Materials do not circulate, but may be used in the Special Collections reading room. Materials will be retrieved from and returned to storage areas by staff members.
Please check with the curator regarding copyright status of these materials. Researchers may quote from the collection under fair use provisions of the copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).
Amazon Bookstore corporate records, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies, Special Collections and Rare Books, University of Minnesota Libraries, Minneapolis.
The collection was a gift of Dawn Oftedahl.
The Amazon Bookstore Cooperative, Inc. was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1970 by two women who began to sell books from the front porch of their living collective. Their focus was to disseminate books and materials on the women's liberation movement published by small, women-owned presses. The bookstore was subsequently named the Amazon Bookstore, for the mythological tribe of women warriors. Amazon Bookstore is the oldest independent feminist bookstore in the United States; offering "products and services that foster the strength, wisdom, beauty and diversity of women, girls, and their families."
Historical information taken from the
The collection contains flyers, News & Notes publications, catalogs, newspaper articles regarding the bookstore, materials relating to other feminist bookstores, materials regarding The Naiad Press (Tallahassee, Florida) and corporate records, such as book sale tallies.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.