Bluestockings is an infoshop (activist bookstore and café) in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Collectively run by volunteers and a worker-owner collective, Bluestockings is Manhattan's only women's bookstore.[1] According to its website, the store actively supports "movements that challenge hierarchy and all systems of oppression."[2]
Bluestockings Women's Bookstore was founded by Kathryn Welsh in 1999. Welsh encouraged the formation of a women-powered collective to run the bookstore and welcomed a variety of literary reading series, community organizing events, and open mic performances into the store. The bookstore included a wide selection of social-justice themed books on such topics as race, class, and the environment, in addition to fiction and poetry. The event space was supported by donations, as all events were free to the public, and a cafe serving fair-trade coffee and vegan baked goods. In 2003, Bluestockings was taken over by new management, widening the focus from feminism to global justice.[3] It has continued to operate as a worker's collective, a volunteer powered space, and a hub for activist and leftist literary and intellectual gathering. Another, unaffiliated bookstore store called Bluestocking Books is based in San Diego, California.[4]
References
- ^ Koblacki, Kelly. Bluestocking's Women's Bookstore. Harlem Live.
- ^ Bluestockings Mission Statement
- ^ McGrath, Kathryn. Pushed to the Margins. bitch
- ^ Bluestocking Books, an unaffiliated establishment
External links
- Bluestockings - official website
- Merchant of the Month - profile by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum
- Best of NY 2000 - profile by the Village Voice
- McGrath, Kathryn. Pushed to the Margins: The Slow Death and Possible Rebirth of the Feminist Bookstore. From bitch Magazine.
 |
This retail business article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
