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Daughters, Inc.
Daughters, Incorporated, or Daughters, Inc., was an American feminist publishing house founded in Plainfield, Vermont by June Arnold and Parke Bowman in 1972. Daughters, Inc. primarily published works of feminist and lesbian fiction. The press was significant in feminist separatism and the women in print movement, an international effort by second-wave feminists to establish alternative communications networks of publishers, printers, and bookstores created by and for women.
June Arnold founded Daughters, Inc. with her partner Parke Bowman after she could not find a publisher for her experimental novel The Cook and the Carpenter, which told a fictionalized version of the Fifth Street Women's Building Takeover. She was partially inspired by Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press, which allowed her to print her own books without editorial or publisher interference.
Arnold and Bowman were also influenced by lesbian feminism and feminist separatism, which sought to create separatist woman-centered communities and cultures. Arnold joined a consciousness-raising group during the early women's liberation movement and wanted to create modes of literary production, publication, and distribution that did not rely on men or the mainstream publishing establishment. Arnold called the mainstream press the "finishing press" because she believed their goal was to "finish" the women's liberation movement. Other feminist separatists became involved with Daughters, Inc., including Blanche McCrary Boyd, who was living in a nearby Vermont commune, Bertha Harris, and Charlotte Bunch of the Furies Collective.
Daughters, Inc. was influential in the burgeoning women in print movement, an international effort by second-wave feminists to establish autonomous communications networks of feminist publishers, printers, and bookstores created by and for women. Arnold organized the Women in Print Conference in 1976, which brought together women involved in woman-only publishing enterprises. The conference brought national attention to Daughters and Arnold, including a profile in The New York Times.
Unlike many other feminist presses in the women in print movement, Daughters was well-resourced because Arnold and Bowman came from wealthy backgrounds. Arnold and Bowman also rejected the communal model of publishing that was becoming popular at other feminist presses, with non-hierarchical structures, collective decision making, and rougher production quality from using amateur women printers. In contrast, Daughters paid for professional printing and provided their writers with more traditional agreements involving royalties and advances. There were sometimes tensions between the two founders, as Bowman wanted to "run Daughters as if it were Random House," whereas Arnold was more motivated by her ideological commitment to feminism and belief in the literary merits of experimental feminist texts.
Daughters attempted to create an avant-garde, experimental lesbian aesthetic in contrast to mass-market and lesbian pulp fiction titles. Once again influenced by modernists like Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, and Djuna Barnes, Arnold believed that a new, alternative form of feminist language was required. The press published some of the most influential experimental novels of the 1970s, including a translation of The Opoponax by Monique Wittig. These ideas were later fully embraced under the label of écriture féminine and feminist avantgarde.
The press marketed and distributed their own books. They created catalogs and took out advertisements in lesbian and feminist periodicals. Daughters also published excerpts of their novels in the feminist journal Amazon Quarterly and organized readings at feminist bookstores. After initially using a male printer and shipping books through the United States Postal Service, the press shifted to using female-operated presses and a woman-owned distribution company.
Daughters, Inc. came to national attention after Rita Mae Brown's debut novel Rubyfruit Jungle found unexpected success, selling over 60,000 copies primarily through word-of-mouth. In the 1977 New York Times profile, the women of Daughters, Inc. discussed the possibility of selling the reprint rights to Rubyfruit Jungle to a mainstream publisher. Brown herself was in favor of the sale because of the financial security it would provide her, but Arnold expressed more ambivalence. Soon after the piece was published, Daughters sold the rights to Bantam Books for $250,000. Daughters, Inc. was criticized for hypocrisy and "selling out" in many feminist circles.
Daughters, Inc.
Daughters, Incorporated, or Daughters, Inc., was an American feminist publishing house founded in Plainfield, Vermont by June Arnold and Parke Bowman in 1972. Daughters, Inc. primarily published works of feminist and lesbian fiction. The press was significant in feminist separatism and the women in print movement, an international effort by second-wave feminists to establish alternative communications networks of publishers, printers, and bookstores created by and for women.
June Arnold founded Daughters, Inc. with her partner Parke Bowman after she could not find a publisher for her experimental novel The Cook and the Carpenter, which told a fictionalized version of the Fifth Street Women's Building Takeover. She was partially inspired by Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press, which allowed her to print her own books without editorial or publisher interference.
Arnold and Bowman were also influenced by lesbian feminism and feminist separatism, which sought to create separatist woman-centered communities and cultures. Arnold joined a consciousness-raising group during the early women's liberation movement and wanted to create modes of literary production, publication, and distribution that did not rely on men or the mainstream publishing establishment. Arnold called the mainstream press the "finishing press" because she believed their goal was to "finish" the women's liberation movement. Other feminist separatists became involved with Daughters, Inc., including Blanche McCrary Boyd, who was living in a nearby Vermont commune, Bertha Harris, and Charlotte Bunch of the Furies Collective.
Daughters, Inc. was influential in the burgeoning women in print movement, an international effort by second-wave feminists to establish autonomous communications networks of feminist publishers, printers, and bookstores created by and for women. Arnold organized the Women in Print Conference in 1976, which brought together women involved in woman-only publishing enterprises. The conference brought national attention to Daughters and Arnold, including a profile in The New York Times.
Unlike many other feminist presses in the women in print movement, Daughters was well-resourced because Arnold and Bowman came from wealthy backgrounds. Arnold and Bowman also rejected the communal model of publishing that was becoming popular at other feminist presses, with non-hierarchical structures, collective decision making, and rougher production quality from using amateur women printers. In contrast, Daughters paid for professional printing and provided their writers with more traditional agreements involving royalties and advances. There were sometimes tensions between the two founders, as Bowman wanted to "run Daughters as if it were Random House," whereas Arnold was more motivated by her ideological commitment to feminism and belief in the literary merits of experimental feminist texts.
Daughters attempted to create an avant-garde, experimental lesbian aesthetic in contrast to mass-market and lesbian pulp fiction titles. Once again influenced by modernists like Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, and Djuna Barnes, Arnold believed that a new, alternative form of feminist language was required. The press published some of the most influential experimental novels of the 1970s, including a translation of The Opoponax by Monique Wittig. These ideas were later fully embraced under the label of écriture féminine and feminist avantgarde.
The press marketed and distributed their own books. They created catalogs and took out advertisements in lesbian and feminist periodicals. Daughters also published excerpts of their novels in the feminist journal Amazon Quarterly and organized readings at feminist bookstores. After initially using a male printer and shipping books through the United States Postal Service, the press shifted to using female-operated presses and a woman-owned distribution company.
Daughters, Inc. came to national attention after Rita Mae Brown's debut novel Rubyfruit Jungle found unexpected success, selling over 60,000 copies primarily through word-of-mouth. In the 1977 New York Times profile, the women of Daughters, Inc. discussed the possibility of selling the reprint rights to Rubyfruit Jungle to a mainstream publisher. Brown herself was in favor of the sale because of the financial security it would provide her, but Arnold expressed more ambivalence. Soon after the piece was published, Daughters sold the rights to Bantam Books for $250,000. Daughters, Inc. was criticized for hypocrisy and "selling out" in many feminist circles.