Smedley's Bookshop, 1st location - 119 E Buffalo St

For a decade, beginning in 1984, the mixed commercial and residential building at 307 West State Street was home to the women’s bookstore Smedley’s. According to the 1976 Women’s Resource Guide to Ithaca, Smedley’s was “a feminist and socialist bookstore committed to women, politics, beauty, and fun. The titles range from the intensely personal to the widely social. They [the bookstore] are working toward positive alternative ways to make life more liveable.” Smedley’s first opened in 1976 under the ownership of a Marxist-feminist collective and was named after the journalist, feminist, and spy, Agnes Smedley. At that time, the bookshop was collectively owned and operated by Harriet Bronsnick (later, Alpert), Kate Dunn, and Camille Tischler.

In 1981, the collective sold the business to editor and writer Irene “Zee” Zahava, who turned Smedley’s into a more all-encompassing women’s bookstore.