Ephemera collection of Moonyean Grosch, 1940-1995
Overview
Greeting cards, postcards, bumper stickers, photographs, and other ephemera of Moonyean Grosch, former owner of Womansplace Bookstore in Phoenix, Arizona.
Dates
- Creation: 1940-1995
Language of Materials
Materials in English.
Access Restrictions:
Access. Collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Copyright. Copyright in the papers created by Moonyean Grosch as well as copyright in other papers in the collection may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns.
Copying. Papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures.
Extent
1.04 linear feet ((2 file boxes, 1 half file box) plus 4 photograph folders.)The collection consists of postcards, greeting cards, bumper stickers, plaques, photographs, poetry, etc. The bulk of the material consists of greeting cards, postcards, and bumper stickers and is believed to have been sold in Moonyean Grosch's book store Womansplace. Much of the material is feminist and/or LGBT in nature and from the 1970s through the 1990s and was created by small feminist and lesbian presses and individual feminist and /or lesbian artists from the United States and Europe who catered to a number of LGBT and feminist bookstores. A smaller amount of material was created by large commercial companies such as Hallmark. Material has been arranged alphabetically by format with names of individuals, presses, and/or printing companies (other than mass production printers) noted at the folder level followed by photographs. Items that are likely to have been displayed in Womanspace are four comical wall plaques re: women (e.g. "Loose Women Admitted Free") and several matted clippings: two young girls kissing, a George Fiske photograph of Kitty Tatch and Katherine Hazelston, waitresses at Yosemite National Park hotels, dancing on Overhanging Rock at Glacier Point in 1900, and of a portrait of an unidentified woman dressed in men's clothing. The oldest item in the collection is a pamphlet from the 1940s which recounts a supposedly true story of lesbian orgies regularly held by a group of upper class women in New York City. It is unlikely that two groups of photographs in the collection which feature nude women ca.1950 and men and women engaged in bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, and sadomasochistic acts were sold at Womanspace (given a comment in the Arizona Gay News that states "This is the only place in Phoenix where gay men can buy literature (not pornography).") Several other items in the collection were also unrelated to the bookstore, two versions of books of poetry written by Moonyean Grosch for her parents in 1960 and a postcard sent to her by a friend in 1989 from Hawaii.
BIOGRAPHY
Moonyean Grosch was born Margaret Grosch in California in 1952. She graduated from Clovis High School in Clovis, California, in 1970. In the late 1970s she started a new book store on a few shelves in the back of the Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona. By 1980, she had garnered enough business to open her own store and established Womansplace Bookstore in Phoenix, Arizona. The store catered to the feminist and LGBT communities selling bumper stickers, pins, posters, t-shirts, jewelry, greeting cards, music, feminist newspapers, and literature. The bookstore also co-sponsored a number of feminist events and served as an informal meeting place for feminist and LGBT groups. Following the closing of her bookstore she moved to the San Francisco Bay area and worked in a book store in Santa Rosa, California. She also operated a small mail order book business for a number of years. She died of metastatic cancer in 2017.
Physical Location
Collection stored off site: researchers must request access 36 hours before use.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Accession number: 2019-M127
This ephemera of Moonyean Grosch was acquired from Bolerium Books by the Schlesinger Library in July 2019.
Processing Information
Processed: September 2019
By: Mark Vassar.
The Schlesinger Library attempts to provide a basic level of preservation and access for all collections, and does more extensive processing of higher priority collections as time and resources permit. Finding aids may be updated periodically to account for new acquisitions to the collection and/or revisions in arrangement and description.
- Author
- Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America
- Language of description
- eng
- Sponsor
- Processing of this collection was made possible by gifts from the Elsie Rodd Fund and the Ellen Sears Minot Fund.
- EAD ID
- sch01689
Repository Details
Part of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute Repository
The preeminent research library on the history of women in the United States, the Schlesinger Library documents women's lives from the past and present for the future. In addition to its traditional strengths in the history of feminisms, women’s health, and women’s activism, the Schlesinger collections document the intersectional workings of race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in American history.