The Oscar Wilde Bookshop was a

bookstore Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librar ...

located in New York City's

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

neighborhood that focused on

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

works. It was founded by

Craig Rodwell Craig L. Rodwell (October 31, 1940 – June 18, 1993) was an American gay rights activist known for founding the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop on November 24, 1967, the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors, and as the prime move ...

on November 24, 1967, as the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop. Initially located at 291 Mercer Street,Howard Smith'
''Scenes'' column, ''Village Voice'', March 21, 1968, Vol. XIII, No. 23 (March 21, 1968 – republished April 19, 2010)
Retrieved June 16, 2010.Craig Rodwell Papers, 1940-1993
New York Public Library (1999). Retrieved on July 25, 2011.Marotta, pg. 65 it moved in 1973 to 15

Christopher Street Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue. It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher S ...

, opposite Gay Street. The bookstore closed on March 29, 2009, citing the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

and challenges from online bookstores.

History

Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop Advertisement

As a member and vice president of the Mattachine Society, Rodwell sought to make Mattachine more visible to gays and society at large by opening a storefront to cater to the growing local gay community in

, saying: Rodwell did not consider himself to be a bookseller businessman but, rather, a person who at the age of 13 set out to help change the world's view of gay people and of gay people's own self-image.Downs, pg. 65 The bookstore opened on November 24, 1967. Craig and his mother set up the store the night before the opening. Despite a limited selection of materials when the bookstore was first established, Rodwell refused to stock pornography and instead favored literature by gay and lesbian authors. On how he chose the shop's name, Rodwell said: In March 1968 Rodwell began publishing a monthly newsletter from the bookshop, calling it ''HYMNAL''. Early organizing meetings for the first Pride Parade in New York City were held at the bookshop in 1970. Rodwell sold the bookshop in March 1993 to Bill Offenbaker, three months before Rodwell's death of stomach cancer. In June 1996 Offenbaker sold the store to Larry Lingle. In January 2003 Lingle announced that the bookshop would close due to financial difficulties. Deacon Maccubbin, owner of

Lambda Rising Lambda Rising was an LGBT bookstore that operated from 1974 to 2010 in Washington, D.C. Founded by Deacon Maccubbin in 1974 with 250 titles, it was known for its wide selection of books, ranging from queer theory and religion to erotica, as well ...

bookstores, purchased it to prevent the historically significant bookstore from closing. '' The Advocate'' story on the scheduled closing failed to note that the founder of the Oscar Wilde Bookshop was

, prompting a letter of correction from his former partner and first manager of the bookshop,

Fred Sargeant Frédéric André Sargeant (born July 29, 1948) is a French-American gay rights activist and former lieutenant with the Stamford CT Police Department. He participated in each of the nights of the 1969 Stonewall riots and was one of the four ...

. In 2006, the bookstore was purchased by one time manager, Kim Brinster. The bookstore closed on March 29, 2009, due to double-digit declines in sales caused by the economic crisis amid extreme competition with online book sellers, according to Brinster. It was part of a spate of LGBT

brick and mortar Brick and mortar (also bricks and mortar or B&M) refers to a physical presence of an organization or business in a building or other structure. The term ''brick-and-mortar business'' is often used to refer to a company that possesses or leases r ...

bookstores closures in the early 21st century, including Lambda Rising's Washington store and A Different Light in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Inspiration

Rodwell was brought up as a member of the Christian Science church. The roots of Rodwell's belief in "

gay liberation The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.Hoffman, 2007, pp.xi-xiii ...

" arose from his daily readings of Christian Science literature which stressed the dignity of every human being regardless of sexual identity. Using the Christian Science example of community outreach and stressing the availability of literature that contained positive images of gays and lesbians, Rodwell modeled the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop after Christian Science Reading Rooms.Marotta, p. 66

References

Bibliography

* Downs, Jim, ''Stand By Me: The Forgotten History of Gay Liberation'' (Basic, 2016) * Duberman, Martin, ''Stonewall'' (New York: Dutton, 1993) * Marotta, Toby, ''The Politics of Homosexuality'' (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981) * Sargeant, Fred (2009
''Anger Management'', New York Times Op-Ed, June 25, 2009
Retrieved January 3, 2011 {{Early U.S. gay rights movement Bookstores in Manhattan Christopher Street Independent bookstores of the United States LGBT bookstores LGBT history in New York City LGBT places in the United States Retail companies established in 1967 1967 in LGBT history 1967 establishments in New York City