Our History as the Oldest & Very Best LGBTQ
& Feminist Bookstore in the Country
Giovanni’s Room was founded in 1973 at 232 South Street by Bernie Boyle, Tom Wilson Weinberg, and Dan Sherbo.
They debated a few names for the store, including “The Well of Loneliness” after the 1928 famed lesbian novel by Radclyffe Hall, and “The Store that Dare Not Speak its Name” after “the love that dare not speak its name” from the poem “Two Loves” by Lord Alfred Douglas (one of Oscar Wilde’s lovers). The team landed on “Giovanni’s Room,” after the 1956 novel by James Baldwin. They were heavily inspired by Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, which was the first gay bookstore in the country, and had opened several years earlier in 1967 in New York City. Oscar Wilde Memorial’s 2009 closing left Giovanni’s Room the oldest existing LGBT bookstore.
Boyle, Weinberg, and Sherbo ran the store for two years, then sold the business in September of 1975 to Pat Hill.
Hill ran the business for the next year, selling it to Arleen Olshan and Ed Hermance in 1976. Olshan had known Hill through the Philadelphia lesbian community, and she had known Hermance through the Gay Community Center. Along with the new ownership, the store moved from South Street to 1426 Spruce Street, right off of Broad Street, where the Kimmel Center now stands. The store was on Spruce Street for over two years, before moving to its final location at the corner of South 12th and Pine Streets. Hermance and Olshan were able to buy the property, due to generous loans from the community.
In 1986, Hermance became the sole owner of the business.
He expanded the retail space into its current configuration, by purchasing the building next door. The store’s most financially successful time on record followed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. By the late 1990s, “Giovanni’s Room was the principal supplier of American gay, lesbian and feminist books to stores in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.”
In 2013, Hermance announced his retirement with the store set to close.
Thankfully, local nonprofit Philly AIDS Thrift (PAT) announced it had signed a two-year lease to take over the bookstore, calling it Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni’s Room, securing and continuing the legacy of the store.
For over 50 years, Giovanni’s Room has been proud to provide a space for queer and feminist literature as well as community space for LGBTQIA+ people. Since its founding the bookstore has hosted readings and book signings for countless queer writers, including but not limited to Leslie Feinberg, Rita Mae Brown, Alison Bechdel, Edmund White, Samuel R. Delaney, Kate Bornstein, Greg Louganis, Mercury Stardust, and Yvie Oddly.
