Successful Lesbians Making History Launch at The ArQuives

This past Sunday saw the launch of Lesbians Making History, at The ArQuives. A packed house gathered to celebrate the launch of the Lesbians Making History oral history collection. Displayed prominently at the front of the packed event space, was the original banner used by Lesbians Making History throughout the 80’s and 90’s. Sprawled across the giant banner in giant black letters, was the phrase “We’re Interested in Older Women”- a succinct, on-point summary of the group’s goals. Certainly “interested in older women,” Lesbians Making Histories formed in the 1980’s as a network of community historians and activists interested in conducting interviews on women who identified as lesbian from the 1940’s to the 1970’s. The oral history project was especially important because of its focus on documenting the survival of lesbian communities before the 60’s advent of second wave feminism. The original Lesbians Making History collection was digitized under a partnership with the LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory, and will soon be made available to the public through the Collaboratory. Speakers at the launch included the original members of Lesbians Making History: Maureen Fitzgerald, Amy Gottleib, and Didi Khayatt, who all shared touching anecdotes from throughout the history of Lesbians Making History. Other speakers included the lively Eve Zaremba (the last living interviewee from the original group of women interviewed for the project), and Elspeth Brown from the LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory.  We have their efforts to thank for the existence, digitization and continued preservation of the Lesbians Making History collection. Be sure to follow the Collaboratory on twitter: @lgbtqhistory