Vancouver Women's Bookstore

The Vancouver Women’s Bookstore opened in downtown Vancouver in 1973, at a time when the women’s movement was producing many feminist books, pamphlets and periodicals that were largely unavailable in local stores. To stock the store, organizers bought books from wholesalers, hand-sold them at women’s cultural events and used the proceeds to buy more until they had enough books and journals to line the shelves. The bookstore was also a space for literary readings, workshops and political organizing meetings, and it became a connection point for the international feminist network. The building was burned down by an arsonist in 1980, and the store moved twice before it closed in 1996.