The Feminist Press

The Feminist Press
Name	Feminist Press
Founded	1970
Founder	Florence Howe
Country	United States
Headquarters	Brooklyn, New York
Distribution	Independent
Topics	Feminist literature, gender studies, human rights

The Feminist Press is an independent nonprofit literary publisher founded in 1970 to recover and promote women's writing and advance feminist scholarship. The Press has focused on reissuing out-of-print works and publishing contemporary authors, engaging with movements and institutions such as Second-wave feminism, Civil Rights Movement, Women's Liberation Movement, National Organization for Women, and Association for Women in Psychology. Over decades the Press has intersected with landmarks like Stonewall riots, United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, Women's March (2017), Black Lives Matter, and campaigns around Title IX.

History

The Press was established in New York City by Florence Howe amid debates involving Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Kate Millett, Shulamith Firestone, and organizations including Ms. (magazine), Redstockings, and New York Radical Feminists. Early projects recovered texts linked to figures such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edith Wharton, Zora Neale Hurston, George Sand, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, while associating with academic programs at City College of New York, Hunter College, Barnard College, Syracuse University, and SUNY Binghamton. During the 1970s and 1980s the Press negotiated cultural terrain shared with National Women's Studies Association, Modern Language Association, American Historical Association, Haymarket Books, and Beacon Press, and adapted to publishing shifts spurred by companies like Penguin Books, Random House, Knopf, and HarperCollins.

Mission and Editorial Focus

The Press emphasizes recovery of marginalized voices and publication of contemporary feminist scholarship, aligning with authors and movements including bell hooks, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Simone de Beauvoir, and Virginia Woolf. Editorial decisions reflect engagement with topics connected to LGBT rights in the United States, Reproductive rights, intersectionality, Postcolonialism, and literary traditions influenced by Caribbean literature, African American literature, Latin American literature, and South Asian literature. Collaborations have involved institutions such as The New School, Columbia University, Princeton University, Harvard University, and Yale University, while distribution and publicity intersect with outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and festivals like Brooklyn Book Festival.

Notable Publications and Authors

The Press has issued works by and about a wide range of writers and activists, including Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Maya Angelou, Roxane Gay, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Isabel Allende, Octavia Butler, Nawal El Saadawi, Grace Paley, Marianne Moore, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, Doris Lessing, Clarice Lispector, Nellie Bly, Anzia Yezierska, Laura Riding, Ana Mendieta, Louise Bourgeois, Hélène Cixous, Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler, Nancy Fraser, Elaine Pagels, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Cherríe Moraga, Gloria Naylor, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Rebecca Solnit, Mona Eltahawy, Sibylle Berg, Assia Djebar, Edwidge Danticat, Claribel Alegría, and Nadine Gordimer. Reissues and translations have connected the Press to archives and editions associated with Project Gutenberg, Library of Congress, Bibliothèque nationale de France, and translators linked to PEN International.

Organizational Structure and Funding

The Press operates as a nonprofit governed by a board with ties to academic and cultural organizations such as City University of New York, Brooklyn College, Barnard Center for Research on Women, and partners like Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and MacArthur Foundation. Revenue streams combine book sales, grants, crowdfunding campaigns reminiscent of Kickstarter, and university partnerships with presses like University of California Press and University of Michigan Press. Staffing and advisory roles have involved editors, scholars, and activists associated with Modern Language Association, American Library Association, and professional networks including Independent Publishers Group.

Impact and Reception

Critics and scholars have debated the Press's influence on literary canons, pedagogy, and cultural memory alongside journals and reviewers such as Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The New Yorker, London Review of Books, and scholars in venues like Signs (journal), Feminist Studies (journal), Women's Studies International Forum, and PMLA. The Press's recoveries contributed to curricula at Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, Wellesley College, Spelman College, and Howard University, and its titles have been cited in work by Judith Butler, Cornel West, Edward Said, and Gayatri Spivak. Reception ranges from acclaim in feminist and progressive circles linked to Ms. (magazine), The Feminist Review, and Bitch Media to critiques voiced in outlets like National Review and debates within Republican Party discourse.

Awards and Recognition

The Press and its authors have received recognition associated with honors such as the Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize in Literature, National Book Award, MacArthur Fellows Program, PEN America Literary Awards, NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children, and fellowships from Guggenheim Foundation. Institutional acknowledgments have come from bodies including American Academy of Arts and Letters, UNESCO, Library of Congress National Book Festival, and academic awards conferred by Modern Language Association and National Women's Studies Association.

Category:Publishing companies of the United States Category:Feminist organizations in the United States