Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project

Last updated
Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project
at
Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History
LocationNorthampton, Massachusetts, U.S.
Established1998 (1998)
Collection
Items collectedInterview transcripts, audio recordings (cassette tapes and digital files); correspondence, releases, photographs; biographical material, writings, speeches, memorabilia.
SizeMore than 500 oral histories.
Other information
Parent organization Smith College
Website

The Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project (OLOHP) is a collection of interviews that document the lives of lesbians, especially those born in the first half of the 1900s.

Contents

History and mission

The project was created in 1998 by Arden Eversmeyer, then a retired public school teacher and counselor and a lesbian community activist in Houston. [1] [2] Eversmeyer was inspired to gather these oral histories when she observed lesbian friends who had been born in the 1920s and 1930s passing away and became concerned that their life stories would never be shared. [3]

The OLOHP is focused on interviewing lesbians age 70 and older. [3] The interviewees come from a variety of backgrounds and places, most, but not all, within the United States. OLOHP volunteers ask the interviewees about their upbringing, their families, and their adult lives. [3] The project explains: "Some women do talk about sex, but many don't. We don't ask, but neither do we discourage it… if a woman opts to share about that aspect of her life, that is her choice. We are very interested in learning how she feels being a lesbian has affected her life." [3]

Project results

Project volunteers have collected over 750 stories from women around the world. [1]

OLOHP has published two books of its oral histories: A Gift of Age: Old Lesbian Life Stories (2009) and Without Apology: Old Lesbian Life Stories (2012). [1]

Transcripts, audio recordings, photographs, and other materials from OLOHP are archived at the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History at the Smith College Libraries in Northampton, Massachusetts. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oral history</span> History taken verbally and recorded or transcribed

Oral history is the collection and study of historical information from people, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who participated in or observed past events and whose memories and perceptions of these are to be preserved as an aural record for future generations. Oral history strives to obtain information from different perspectives and most of these cannot be found in written sources. Oral history also refers to information gathered in this manner and to a written work based on such data, often preserved in archives and large libraries. Knowledge presented by Oral History (OH) is unique in that it shares the tacit perspective, thoughts, opinions and understanding of the interviewee in its primary form.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Smith</span> American activist and academic (born 1946)

Barbara Smith is an American lesbian feminist and socialist who has played a significant role in Black feminism in the United States. Since the early 1970s, she has been active as a scholar, activist, critic, lecturer, author, and publisher of Black feminist thought. She has also taught at numerous colleges and universities for 25 years. Smith's essays, reviews, articles, short stories and literary criticism have appeared in a range of publications, including The New York Times Book Review, The Black Scholar, Ms., Gay Community News, The Guardian, The Village Voice, Conditions and The Nation. She has a twin sister, Beverly Smith, who is also a lesbian feminist activist and writer.

The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College is an internationally recognized repository of manuscripts, photographs, periodicals and other primary sources in women's history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mabel Hampton</span> American activist, dancer, philanthropist (1902–1989)

Mabel Hampton was an American lesbian activist, a dancer during the Harlem Renaissance, and a volunteer for both Black and lesbian/gay organizations. She was a significant contributor to the Lesbian Herstory Archives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alma Routsong</span> American writer of lesbian fiction

Alma Routsong was an American novelist best known for her lesbian fiction, published under the pen name Isabel Miller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Nestle</span> Lesbian writer

Joan Nestle is a Lambda Award winning writer and editor and a founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, which holds, among other things, everything she has ever written. She is openly lesbian and sees her work of archiving history as critical to her identity as "a woman, as a lesbian, and as a Jew."

Joan E. Biren or JEB is an American feminist photographer and film-maker, who dramatizes the lives of LGBT people in contexts that range from healthcare and hurricane relief to womyn’s music and anti-racism. For portraits, she encourages sitters to act as her “muse”, rather than her “subject”. Biren was a member of The Furies Collective, a short-lived but influential lesbian commune.

<i>Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives</i> 1992 Canadian documentary film directed by Lynne Fernie

Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives is a 1992 Canadian hybrid drama-documentary film about Canadian lesbians navigating their sexuality while homosexuality was still criminalized. Interviews with lesbian elders are juxtaposed with a fictional story, shot in fifties melodrama style, of a small-town girl's first night with another woman. It also inserts covers of lesbian pulp fiction. The film presents the stories of lesbians whose desire for community led them on a search for the few public beer parlours or bars that would tolerate openly queer women in the 1950s and 60s in Canada. It was written and directed by Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman and featured author Ann Bannon. It premiered at the 1992 Toronto Festival of Festivals and was released in the United States on 4 August 1993. It was produced by Studio D, the women's studio of the National Film Board of Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training</span> United States non-profit organization

The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) is a United States 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established in 1986 by retired Foreign Service officers, headquartered at the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, Virginia. It produces and shares oral histories by American diplomats and facilitates the publication of books about diplomacy by diplomats and others. Its Foreign Affairs Oral History program has recorded over 2,600 oral histories and continues to grow; its book series includes over 100 books. ADST is located on the campus of the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Virginia. ADST is the sole American private organization principally committed to the collection of documents about recent U.S. diplomatic history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Life Stories</span> Oral history project at the British Library

National Life Stories (NLS) is an independent charitable trust and limited company based within the British Library Oral History section, whose key focus and expertise is oral history fieldwork. Since 1987 National Life Stories (NLS) has initiated a series of innovative interviewing projects funded almost entirely from sponsorship, charitable and individual donations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lesbian Herstory Archives</span> Archive, history museum in Brooklyn, New York

The Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) is a New York City-based archive, community center, and museum dedicated to preserving lesbian history, located in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The Archives contain the world's largest collection of materials by and about lesbians.

The Black Women Oral History Project consists of interviews with 72 African American women from 1976 to 1981, conducted under the auspices of the Schlesinger Library of Radcliffe College, now Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Proctor Oral History Program</span>

The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) is the official oral history program at the University of Florida. With over 6,500 interviews and more than 150,000 pages of transcribed material, it is one of the premier oral history programs in the United States. SPOHP's mission is "to gather, preserve, and promote living histories of individuals from all walks of life." The program involves staff, undergraduate and graduate students, and community volunteers in its operation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives</span>

The June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives is a grass roots archive dedicated to collecting, protecting, and conserving lesbian and feminist women's history. The Archives was founded in 1981 as the West Coast Lesbian Collections (WCLC) by Lynn Fonfa and Cherrie Cox in Oakland, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yolanda Retter</span> American activist

Yolanda Retter was an American lesbian activist, librarian, archivist, and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arden Eversmeyer</span> American LGBT rights activist

Jean Arden Eversmeyer, known as Arden Eversmeyer, founded the organizations Lesbians Over Age Fifty (LOAF) and Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project (OLOHP) to give older lesbians visibility and a sense of community and to document their stories.

Labrisz Lesbian Association was founded in 1999 in Budapest, Hungary. Its purpose is making the lives and issues of lesbian, bisexual and transgender women more visible, along with seeking to aid these women with various cultural programs and discussion groups. Labrisz Lesbian Association is also one of the co-founders of the Rainbow Mission Foundation - the Foundation mainly responsible for organizing the Budapest Pride festival each year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Roma</span> Musical artist

Catherine Roma is an American choral conductor and activist. She was a founding conductor and organizer of the US women's choral movement. She founded the feminist Anna Crusis Women's Choir in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1975, the MUSE women's choir in Cincinnati in 1984, the Martin Luther King Coalition Choir in 1992, and the World House Choir in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bev Hickok</span> American librarian

Beverly Hickok, sometimes written as Bev Hickock, was an American librarian, founder and head of the Transportation Library at the University of California, Berkeley. She was also a prominent early member of gay rights and lesbian community organizations in the San Francisco area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shevy Healey</span> American psychologist

Shevy Evelyn Wallace Healey born Sewera Finkel, was an American clinical psychologist, labor organizer, sleep researcher, and activist. She was a founding member of Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC).

References

  1. 1 2 3 Wolf, Brandon (2021-03-03). "Herstory Maker". OutSmart. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
  2. "What we are about..." The Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "FAQs". The Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project. Retrieved 2023-11-28.
  4. "Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project records". Smith College Libraries. Retrieved 2023-11-29.