Deborah Edel and Mabel Hampton of the Lesbian Herstory Archives through the annual Satisfaction Parade in New York Metropolis in June 1980 (picture by Peter Keegan/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Pictures; all different images Rhea Nayyar/Hyperallergic)
This text is a part of Hyperallergic’s 2025 Satisfaction Month sequence, spotlighting moments from New York’s LGBTQ+ artwork historical past all through June.
A wealthy assortment pertaining to lesbian life, activism, and scholarship hides in plain sight in Park Slope, nestled between the residential brownstones a couple of stone’s throw away from Prospect Park. The Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA), which was born out of an Higher West Facet condominium in 1974 and landed within the Brooklyn neighborhood within the early ’90s, is the world’s largest choice of supplies by and for anybody who identifies with the time period lesbian.
The start of the archives is attributed to a handful of lesbian students — together with Deborah Edel, Joan Nestle, Sahli Cavallaro, Julia Stanley, and Pamela Oline — who had been lively within the Homosexual Tutorial Union within the early ’70s, and located that it was concurrently unsafe and futile to hunt out Sapphic analysis supplies in institutional collections on the time. The unique location was Nestle and Edel’s shared condominium on 92nd Avenue, however the assortment had far exceeded the tight house after its first decade, necessitating the acquisition of its new headquarters on 14th Avenue in Brooklyn. On the time, Park Slope had a energetic neighborhood of lesbian residents and was affectionately nicknamed “Dyke Slope,” although LHA and Ginger’s Bar are among the many final devoted areas to lesbians within the neighborhood.
An expansion of On Our Backs lesbian erotica editions from the Lesbian Herstory Archives’s zine assortment
A comfy studying nook carved out within the first-floor library
Since its inception, the LHA has steadfastly prevented authorities funding to keep up its grassroots basis, and a rotating live-in caretaker has at all times overseen the collections to maintain the house feeling like a house. The collections and their upkeep are funded by particular person lesbians, donations from guests, non-public grant provisions, and like-minded impartial organizations.
Pins, prophylactics, insurance policies and procedures slips, and Know Your Rights playing cards are only a smattering of what’s obtainable on the group’s entrance door.
The “other related memorabilia” in query!
Throughout an onsite tour, volunteer coordinator Nora Della Fera pointed Hyperallergic towards a colourful choice of independently revealed and archived grownup magazines, together with On Our Backs (1984–2005), generally known as the primary women-run lesbian erotica publication in america, and FaT GiRLs (1994–97), a pornographic zine for “fat dykes and the women who want them.”
One other fascinating archival discover from the worldwide collections was an version of Manushi: A Journal about Girls and Society, an Indian feminist journal from 1978 that revealed tales and experiences on the intersection of sophistication, gender, faith, and ethnic marginalization throughout South Asia.
The cheeky again cowl of an version of FaT GiRLs
LHA can also be a hub for neighborhood occasions starting from crafting and author’s workshops to assortment spotlights, velocity courting nights, screenings and readings, and extra — such because the LHA’s annual e-book sale throughout Brooklyn Satisfaction on Saturday, June 14. Occasion info is finest discovered through the group’s Instagram. Final yr’s fiftieth anniversary, Della Fera mentioned, was celebrated with a Dyke Promenade that was “super intergenerational.”
“Some of our founders were there alongside some of our 19-year-old interns, and it was so gratifying to see some of the older lesbians that founded this place when they were my age being able to pass it on to the next generation and have us shepherd it into the future,” she mentioned.
“I feel so, so lucky to be a part of that,” Della Fera continued. “To be in community with and have these intergenerational friendships with women that had such different experiences from me and paved the way for me to be a dyke who grew up in Park Slope.”
Although accessibility is a major issue within the group’s mission, LHA might be visited by appointment solely through their on-line calendar portal to make sure that all guests have the room to comfortably analysis and discover.
The inexperienced bins storing the periodicals collections seem like sea glass mosaics.
