Wooden Shoe Books
From Infoshop OpenWiki
Wooden Shoe Books is an all-volunteer, collectively-run anarchist infoshop, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Contents |
[edit] Introduction
The Wooden Shoe is an Infoshop in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
It's located at 508 South 5th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19101.
Open from noon until 10pm on Sundays through Thursdays, and noon until 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays, the Shoe sells anarchist and radical literature, music, t-shirts, posters, stickers, patches and more.
The Shoe can be contacted at 215-413-0999 (during open hours) or at sabot@woodenshoebooks.org .
[edit] Volunteering
The Wooden Shoe is always looking for new volunteers. To volunteer, one just needs to stop by the store and ask for an application. Upon completing it and turning it in, a new volunteer will staff 3 training sessions, in which they will learn about both how to operate the store as well as how the collective functions. If you'd like to learn more, stop by.
[edit] Brief History
The original Wooden Shoe opened it's doors in December 1976. In that time it's seen tremendous changes in the people who make up the collective (no origonal members are still involved). It's also seen itself sabatoged by it's own members, the Shop burn down and much more.
The Shoe was started by members of Philadelphia Solidarity, which was a council communist group no longer in existence. It was located in a murkey basement located at 20th and Sansom Street. Here it sold radical literature, but kept mostly kept afloat by selling consigned records.
The Wooden Shoe served as a center for on-going anti-nuclear protests at the time, of the late 1970s thru the early 1980s.
In 1978, the store was vandalized. Books, pamphlets, files, and records were dumped onto the floor, which was then flooded with water. This ruined most of the inventory. Though the original members had suspicions, they did not find out until several months later that it was actually Shoe members and friends who had done it. About 10 years later, they vandals mailed a check and asked for forgiveness.
Many members attended the Anarchist Gathering in Philly in the early 1990s and helped organize it. After this, there was a resurgence of interest in Anarchism in Philly.
On the morning of February 12, Ash Wednesday, 1997, the Wooden Shoe burnt to the ground. Luckily, some members had visited The Trumbleplex in Detriot year earlier. Trumbull has fire insurance, and they brought that idea back to Philadelphia with them.
5th Street Not too long after, the Wooden Shoe reopened in a storefront 5th Street, where it has been ever since. Using the fire as a transformation, it moved away from being primarily a record shop and became more intested in literature.
During the GOP Convention in Philly in 2000, the Shoe began to pick up interest as Anarchists began to come out of the woodwork. Over the last two years as of July 2006, the Wooden Shoe has engaged in much restructering and is constantly trying to improve the way it operates. Shoe collective members from 5 years ago wouldn't recognize the way the Shoe operates today.
For more, see www.woodenshoebooks.org/history.html
