Responding to a surge of interest in women's literature, June James and Julia Sugden threw in $1000 each to open a bookshop in a small rented shop at 204 Rowe Street, Eastwood, in 1974. It was the first shop in Australia to sell only women's and feminist texts. When Sugden moved to Balmain, she opened a second shop at Rowntree Street in 1977. More than three decades later, having moved to Lilyfield in 1982, the Feminist Bookshop still trades.