist Bookstore News and Network, who explained women’s need for books: “A Canadian bookseller told me, ‘Our customers pay their rent, buy their food and buy books—in that order.’” Sacramento, California’s Lioness Books reported in their May-June 1993 newsletter, “We have over 150 feminist and lesbian/gay bookstores in Canada and in the U.S., and we are growing stronger every year.”

The landscape of feminist publishing and bookselling has certainly changed. We have witnessed the closing of nearly three quarters of the North American feminist bookstores, and those of us who are lucky enough to live near a feminist bookstore are now witnessing the profound changes many of those spaces are making in order to sustain and encourage communities of women. In 1998, the year that Amazon Bookstore filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against online book giant amazon.com, there were 70 feminist bookstores in the U.S. and Canada, down already from the 150 reported in 1993. Over 30 of the remaining bookstores closed between 1998 and 2000. These days feminist bookstores remain valuable not only for their book and sideline stock (much of which may never be duplicated by the big chains), but also for their innovative shapes and activism through which women continue to define our own context.

Annotated List of Selected Living Feminist Bookstores

Annotated List of Selected Writings about Feminist Bookstores

Important trends that signal the impact of feminist bookstores on feminist movements include a growing number of articles and dissertations about feminist bookstores, the establishment of feminist bookstores and presses internationally, and the move to archive feminist bookstore papers. thirdspace’s coverage of feminist bookstores and presses has contributed to the revival of attention to issues concerning the availability and production of women’s words, and the online journal provides a widely accessible forum through which to compile information about the largely unrecorded Feminist Bookstore and Women in Print movements. The following list reflects some of the central work done in print on feminist bookstores; this work may be useful to those of you doing work on or simply interested in reading more about both the history and current functions of feminist bookstores.

	Defining Our Own Context: The Past and Future of Feminist Bookstores
	Kristen A. Hogan
	Our primary goal is to distribute women's works not readily available elsewhere, those written, published and/or printed by women. It is important to us that works by women be allowed to define their own context by being brought together in one place. -- from the 1975 mission statement of the Common Woman Bookstore, now known as BookWoman, in Austin, Texas Starting in the 1970's, feminist bookstores opened in North America in conjunction with the burgeoning Women in Print movement that included women's presses, women's publishers, and women's bookstores - all promoting and sharing the words of women writers. BookWoman's 1975 mission statement explains the connection of this work to community: by bringing both women's words and women themselves “together in one place,“ we can define our own context. As more feminist, lesbian, and women's studies related texts appear on the shelves of general and chain bookstores, many people have begun to ask whether or not we still need feminist bookstores. To approach this question, I provide here some history of the feminist bookstore movement and an abbreviated list of the living activism generated by and through many North American feminist bookstores. Since feminist bookstores are based on the premise that we must understand where our movement has come from (as chronicled in stories, songs, images, and books) as well as where it is going, I will very briefly trace the state of feminist bookstores from the founding of the feminist bookstore movement to the present day. This history includes the numbers of how many feminist bookstores we used to have with us and how many have closed their doors; I intend these numbers both to make readers aware of the dire situation of today's feminist (and independent) bookstores, and to invite readers to newly appreciate those feminist bookstores which, as we read, are transforming themselves into community centres, non-profit institutions, women's advocacy centres, finding forms that better enable them to meet the needs of today's communities. In 1970, Amazon Bookstore opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota as the first feminist bookstore in the U.S. The growing number of feminist bookstores spread the possibility of such spaces across the continent, as demonstrated in this 1975 interview in an Austin, Texas publication (Women Acting on Austin) with Nancy Lee Marquis, one of the founders of Austin’s feminist bookstore: “We visited Oakland and other women’s centers and saw that a store could help overcome isolation and create a new culture.” In the 1980’s, feminist bookstores continued to open internationally, including Narigrantha Prabartana Bookstore and Publishing House in Bangladesh in 1989, Asmita Publication House in Nepal in 1988, and Silver Moon Women’s Bookshop in London in 1984 (Silver Moon now lives on one of the floors in Foyles bookshop in London). In May of 1992, Judith Rosen reported continued success for feminist bookstores in a Publisher’s Weekly article: “In a year in which many general bookstores reported sales that were essentially flat, if not down, women’s bookstores, with little advertising or promotion, continued to survive and—in most cases—thrive.” Rosen interviewed Carol Seajay, co-founder of the now closed Old Wives Tales in San Francisco, California and founder of the now defunct Feminist Bookstore News and Network, who explained women’s need for books: “A Canadian bookseller told me, ‘Our customers pay their rent, buy their food and buy books—in that order.’” Sacramento, California’s Lioness Books reported in their May-June 1993 newsletter, “We have over 150 feminist and lesbian/gay bookstores in Canada and in the U.S., and we are growing stronger every year.” The landscape of feminist publishing and bookselling has certainly changed. We have witnessed the closing of nearly three quarters of the North American feminist bookstores, and those of us who are lucky enough to live near a feminist bookstore are now witnessing the profound changes many of those spaces are making in order to sustain and encourage communities of women. In 1998, the year that Amazon Bookstore filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against online book giant amazon.com, there were 70 feminist bookstores in the U.S. and Canada, down already from the 150 reported in 1993. Over 30 of the remaining bookstores closed between 1998 and 2000. These days feminist bookstores remain valuable not only for their book and sideline stock (much of which may never be duplicated by the big chains), but also for their innovative shapes and activism through which women continue to define our own context. Annotated List of Selected Living Feminist Bookstores While there remain over 30 active feminist bookstores in North America, I have chosen a short list here of those representative of changes in the movement. Readers will find reflected here a move to more direct community involvement in various formats and the opening of stores in cities where original feminist bookstores have closed. Amazon Bookstore. Minneapolis, Minnesota. www.amazonbookstorecoop.com Founded in 1970 and still open today, the cooperative, backed by the American Booksellers’ Association, sued amazon.com in 1998 for copyright infringement; the court awarded the feminist bookstore an undisclosed amount and allowed amazon.com to continue using the appropriated name even though they are, clearly, not Amazons. Today, Amazon Bookstore remains a workers’ co-operative and lives in a space called the Chrysalis building, a title which aptly defines the current state of feminist bookstores: transformation. Amazon remains a significant community space by focusing on women’s literacy projects including hosting a new readers group, stocking literacy materials, and training volunteers. Their website explains that this meets the bookstore’s original “belief that all women should have access to the diversity of women’s ideas and to writings that tell truths about women’s lives.” Bluestockings. New York City, New York. www.bluestockings.com Opening its doors in New York City in 1999, Bluestockings is the most recent and only open feminist bookstore in New York City (following the closure of Judith's Room in the late 1990's) and remains the newest feminist bookstore in North America. Relying, as have her ancestresses, on volunteers and community involvement, Bluestockings hosts a variety of programs and seems determined to follow and find new paths for feminism. The store's mission statement describes its definition of a feminist bookstore: Bluestockings, an independently-owned women's bookstore in New York City, promotes the empowerment of women through words, art and activism. We work to be an intersection of dialogue and information exchange, providing women-focused books and events. Recognizing the links between oppressions, our goal is to be open to all sexualities, sizes and spiritualities, to be intergenerational, trans-inclusive, and multi-lingual, and to challenge racism, classism, ablism, sexism, ageism and sizism. We strive as a bookseller to be an informational site in the struggle for social justice. (website) Charis Books & More. Atlanta, Georgia. charis.booksense.com Several feminist bookstores, like Charis, have tried to continue to meet community need by creating non-profit arms as a way to continue the fundamental services of a feminist bookstore to its surrounding communities. Initially founded in 1974, Charis became Charis Books & More in 1996 when it opened its non-profit arm, Charis Circle, in connection with the bookstore. This non-profit arm conducts ongoing events like their open mic, children's hour, and feminism 101 workshops as well as groups like SisterGirls and High School Women Writer's Group, both geared toward girls and their lives. The bookstore's “Herstory” statement explains the name of the non-profit arm by emphasising the importance of our stories to social justice: “We are always celebrating our stories. These stories are written in poetry, biography, short stories, plays, essays, songs and novels. These stories are told in circles-circles of women, circles of children, circles of dreamers, circles of men seeking hope, all making justice” (website). Greater Cincinnati Women’s Resource Center. Cincinnati, Ohio. www.gcwrc.org Cincinnati’s Crazy Ladies feminist bookstore, founded in 1979, closed its doors and reopened as the Greater Cincinnati Women’s Resource Center and gift shop in 2002. Realizing that support and advocacy cannot compete on the market but remains vital to women everywhere, Crazy Ladies effected their transformation to stay present in Cincinnati and to meet community needs. In Other Words. Portland, Oregon. www.inotherwords.org Also a recent bookstore, In Other Words opened in 1993 after the closing of A Woman’s Place in the late 1980’s. The innovative structure of In Other Words follows recent movements to bring universities into communities and community partnerships. As a non-profit founded in collaboration with the beginning of the Women’s Community Education Project at the Portland State University’s Women’s Studies Program, In Other Words functions as a community outpost for the Women’s Studies department and (like all feminist bookstores) as a Women’s Studies outpost for the community. (Also see my description below of Catharine Sameh and Melissa Kesler Gilbert’s article “Building Feminist Educational Alliances in an Urban Community.”) Annotated List of Selected Writings about Feminist Bookstores Important trends that signal the impact of feminist bookstores on feminist movements include a growing number of articles and dissertations about feminist bookstores, the establishment of feminist bookstores and presses internationally, and the move to archive feminist bookstore papers. thirdspace’s coverage of feminist bookstores and presses has contributed to the revival of attention to issues concerning the availability and production of women’s words, and the online journal provides a widely accessible forum through which to compile information about the largely unrecorded Feminist Bookstore and Women in Print movements. The following list reflects some of the central work done in print on feminist bookstores; this work may be useful to those of you doing work on or simply interested in reading more about both the history and current functions of feminist bookstores. Lucille Frey. “One Woman, One Women's Bookstore: Case Study and Comments on the Place of a Women's Bookstore in a Community.” PhD thesis, The Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities, 1985. National Library of Canada: Mic.F., 1986. T-2608. Lucille Frey explains that she intends her dissertation for a Ph.D. in Women's Studies to serve as “helpful for anyone contemplating opening a women's bookstore.” As such, she provides personal narrative of her experiences as owner of the Alaska Women's Bookstore in Anchorage, and gives an account of her observations on her pilgrimage to fifty feminist bookstores in the U.S. and Canada (including a list of bookstores open at the time with asterisks next to those she visited). Her discussion ranges from that of the feminist bookstore as a community service (in Chapter III, “Causes and Caring in a Woman's Bookstore”) to that of the feminist bookstore as a business (in Chapter XI: “The Bookstore as a Business”). It functions as a how-to guide as well as a comprehensive discussion of the functions of feminist bookstores. Melissa Kesler Gilbert and Catherine Sameh. “Building Feminist Educational Alliances in an Urban Community.” In Teaching Feminist Activism: Strategies from the Field. Ed. Nancy A. Naples and Karen Bojar. New York: Routledge, 2002. 185-206. The authors’ alliance of a community scholar/service-learning consultant (Melissa Gilbert) and cofounder of a feminist non-profit umbrella and bookstore (Catherine Sameh) establishes in print the actual connections here between the Portland University Women’s Studies Department and Portland, Oregon’s newest feminist bookstore, In Other Words. Founded in 1993 in conjunction with the Women’s Community Education Project (WCEP), In Other Words represents a relatively new direction in feminist bookstores: joining feminist ‘business’ with service-learning projects that serve community women. Sameh explains, “Students from the university have also been earning practicum credit at our store since we opened,” and students also work with women’s health services, girl’s zines, etc. Significant for students of women’s history, In Other Words and the WCEP have focused on laying the foundation for collective memory. In 1998 WCEP students generated a five-year anniversary oral history of the store, and Kesler and Sameh both emphasise the importance of memory: “While the history of In Other Words is a comparatively short one, calling on its founding circumstances, foremothers, and lessons learned has been a very meaningful process for our partnership.” Rose Norman. “Support Your Feminist Bookseller: She Supports You!” NWSAction: National Women’s Studies Association, 13.1 (Fall 2001): 30-32. Rose Norman outlines the difficulties independent bookstores face in the chain-monopolised market of the United States, and she reports on her interviews with fourteen U.S. feminist bookstores. Describing the current climate, she gives readers a synopsis of the outcome of the Amazon Bookstore vs. amazon.com lawsuit and discusses the trend of creating non-profit arms for feminist bookstores. Norman targets her audience, academic readers of NWSAction, by outlining academic feminists’ stake in the survival of feminist bookstores: “Now more than ever, those of us in Women’s Studies need to pay attention to what is going on in book publishing and bookselling, and take action. These stores are in many ways our grassroots, our connection to the general public, to our own graduates, and to women and girls who may never go to college.” Deborah Yaffe. “Feminism in Principle and in Practice: Everywomans Books.” Atlantis: A Women’s Studies Journal. Special Issue: Connecting Practices, Doing Theory. 21.1 (Fall 1996): 154-157. Deborah Yaffe writes this brief assessment of the Victoria, BC Everywomans Collective (purposefully without possessive apostrophe) as, at the time of her writing, “the longest-serving member of the Everywomans Collective.” Since Everywomans exists as one of the remaining feminist bookstores still run as a collective, Yaffe’s insights into the interactions between collective members, the effects of even slight imbalances of power, and the problems that come with a quick turnover rate and loss of collective memory prove invaluable to those of us studying the ways feminist bookstores can survive and how we can best fortify active remembrances of them. Yaffe explains, “The advantage [of quick collective turnover] is that we always have fresh perspectives; the disadvantage is that we can’t build on the past and are always having to recreate basic information and experiences.” Ultimately, Yaffe celebrates the inclusiveness of this model: “We say that those who do the work should make the decisions and do not consider ourselves necessarily bound by decisions made by past collectives.” [Editors' note: Everywomans Books closed in 1999, but their papers and other materials (including their wonderful stained glass sign) are deposited in the Women's Movement Archive collection at the University of Victoria Archives, British Columbia, Canada.]