ABSTRACT
This paper chronicles the birth of lesbian-feminist publishing in the 1970s, a significant but often overlooked chapter of American alternative publishing history, and one that would help create the circumstances supporting a flourishing lesbian and gay literature in the 1980s and 1990s. Between 1968 and 1973, over 500 feminist and lesbian publications appeared across the country, and what would become an organized network of independent women's bookstores began to appear. In 1976, a group of feminist tradeswomen-printers, booksellers, and others-would meet in the first of a series of Women in Print conferences that would give a name to the fledgling alternative press movement. Fueled by the energy of the women's movement, lesbians were instrumental actors in a variety of feminist publishing enterprises that, taken together, constituted a 114unique brand of print activism that illuminated and revised categories of identity; empowered individuals to overcome social isolation and discrimination; and informed nascent lesbian and feminist communities about strategies of resistance. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Deliveiy Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: getinfo@hawof1h. com]
