{"id":352,"date":"2014-03-14T10:09:49","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T15:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/historyapolis.com\/?p=352"},"modified":"2024-01-10T13:43:37","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T19:43:37","slug":"amazon-feminist-bookstore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/2014\/03\/14\/amazon-feminist-bookstore\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Feminist Bookstore"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Published March 14, 2014 by Stewart Van Cleve<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Guest blogger today is Stewart Van Cleve, a graduate student in the program for Library and Information Science at St. Catherine University and the author of Land of 10,000 Loves: A History of Queer Minnesota<\/i>. In this post, Stewart writes about Amazon Bookstore, the first feminist bookstore in North America.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the fall of 1970, Julie Morse and Rosina Richter carried several boxes full of books on feminism and women\u2019s liberation to the front porch of a Minneapolis commune. Located a few block south of Franklin Avenue in the Seward neighborhood, and known as the \u201cBrown House,\u201d the commune was a locus of antiwar activism and draft resistance in the Vietnam War era, and thus fostered a revolutionary spirit that complimented Morse and Richter\u2019s dreams for the small collection.\u00a0 When they named the boxes and their contents \u201cthe Amazon Feminist Bookstore,\u201d they founded the first independent feminist bookstore in the United States.<\/p>\n

In 1972, after a year of sporadic management and scattered sales, Amazon made the first of many moves to the basement of the Lesbian Resource Center, a collective space that had recently opened next to Hum\u2019s Liquor on 22<\/span>nd<\/sup> Street in south Minneapolis. The bookstore continued to reside in a series of boxes, but its immediate proximity to interested readers helped volunteers acquire enough capital to move the collection to its first storefront, a short-lived space on West Lake Street. According to Finn Enke, who included a detailed analysis of Amazon in <\/span>Finding the Movement Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism<\/i>, that section of Lake was \u201cshady\u201d to employees and customers. By 1975, they decided to relocate a third time to a storefront next to the corner of 25<\/span>th<\/sup> Street and Hennepin Avenue in the Uptown area.<\/span><\/p>\n

From 1975 to 1985\u2014a decade that might be called Amazon\u2019s \u201cHennepin era\u201d\u2014the store\u2019s exterior featured a large hand-painted sign that included its most recognized symbol: the labrys, a double-headed axe that symbolized the ancient origins of women\u2019s strength.\u00a0 While the storefront\u2019s sign, large windows, and central location allowed Amazon to attract new customers who sought information and a sense of community, it also attracted the attention of the FBI. Tasked with infiltrating and disrupting supposed threats to national security, the Bureau made occasional visits to thwart the \u201cdanger\u201d of women\u2019s liberationists and lesbian feminists, but its agents\u2014suited men who asked clumsy questions in the middle of a feminist bookstore\u2014had little success.<\/span><\/p>\n

By 1985, Amazon had outgrown its Hennepin location. It moved to a larger space that faced Loring Park on Harmon Place, the store\u2019s most permanent and, for many, memorable address. It featured event space, larger windows, and a reading loft that became fixed as \u201cMadwimmin Books\u201d in the imaginary world of <\/span>Dykes to Watch Out For<\/i>, a landmark comic strip created by Alison Bechdel. Amazon also led an historic battle against the online retail giant Amazon.com, which used the shared name without the older store\u2019s permission and was ultimately forced to reach a settlement. \u00a0Though the Harmon years were arguably the store\u2019s most successful, they were also its most expensive; by 2001, it moved once again to the newly-built Chrysalis Women\u2019s Center on Chicago Avenue. \u00a0In 2006, after a final move to 48<\/span>th<\/sup> and Chicago, Amazon changed its name to \u201cTrue Colors\u201d and closed for good in 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n

This postcard shows Amazon’s second storefront on Hennepin Avenue. It is from the Amazon Bookstore Cooperative Records, which are housed at the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies at the University of Minnesota.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published March 14, 2014 by Stewart Van Cleve Guest blogger today is Stewart Van Cleve, a graduate student in the program for Library and Information Science at St. Catherine University and the author of Land of 10,000 Loves: A History of Queer Minnesota. In this post, Stewart writes about Amazon Bookstore, the first feminist bookstore…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[155,167,194],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4130,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions\/4130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mvt.rpw.mybluehost.me\/.website_3d6664ec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}