Summary

Creator:

Teer, Dorothy "Cookie"

Abstract:

Dorothy "Cookie" Foster Teer was born on August 15, 1941 to Dorothy and Nello Teer, Jr. of Durham, N.C. After a stint in New York, she returned to Durham in the 1970s. After taking some courses at Duke Divinity School, she joined the committee that founded Triangle Hospice. In the early 1980s, Teer became an overnight radical feminist, activist, and speaker, giving over 400 slide shows around the United States on pornography, sex role stereotyping, and child pornography. A 1987 conversation led to her co-founding of Southern Sisters Bookstore, a Durham, N.C. bookstore "by, for, and about women." By the late 1980s and 1990s, Teer was heavily involved in advocacy efforts around child custody, divorce, and domestic abuse, and frequently had "mothers on the run" living in her home. With a group of other women activists and radicals, Teer founded a writing collective called Women Against Sex. Married and divorced twice, Teer had three children. After Southern Sisters Bookstore closed, Teer took a step back from activism and began working as a real estate agent. The collection dates primarily between 1983-1997, providing thorough documentation of the social, cultural, and political debates over pornography in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, with materials from both proponents and opponents of anti-pornography legislation, as well as detailed documentation of the pornography industry, and transcripts from hearings organized by the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography. The collection contains some materials related to particular feminist activists and theorists, including Nikki Craft, Catherine MacKinnon, and Andrea Dworkin. Teer's extensive subject files also contain clippings, correspondence, and printed materials pertaining to women's rights, feminists, feminist organizations and events, and social issues related to women and children such as rape, pornography, incest, prostitution, domestic violence, child custody, and child abuse. Other materials relate to her ownership of the Southern Sisters bookstore (Durham, N.C.), such as promotional materials, newsletters, events fliers, and calendars.

Extent:

31.2 Linear Feet

Language:

Material in English

Collection ID:

RL.01282

Background

Scope and Content:

The materials in the Dorothy "Cookie" Teer Papers date from 1971 to 2000, with the bulk of the collection dating between 1983 and 1997. These materials include: newspaper clippings, magazines, correspondence, photographs, meeting minutes, manuscripts, notes, published books, audio and videotapes, organizational records, and court transcripts. The collection documents Teer's activism during this period, the feminist issues with which she was concerned, feminist and anti-pornography activism in and around Chapel Hill and Durham, N.C., and the activities of the organizations of which Teer was a member, including the National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) and Pornography Awareness.

This collection provides thorough documentation of the social, cultural, and political debates over pornography in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, with materials from both proponents and opponents of anti-pornography legislation, as well as detailed documentation of the pornography industry, with a focus on publications such as Playboy and Hustler. Transcripts from hearings organized by the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography supplement these materials, with testimony from all sides of the pornography debate. The collection contains some materials related to particular feminist activists and theorists, including Nikki Craft, Catherine MacKinnon, and Andrea Dworkin. Teer's extensive subject files also contain newspaper and magazine clippings, correspondence, and printed items pertaining to women's rights, feminists, feminist organizations and events, and social issues related to women and children such as rape, pornography, incest, prostitution, domestic violence, child custody, and child abuse. Other materials relate to her ownership of the Southern Sisters bookstore (Durham, N.C.), such as promotional materials, newsletters, events fliers, several rolodex files, rubber stamps, and calendars.

The collection is organized into four series: Subject Files, Orange County Human Relations Commission, Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, and Southern Sisters Bookstore.

The Subject Files series contains clippings and academic articles related to violence against women and children. Other materials include extensive documentation of the anti-pornography movement, the work of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, the National Organization for Women (N.O.W.), and various feminist or anti-pornography symposia. Includes files on feminist artist and activist Nikki Craft and feminist scholar and lawyer Catherine MacKinnon. Several files relate to the women's/feminist Southern Sisters Bookstore in Durham, N.C., of which Teer was a proprietor.

The Orange County Human Relations Commission series contains materials related to the Orange County Human Relations Commission and the Committee for Justice for Women of Orange County. Some materials consist of pamphlets or news clippings related to the HRC's focus areas, especially the status of women and children within the county and the state; series also contains planning for and documentation of the public hearings on the status of women and children in Orange County, N.C., organized by the Human Relations Commission and held in 1989.

The Attorney General's Commission on Pornography series contains materials related to the commission's 1985-1986 investigation into pornography. Consisting almost entirely of transcripts from public hearings on pornography, some with annotations, this series details many aspects of the U.S. pornography industry. This series also contains some materials from the 1983 Minneapolis hearings on pornography.

The Southern Sisters Bookstore series contains materials related to the feminist/women's Southern Sisters Bookstore, of which Teer was co-owner, President, and CEO. Materials include financial records, flyers, mailing lists, mission statement, bibliographies of materials related to feminist issues, as well as materials such as cards from the bookstore's Rolodex, signs, and rubber stamps. Contains some correspondence from patrons, donors, and supporters of the store.

Biographical / Historical:

Dorothy "Cookie" Foster Teer was born on August 15, 1941 to Dorothy and Nello Teer, Jr. of Durham, N.C. After a stint in New York, she returned to Durham in the 1970s to go into business. After taking some courses at Duke Divinity School, she joined the committee that founded Triangle Hospice. In the early 1980s, Teer became an overnight radical feminist, activist, and speaker, giving over 400 slide shows around the United States on pornography, sex role stereotyping, and child pornography. A 1987 dinner conversation led to her co-founding of Southern Sisters Bookstore, a Durham, N.C. bookstore "by, for, and about women" that served as a haven for activism and women's experiences. By the late 1980s and 1990s, Teer was heavily involved in advocacy efforts around child custody, divorce, and domestic abuse, and frequently had "mothers on the run" living in her home. With a group of other women activists and radicals, Teer founded a writing collective called Women Against Sex; they gave a paper at a conference in New York with the same title, which is still printed in anthologies. Married and divorced twice, Teer had three children. After Southern Sisters Bookstore closed, Teer took a step back from activism, and began working as a real estate agent who, with a woman builder friend, restored and sold old houses.

Date	Event
1945, Aug. 15	Born in Durham, N.C.
1960-1962	Attended Finch College, New York, N.Y.
1962-1964	Attended University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
1971-1978	Co-owner and Vice President, Vestido, Inc., Chapel Hill, N.C. and Atlanta, Ga.
1978	Founding member, Triangle Hospice, N.C.
1979-1985	Triangle Hospice Patient and Family Volunteer, N.C.
1980-1983	Triangle Hospice Director of Development, N.C.
1981-1984	Triangle Hospice Special Events Coordinator, N.C.
1981-1986	Member N.C. N.O.W. Task Force on Violence Against Women (Chair 1985-1986)
1983-1987	Received funding grants for contested child custody cases in Orange County, N.C. courts, resulting in the 1991 book Gender Bias, the Family and the Law.
1983-1993	Co-founder, Pornography Awareness, Inc.
1985 Jan.	Founder and Chair, "Is There a Relationship Between Pornography and Sexual Violence" symposium, Duke University, Durham, N.C.
1985 Oct.	Founder and Chair, "Women Surviving: Cultural Patterns" symposium, North Carolina Central University, Durham, N.C.
1985-1990	National Anti-Pornography Civil Rights Steering Committee
1986	Co-founded A Southern Women's Writing Collective
1986-1991	Duke University Council for Women's Studies
1987	Co-founder of N.C. Mobilization Action Project, N.C. Marital Rape Law
1987-1988	Served on Board of Directors, Orange County Planned Parenthood, N.C.
1987-1990	Member of Durham Orange Battered Women's Coalition, N.C.
1988-1992	Served as Orange County Human Relations Commissioner, N.C.
1988-1995	Acted as co-founder, President, and CEO of Southern Sisters Bookstore, Durham, N.C.
1989	Chair and organizer, Orange County Human Relations Committee hearings, "Quality and Status of Life for Women and Children in Orange County," N.C.
1989-1990	Co-founded Orange County Committee for Justice for Women, Orange County, N.C.
1989	Served on Board of Directors of Orange County Women's Center, N.C.
1990-1992	Co-authored Orange County Human Rights Code, Orange County, N.C.

Acquisition Information:

The Cookie Teer Papers were received by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book Manuscript Library as a gift in 2003.

Processing information:

Processed by Angela DiVeglia, April 2010

Encoded by Alexandra Krensky, August 2010

Accession 2000-0243 is described in this finding aid.

Some information, such as credit card numbers, have been redacted.

Restriction information updated by Tracy M. Jackson, May 2023.

Rules or Conventions:

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Subjects

Click on terms below to find related finding aids on this site. For other related materials in the Duke University Libraries, search for these terms in the Catalog.

Subjects:

Child pornography -- United States
Child sexual abuse -- United States
Women political activists -- United States
Booksellers and bookselling -- North Carolina -- Durham
Pornography -- Censorship
Pornography -- Law and legislation -- United States
Custody of children -- United States
Domestic violence -- United States
Serial murderers
Violence in mass media
Pornography -- Psychological aspects
Prostitution -- United States
Women in the book industries and trade -- United States

Formats:

Clippings (information artifacts)
Fliers (printed matter)

Names:

National Organization for Women
Southern Sisters Bookstore
United States. Attorney General's Commission on Pornography
Women Against Pornography
Teer, Dorothy "Cookie"
MacKinnon, Catharine A.
Dworkin, Andrea