THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Ann Christophersen

“We wanted a form of employment where we could not be vulnerable to other people’s decisions.”

Co-founder and former co-owner of Women & Children First Bookstore. She and her business partner, Linda Bubon, opened the bookstore in 1979 as a way to contribute to the international feminist movement and to join with and support those in Chicago working to further the rights and well-being of women and children. Women & Children First has been honored with awards from Chicago NOW, the ACLU’s Roger Baldwin Foundation, Bailiwick Repertory Theatre and The Lesbian Community Cancer Project, among others. In 2004, the Chicago Sun-Times named Ann and Linda among the city’s 100 most powerful women.

Interviewed by Mary Jean Collins, VFA Historian, July 2022