Mama Bears Bookstore

Writer Deb Cooperman and friend Ruth at reading they
did at Mama Bears

Mama Bears Bookstore

Location: 6536 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, California, USA

Opened: 1983

Closed: March 2003

Here is how they described themselves in 1999:

Mama Bears Women's Bookstore is one of the oldest feminist bookstores in the world. We feature a wide selection of books and gift items of interest to women.

Certainly that's modest and straightforward enough. Fortunately we have more to go by. Here is the write-up from when Mama Bears won the Best Independent Bookstore honor from Best of the East Bay 2001:

Leaflet for Max Dashu event at
Mama Bears

The bookstore is nice and small and people look up at you when you walk in the door -- usually a trait with which we feel uncomfortable, but it's somehow rendered OK in Mama Bears. The women behind the counter have been there forever and can point you in all the cardinal directions for books on women and relationships and pirates and school and food. While you peruse the stacks, you can always gaze up at the posters of famous women on the wall to inspire you to do things, or if not that, then at least read about it. A café's in back for tea and snacks, and free literature abounds at the front. But be sure to visit soon. The store's lease is up in two years, and where they'll go, nobody knows.

As it turned out, that last sentence turned out to be highly prophetic. The following announcement appeared in SFGate in March 2003:

Mama Bears, the sweet, little women's bookstore on Telegraph Avenue, is calling it quits after 20 years, but don't despair -- a new sweet, little women's bookstore is opening up in its stead.

Initially, Sarah Cohen, 26, was planning on buying Mama Bears from Alice Molloy and Carol Wilson, whose feminist bookstore roots go back a good 30 years. But the deal fell through when the two parties couldn't agree on a price, and Molloy and Wilson began liquidating their stock of books for, by and about women. They have temporarily moved across the street to a rental space at 6434 Telegraph Ave., and that's where they they plan to sell off all their books at a 40 percent discount.
A lot of forlorn women have been dropping in, e-mailing or telephoning to express their disappointment that the store is going out of business, but Molloy won't have it: "Hey, we're excited," she said. "We're retiring!"

Molloy is thinking about turning the Mama Bears Web site into a political forum. Wilson has plans to volunteer.

A beautiful tribute to the store was posted on Facebook under Remembering Our Feminist Sisters:

6536 Telegraph Avenue today

The 3 Dyke Crones: Alice Molloy, Carol and Natalie who ran Mama Bears bookstore on the Oakland/Berkeley border for YEARS. It was so sad to me when they could no longer make a go of it or were just ready to retire.

They sold Lesbian, Feminist and Goddess/Women's spirituality books and it there I have amassed my huge collection. They also sold Lesbian and women's artwork, magazines, Lesbian/Pride jewelry, had author lectures and signings and small intimate women only concerts there as well as rituals.

At night we could have strictly women only events and during the day open to all.

Every Thanksgiving and sometimes on Christmas Day too tgey cooked up a big turkey or on Xmas Day a ham..for Dykes in the community who had no family or no place else to go. Everyone else poylicked the side dishes and it was a wonderful sense of community and bonding and service they did for the community.

There were also sodas and snacks and tabes so anytime during the day womyn could come in and socialize with each other or with them if they weren't too busy. I always amassed a stack of books and while snacking would peruse through them to see which ones of the bunch I really wanted.

Indeed Mama Bears was a Lesbian and women's community institution. Alice and I had many a political discussion. She considered herself to be an anarchist Feminist. I considered it my home away from home....the 3 were very sad when the end came and I missed them. Especially Alice and Carol. I don't know if they are all still alive or not...they pretty much disappeared after the bookstore closed....

Mary's First and Last Chance

2278 Telegraph Avenue today
The Rock Paper Scissors Collective

Mary's First and Last Chance

Location: 2278 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, California, USA

Opened/Closed: 1950s

In an article called "First and Last Chance: Looking for Lesbians in Fifties Bar Cases," Joan W. Howarth examines four California appellate cases from the 1950s that involved the shutting down of gay bars by revoking liquor licenses. The four bars discussed include Black Cat, located in San Francisco's North Beach (1951); Pearl's in downtown Oakland (1957); Hazel's in San Mateo County (1958); and First and Last Chance (1959). After reviewing the court records, it became evident that lesbians had at least a nominal presence at all these bars. The only one that could truly be called a lesbian bar, though, was First and Last Chance: 

Finally we arrive at the last stop, the First and Last Chance, a lesbian bar on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland. This was the bar at issue in Vallerga v. Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, the 1959 California Supreme Court case that closed out the fifties. The First and Last Chance gives us the most complete representation of lesbians, provides the most powerful critique of the false conduct/status dichotomy, and tells us the most about the racing and classing of lesbians.

Wiley Manuel, the California Deputy Attorney General who litigated on behalf of the ABC, chose a tone of ironic condescension for his description of the goings-on at the First and Last Chance:

Helen Davis,  a policewoman, was on the premises in May of 1956 with  another policewoman, Marge Gwinn. Buddy, a female waitress, greeted the policewomen who were later joined by the lesbian, Shirleen. Shirleen  told  Marge  "you're a cute little butch." Shirleen later grabbed Marge and kissed her. Buddy the waitress just said to watch it and if they continued to do that they should go to the restroom. The next night nothing apparently happened. The following night Buddy joined the group again with a trio of sexual  perverts.  Shirleen was not the only girl who took a liking to Marge for Buddy had grown quite fond  of Marge too. 
. . . .  On May  11, 1956  two  females  this  tune were observed  by Agent Sockyer holding hands affectionately. The only thing normal about this pair was that one of the couple used the women [sic] restroom.
Shirleen was rather fickle. Before she discovered policewoman Marge Gwinn she had kissed  another female patron.

The Deputy Attorney General went on to argue that the Business and Professions Code section was constitutional,  "[n]o matter how orderly the perverts are .... " He argued that the "evil to be prevented is clearly shown in the evidence" and that the statute was necessary  to "protect[]  innocent persons from being the object of unnatural advances, e.g., the policewoman who was kissed by the lesbian in this case." (That policewoman had gone undercover, in the words of the bar owner's attorneys, "disguised as a lesbian.")

The court of appeal issued a remarkable opinion that was staunchly skeptical of the Deputy Attorney General's impassioned arguments. The court found the pairing off and mannish attire relatively inconsequential:

If entitled to any legal significance, [it] merely emphasized the fact that the patrons were homosexuals or lesbians. Of  themselves, these acts did not amount to immoral, indecent, disgusting or improper acts. They merely tended to prove that the patrons were homosexuals, a fact the licensee admitted. That fact alone, for reasons already stated, did not justify revoking the license.

The court of appeal further emphasized that the paucity of evidence of wrongdoing was especially noteworthy given that "some officers [namely Helen Davis and Marge Gwinn] visited the First and Last Chance almost daily for nine months."

Read the rest here.

Other sources have clarified that this bar was called Mary's First and Last Chance, with the address listed above.