Lesbian Herstory Archives

## The Archives and The Lesbian Herstory Educational Foundation, Inc.

The logo for the Lesbian Herstory Archives website

### Purpose

To collect and archive books, recordings, and other materials by and about lesbians and lesbian communities.

The **Lesbian Herstory Archives** are archives of information and items created by and about lesbians and their communities. Its formal name is "The Archives and The Lesbian Herstory Educational Foundation, Inc.".

## History

Joan Nestle co-founded the Gay Academic Union in 1972, along with other gay women and gay men who had studied or worked at the City University of New York (CUNY). The group was mostly focused on "representing the concerns of Lesbian and gay students, teachers and workers" and "projects to ensure gay inclusion in course content" at CUNY. Later on, many of the women who were a part of GAU wanted to discuss sexism in the organization and other topics in separate meetings spaces away from GAU. One of the two consciousness-raising groups included Nestle and Deborah Edel. During one of that group's meetings sometime in 1974, Nestle and Julia Stanley discussed how difficult it was to track lesbian history and culture; most archive work was done by and focused on men, not by or about women. Nestle, Stanley, Edel, Sahli Cavallaro, and Pamela Oline decided to create "a grassroots Lesbian archives". Thus, the Lesbian Herstory Archives was formally founded in 1974.

Goals of the Lesbian Herstory Archives included keeping its services free and not seeking government funding so it would remain a grassroots effort. To help build grassroots support, Nestle and Edel would bring materials with them to speak where they were invited, such as to personal residences, classrooms, bars, women's festivals, and gay church and synagogue gatherings. Others who later joined the collective included lesbian historian Judith Schwarz; New York and New Jersey activist Georgia Brooks, who also created the first Black Lesbian studies group at the Archives; and Mabel Hampton, who shared stories from the Harlem Renaissance and donated her extensive 1950s lesbian pulp fiction paperback collection.

For over a dozen years, the Archives were housed at Nestle's Upper West Side residence at 215 West 92nd Street, apartment 13. By 1991, the Archives had grown to include: over 200 letters, diaries, and papers; thousands of informational files on individual lesbians and lesbian organizations; over 6,000 books related to lesbians, such as anthologies, pulp novels, and medical texts; 1,300 periodical titles including various newsletters; 12,000 photographs; hundreds of flyers, posters, graphics and other lesbian art; numerous pieces of oral history which were recorded on both audio and video tapes; as well as objects such as buttons, jackets, postcards, t-shirts, stickers, and other "living artifacts" of lesbian culture. Included is the entire library of the Daughters of Bilitis' New York chapter. Most items were voluntarily donated by lesbians from around the world.

With the Archives outgrowing Nestle's apartment, fundraising efforts began in the mid-1980s to eventually purchase its current location in 1992, which officially opened in June 1993. The Archive have grown even further since then to include newer books, articles, photographs, slides, and manuscripts, as well as newer media formats.

In recent times, there have been efforts to digitize at least part of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. So far, over 3,000 audio cassettes and 950 videotapes have been digitized and made accessible online.

## Resources

* Lesbian Herstory Archives official website
* Lesbian Herstory Archives Audio/Visual Collections

## References

1. ↑ "Home". *Lesbian Herstory Archives*. (Archived on August 12, 2022).
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Lesbian Herstory Archives". *NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project*. (Archived on April 30, 2022).
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Our Herstory". *Lesbian Herstory Archives*. (Archived on June 14, 2022).
4. ↑ Vanessa: "The Lesbian Herstory Archives: A Constant Affirmation That You Exist" (2012-06-19). *Autostraddle*. (Archived on September 28, 2021).
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Thistlethwaite, Polly: "The Lesbian Herstory Archives" (1991). academicworks.cuny.edu. (Archived on March 18, 2020).
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Collections". *Lesbian Herstory Archives*. (Archived on June 14, 2022).
7. ↑ "Lesbian Herstory Archives". *Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York*. (Archived on June 1, 2023).
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lesbian Herstory Archives: "Lesbian Herstory Archives Audio/Visual Collections". herstories.prattinfoschool.nyc. (Archived on July 17, 2022).