Venus Bill of Sale

As mentioned in the latest post Slavery in Northampton, the town’s minister Jonathan Edwards went to Newport, Rhode Island and purchased an enslaved young girl. Historic Northampton generously shared a copy of the topmost part of the bill of sale for the “Negro Girle named Venus” dated June 7,1731. Edwards, years later, cut the receipt into three strips and used the back for notes for a sermon. Used here with the permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. Transcription below the photo is by the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale University, New Haven CT.

KNOW ALL MEN by these presents That I Richard Perkins of Newport in the County of Newport & Colony of Rhode Island &c Marriner For & in Consideration of the Sum of Eighty pounds of lawful Current money of said Colony To me in hand well & truly paid at & before the ensealing & delivery hereof by Jonathan Edwards of Northampton in the County of Hampshire & Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England Clerk The receipt whereof I do hereby acknowledge and thereof & of every part & parcel thereof do exonerate aquit & discharge the said Jonathan Edwards his heirs Execrs Admrs & Assigns by these presents HAVE bargained sold & delivered And I the said Richard Perkins do hereby bargain sell & deliver unto the said Jonathan Edwards a Negro Girle named Venus aged Fourteen years or thereabout TO HAVE & TO HOLD the said Negro girl named Venus unto the said Jonathan Edwards his heirs Execrs & Assigns and to his & their own proper Use & behoof for Ever AND I the said Richard Perkins do hereby for my Self my heirs Execrs & Admrs covenant promise & agree to & with the said Jonathan Edwards his heirs Execrs Admrs & Assigns by these presents That I the said Richard Perkins at the ensealing & delivery hereof have in my own Name good Right, full Power & lawfull Authority to bargain sell & deliver the said Negro Girl named Venus unto the said Jonathan Edwards in manner & form aforesaid And shall & will warrant & defend the said Negro Girle named Venus unto the said Jonathan Edwards his heirs Execrs Admrs & Assigns against the lawfull Challenge & Demand of all manner of Persons whatsoever Claiming or to claim by from or under me or otherwise howsoever IN WITNESS whereof I the said Richard Perkins have hereunto set my hand & Seal the Seventh day of June in the Fourth Year of the Reign of our Soveraign Lord George the Second by the grace of God of Great Britain France & Ireland King Defender of the Faith &c

Anno Dm 1731

Richd Perkins

Sealed & Delivered in the presence of us

John Cranston

Jas Martin

Slavery in Northampton

In 1764 Northampton there were at least seven people held in slavery by prominent English colonists.  Those enslaved, along with three other people, were listed as being “negroes” in that year’s King George III’s Census, according to historian James Trumbull in his two volume History of Northampton  (published 1898 and 1902.) The names of the enslavers, but not the enslaved, were included. It is likely that they were from, or descendants of those from, West Africa, abducted, sold, and exported as merchandise to be resold in the British Colonies.

Three sentences about these ten Black people are the only acknowledgement in Trumbull’s 1300 page History of Northampton that the settlement practiced slavery.  Aside from a few additional notes on two of these people, James Trumbull and subsequent town historians omitted mentioning this past as the institution of slavery became unpopular in this region. Robert Romer found this practice of historical erasure common in most of the local area, calling it deliberate amnesia in his history, Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts (2009).. It would be another one hundred years before historians began to rectify this lapse in memory.

The scope of this deliberate amnesia became most readily apparent to me when, this past year, I turned to Massachusetts: a Concise History by Richard D. Brown and Jack Tager. The revised edition was published in 2000 by the University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst.  The history includes no mention of slavery until the narrative reaches the 1800s and the developing slavery abolition movement. The false impression given is that slavery was never practiced in Massachusetts. Many, now startling to me, facts about this past have been deliberately left out of historical accounts and, thus, general education.

Of the thirteen British colonies, Massachusetts Bay that was the first to explicitly legalize slavery. In 1641, the General Court added an article to the Body of Liberties addressing “bond slaverie.” 

Article 91 legally formalized the status of enslaved Africans who, as early as 1638, had begun to be imported and sold in Massachusetts. It also formalized the status of Indigenous people who were captured by the colonists, “taken in just wars,” and as “captives” forced to serve in English households or exported for sale as enslaved. [That is another story for later post.] These actions and the English colonists’ rationale are included in a very recently published history of New England slavery, Jared Ross Hardesty’s  Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds (2019). Published by the University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, it begins to fill an egregious gap in their sponsored literature.

During the colonial era, numerous additional laws were passed to control those enslaved in Massachusetts: ensuring that the children of slave women were also enslaved, regulating movement and marriage among slaves, and prohibiting black males from having sex with English women. Massachusetts Bay colony residents increasingly bought slaves, “servants for life.”  Some enriched themselves as Boston, an Atlantic port, became one of the largest centers of that trade in the enslaved.

As British colonization spread from the coast up the Connecticut River Valley, so too did slavery. The English first planted themselves in Springfield, founded as a trading post in 1636 by William Pynchon. Though he is not known to have enslaved Africans, Pynchon brought with him an indentured servant Peter Swinck. According to Joseph Carvalho’s history Black Families in Hampden County, Massachusetts (2010) Swinck is the first African American known to have lived in Western Massachusetts. He later was indentured to William’s   son and successor John Pynchon. The first record of enslavement in WMass is a note dated 1657 that John had paid a man for “bringing up [the Connecticut River] my negroes.” He is also known to have enslaved at least five Africans between 1680 and 1700. Springfield may have been the first Valley center of trading in the enslaved, with recorded sales made in the 1720s within Springfield and up the river valley.

The earliest mention of enslaved people in Northampton by James Trumbull concerns someone from outside of the settlement, related by him in the segment “Burning of William Clarke’s House:”

” On the night of July 14, 1681, Lt. Clarke’s house caught fire with Clarke, his wife, and grandson within. The tradition is that the door was locked from outside before the fire was set in revenge for some perceived mistreatment inflicted on the arson by Clarke. The residents escaped the log house with effort before an explosion of some combustible blew off the roof tree.”

“Jack, a slave run away from his Wethersfield CT owner was later caught and accused of the arson. He confessed to starting the fire, but claimed it began accidentally when he was inside searching for food by the light of a pine torch. Jack was taken to Boston for trial in the Superior Court. A jury found him guilty and sentenced him to be ‘hanged by the neck till he be dead and then taken down and be burnt to ashes in the fire with Maria, the negro’.”

 “Maria was under sentence for burning the houses of [her enslaver and his brother-in-law] in Roxbury. She was burned alive [at the stake]. Both of these negroes were slaves. Why the body of Jack was burned is not known.”

In a footnote, Trumbull adds, “Many slaves were burned alive in New York and New Jersey, and in the southern colonies, but few in Massachusetts.”

Wendy Warren, in her history of slavery and colonization in early America, New England Bound (2016),researched this Sep. 22, 1681 execution by burning, which was the first in New England. From the trial transcript, she was able to add some details to Jack’s story. He testified that he “came from Wethersfield and is Run away from Mr. Samuel Wolcott because he always beates him sometimes with 100 blows so that he hath told his master that he would sometime or other hang himself.” Jack told the court he had been on the run for a week and a half before his capture [somewhere in Hampshire County] by a miller he was trying to rob. A Springfield court sentenced Jack to prison, but he escaped. Thirteen days later he set fire to the house in Northampton.

Earlier, in 1652, because of fires set by “Indians and Negroes,” Massachusetts had passed a law making arson a capital crime, punishable by death. Warren posits that arson was perceived as a particular threat after the conflagrations of the [Pequot] War, and the example of two major uprisings–a servants’ rebellion in Virginia and a slaves’ rebellion on Barbados. Warren wonders if the severity of the form of execution came from the English colonists’ generalized fear of conspiracy and a need to terrify any others who might imitate Maria’s actions. Jack’s body being added to her consuming fire may have been a symbolic linking of their state of enslavement and their crimes.

The challenges of controlling the lives of the enslaved didn’t discourage ownership in Massachusetts. Warren points out that, given large-scale plantation slavery never developed in New England, chattel slavery might be seen as a vanity project of the very wealthy. One such example is merchant John Pynchon of Springfield, who benefited from the increase in West Indies trade. What the wealthy had, the less wealthy also wanted. The population of enslaved Africans in Massachusetts, including the Valley, grew over the next century as increasing numbers of the more well-to-do colonists owned at least one.

 From Pynchon’s Springfield, colonial plantations spread up the Connecticut River. Northampton was founded in 1654, Hadley in 1659, Deerfield in 1670, and Northfield in 1673. Over the next century, slave ownership also spread up the Valley. In the Provincial Enumeration in 1754-55 of Negro Slaves Sixteen Years or Older, a total of 75 were counted in Hampshire County, which then meant all of Western Massachusetts. Scholar Robert Romer notes, however, that numbers for more than half the Valley settlements were lost or never tabulated. Those missing numbers included Deerfield, where he discovered at least 25 slaves were owned. Numbers are not provided for Northampton, either.

Romer was surprised to discover that a significant number of ministers in the Valley owned slaves. In account books, estate papers and Probate court records, he found evidence to list slave-holding religious leaders in at least seventeen communities. Jonathan Edwards, who led Northampton’s Congregation from 1729 to 1750, is among them. In 1731, Edwards went to Newport, Rhode Island to purchase a “Negro Girle named Venus” for eighty pounds. He bought other slaves during his Northampton ministry, owned a slave called Rose when he left for Stockbridge in 1750, and “a negro boy named Titus,” at the time of his death in 1758.

Edwards’ enslavement of others has been most thoroughly researched by scholar Kenneth Minkema. In his paper on “… Edwards’ Defense of Slavery,” he notes “that within Northampton, a small but growing number of elites typically owned one or two slaves— a female for domestic chores and a male for fieldwork—and Edwards was willing to commit a substantial part of his annual salary to establish his membership in this select group.”  He mentions that these elite included prominent merchants, politicians, and militia officers, among them John Stoddard, Maj. Ebenezer Pomeroy, and Col. Timothy Wright.

Puritans in Massachusetts regarded themselves as God’s Elect, and so they had no difficulty with slavery, which had the sanction of the Law of the God of Israel. The Calvinist doctrine of predestination easily supported Puritans in a position that Blacks were a people cursed and condemned by God to serve whites. Jonathan Edwards subscribed to this thinking and defended another minister in the Valley criticized by his congregation for, among other things, owning slaves.

Lorenzo Greene’s the Negro in Colonial New England is by cited Douglass Harper for his early (1942) establishment of factual information, including population. The number of blacks in Massachusetts increased ten-fold between 1676 and 1720, from 200 to 2000.The population then doubled from 2,600 in 1735 to 5,235 in 1764, by which time blacks, not all of whom were slaves, had become approximately 2.2 percent of the total Massachusetts population. They were generally concentrated in the industrial and coastal towns, with Boston in 1752 having the highest concentration at 10%. 

The black population of colonial Western Massachusetts was slower to grow than the eastern part of the colony, as well as being in smaller numbers, but also shows a pattern of increase. According to William Piersen’s Black Yankees tabulation the Western counties’ black population grew from 74 [under]counted in 1754 to 5,983 in 1790. This also reflected an increasing percentage of Massachusetts total black population, from 3 to 12%. Though Northampton numbers weren’t included in the 1755 Enumeration of Slaves, the fact of  Jonathan Edwards’ being an enslaver suggests there were others owned and uncounted in the plantation at that time. That the numbers increased in subsequent years is suggested by the findings reported by Trumbull.

These are the few sentences in James Trumbull’s History of Northampton acknowledging that the settlement practiced slavery. In his summary of the 1764 King’s Census results, Trumbull writes:

“In addition [to a population of 1,274 whites] there were ten negroes, five males and five females. Apparently they were nearly all slaves, and were distributed in the following families:  Mrs. Prudence Stoddard, widow of Col. John, one female; Lieut. Caleb Strong, one male; Joseph and Jonathan Clapp, one each; Joseph Hunt one of each sex. There was one negro at Moses Kingsley’s, not a slave, another at Zadoc Danks, and Bathsheba Hull was then living near South Street bridge. [Author’s note: the arithmetic is dodgy.] “

Little is known about these few identified Africans. A Trumbull footnote later in his history adds, “…before the Revolution, Midah, a negro employed in the tannery of Caleb Strong Sr., was the principal fiddler in town.” In another passage, he describes Bathsheba Hull in 1765 as “a negress, widow of Amos Hull, and occupied a small house on the Island near South Street Bridge, formed by the Mill Trench.” The town claimed the land had been illegally squatted on and wished to evict her. Two years later, they had apparently bought her out and paid to move her to lower Pleasant Street.

Bathsheba Hull is also mentioned in Mr. and Mrs. Prince, the acclaimed history by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina. Abijah Prince, recently freed in Northfield, lived in Northampton from 1752 to 1754. He stayed with Amos and Bathsheba Hull, suggesting a circle of acquaintance among free Black former slaves in the Valley, some of whom owned property. Gerzina writes that Bijah (short for Abijah) worked for the hatter and church deacon Ebenezer Hunt, and that Amos, a freed former slave, was the servant of Hunt’s brother. As the Hulls were starting a family, they rented a farm. There is a gap in the story, with no explanation of how or when Amos died, or how the widow wound up living by the South Street bridge, or where or how many children they had.  Later in the time Gerzina finds Bathsheba and children living in Stockbridge.

Gerzina observes that while slavery in the North may have been less violent than that of the South, it was still slavery. Children and parents were sold away from each other, and freedom only came when a white person granted it. They, like their southern counterparts, ran away in large numbers, worked in the fields and houses of their owners, and were hired out without receiving any pay. Unlike southern slaves, however, they traveled between towns easily, could marry, learned to read, and had to attend church. In eighteenth century rural New England, the enslaved carried arms for hunting, military service, and protection. Still, Gerzina found, there were also suicides.

 People had their names taken from them when they were enslaved. The Africans were given names by their new owners, often biblical or mythological, and rarely with a surname except as an indication of race or status. This stripping of personal identity continued beyond their deaths as historians have had to struggle to find the record of their lives. Abijah Negro is listed on the Northfield poll tax, and Abijah Prince is also in records as, after his manumission, Abijah Freeman.

In addition to those in Northampton identified by Trumbull and Minkema, Robert Romer’s research added another seven names, for a total of at least fifteen slaveholders in Northampton. We do not know yet how many more there were or who the enslaved people were.

We also don’t know how those enslaved made the transition to being free women and men. In 1780, when the Massachusetts Constitution went into effect, slavery was still legal. Over the next several years, Freedom suits brought to court by those enslaved established that slavery wasn’t compatible with the new Constitution that declared “all men are born free and equal.” By the first federal census, which was in 1790, no one in Massachusetts was willing to go on record as still owning slaves. One assumes they all had either been sold out of state, freed to set up their own lives, or continued as hired-for-wages workers. This change in status is a whole other story. The data for Northampton is missing, however, so we can only guess that there were some – as the census put it — “all other [than white] free people” living here.

Historic Northampton is presently engaged in a long-term research project to identify and learn more about the lives of enslaved people in Northampton. Emma Winter Zeig is leading the project and, with interns, is systematically combing through all public and related private records. About thirty five enslaved people have been identified so far. Searches of the slaveholding family papers for any details are underway. Emma reports that the research is most complicated by lack of records. The researchers have been able to establish some surnames, identified familial relationships, and found more documentation of networks of relationship between people of color in Northampton. Some of their favorite finds have been the few sources that shed light on the daily lives of enslaved people_what Amos Hull was asked at catechism, for example. The project’s long term goal is to link with similar information from other towns to create a region-wide picture.

Two stones , side by side, mark the graves of two black women in the Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton. They read:

“SYLVA CHURCH b. 1756 d. April 12, 1822 Sacred to the Memory of Sylva Church A Coloured woman, who for many years lived in the family of N. Storrs, died 12 April, 1822, Very few possessed more good qualities than she did. She was for many years a member of Mr. Williams’ Church, and we trust lived agreeable to her profession, and is now inheriting the promises.“

“SARAH GRAY b. 1808 d. 1831 In memory of SARAH GRAY a coloured woman, By those who experienced her faithful services She died Oct. 7, 1831 Aged 23

Northampton author Susan Stinson’s novel Spider in the Tree is a fictional account of Reverend Jonathan Edwards that includes his slaveholding. Susan has given tours of the Bridge Street Cemetery. On one such occasion, she was approached by Frank Carbin, whose sister came on the tour one year, and pointed Susan to a reference that confirmed that Sylva Church was enslaved in the household of Jonathan Edwards’ daughter and later granddaughter. 

“There was a slave woman, “Lil”, as she was called, or Sylvia Church (her true name), who was too important a character in the household of Major Dwight and his widow, not to deserve at least a brief remembrance. She was bought on Long Island, when but 9 years old, and lived to advanced years, dying April 12, 1822, being, as is supposed, at that time, 66 years old. The last 15 years of her life she spent with Mrs. Storrs, dau. of Major Dwight. She was pious, faithful, industrious and economical. She had ‘all the pride of the family’ in her heart. She ruled the children of the house and indeed the whole street. She was in fact a strong-minded woman and a ‘character’ in the most striking sense of the word. Says John Tappan, Esq.,..”In addition to the fascination of the parlor, there was the faithful African in the kitchen, by the name of ‘Lilly,’ who ever welcomed me and was not one whit behind her mistress in fascinating my young heart.” At more than 40 years, she was hopefully made a member of Christ’s kingdom, when she first learned to read her Bible, which before had no attractions to her. ..” from The History of the Descendants of John Dwight of Dedham, Mass, by Benjamin W. Dwight, pages 130-140,  John Trow & Sons, Printers & Bookbinders, NY, 1874.

Bob Drinkwater would point out that these gravestones are white markers for people of color. In his book about searching for the gravestones of African Americans in Western Massachusetts, In Memory of Susan Freedom, he states that many-perhaps most- early Massachusetts residents of color now lie forgotten in unmarked graves on the periphery of common burying grounds and municipal cemeteries. If they were marked at all, it was often with field stones.

 Drinkwater believes these two black women’s graves were once segregated at the edge of the cemetery, before white burials expanded around them. Standing side by side he posits that the younger Sarah Gray served in the same household. Elsewhere in the Bridge Street cemetery, he noted at least a few other gravestones for African Americans, buried several decades later, among their white neighbors. One is for Samuel Blakeman who died in 1879. Another is for Mattie “a Negro” who died in 1862.  Far fewer graves are evident than the many people we are coming to know once lived and worked in Northampton. Just as the lives of Northampton’s early black residents were often left out of the written record, so too their deaths.

Bridge Street Cemetery, photo from Historic Northampton

Sources:

__Massachusetts: a Concise History by Richard D. Brown and Jack Tager. The revised edition was published in 2000 by the University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst. 

__Trumbull, James Russell. History of Northampton Massachusetts: From its Settlement in 1654. Volume I. 1898, Volume II. 1902. Northampton.

__Romer, Robert H. Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts. Levellers Press, Florence MA. 2009.

__Warren, Wendy. New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, London. 2016

__Hardesty, Jared Ross. Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst and Boston MA. 2019.

__Carvalho III, Joseph. Black Families in Hampden County, Massachusetts 1650-1865. Revised second edition, 2010. Accessed on academia.edu Oct. 26, 2020.

__Minkema, Kenneth P. ”Jonathan Edward’s Defense of Slavery.” Massachusetts Historical Review, Vol. 4, Race & Slavery (2002), pp.23-59. Massachusetts Historical Society. Courtesy of Historic Northampton.

__Minkema, Kenneth P. “Jonathan Edwards on Slavery and the Slave Trade.” The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 54. No. 4 (Oct., 1997), pp. 823-834. Omohondro Institute of Early American History. Courtesy of Historic Northampton

__Harper, Douglass. “Slavery in Massachusetts.”  Slavery in the North. Retrieved 2020, Aug 6.  http://slavenorth.com/massachusetts.htm.

__Greene, Lorenzo J. The Negro in Colonial New England 1620-1776. Atheneum , New York. edition 1968 of original 1942.

__Piersen, William D. Black Yankees: The Development of an Afro-American Subculture in Eighteenth-Century New England. University of Massachusetts press. Amherst. 1988.

__Gerzina, Gretchen Holbrook. Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and Into Legend. HarperCollins Publishers, New York,NY. 2008. My favorite history book, not only local and very readable but illuminating the lives of enslaved blacks and how history is written.

__Sweet, John Wood. Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730-1830. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia PA. 2003.

__Sharpe, Elizabeth and Zeig, Emma Winter. Historic Northampton. Email correspondence Aug-Sep, 2020.

 __Bureau of the Census. Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970. Part 2, Chapter Z.Series Z 1-19 Estimated Population of American Colonies: 1610-1780. Colonial and Pre-Federal Statistics.

__Stinson, Susan. Spider in a Tree: a novel of the First Great Awakening. Small Beer Press Easthampton MA. 2013.

__Stinson, Susan. Email correspondence Sep. 2020.

__Drinkwater, Bob. In Memory of Susan Freedom: Searching for Gravestones of African Americans in Western Massachusetts. Levellers Press. Amherst MA. 2020.

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The Backlash to the First March

Last Saturday, May 2, 2020, would have been the 39th Noho Pride parade and rally. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic it was cancelled and a video compilation provided a virtual substitution. It is a good time to remember the event’s birth pains.

The First March: May 15 1982

For years, people from Western Massachusetts drove to Boston to attend a Lesbian/Gay March, which started there 1970. There was an unsuccessful attempt in 1978(?) to start a similar event in Springfield. Finally on May 15, 1982, Northampton became home to Western Massachusetts’ first Lesbian/Gay March.

Daily Hampshire Gazette front page  May 17, 1982

The first Northampton march had no official name, but was billed as being held in support of the Lesbian and Gay Community and to protest the Family Protection Act. The Family Protection Act was proposed federal legislation that would ban a wide variety of services to gays as well as people of color, immigrants and the poor. The Gay and Lesbian Activists (GALA) organizers, applying for a parade permit, estimated 70-150 people would participate. Instead, an enthusiastic 600-800+ Lesbians, gay men and allies turned out. [I have reblogged the post about that first march and you can also find it through this link. https://fromwickedtowedded.com/2017/01/19/election-reflection/ ]

 That first public outing of Lesbians and gay men in Northampton happened in an already hostile local atmosphere that had been energized by the national emergence of the New Right and election of Ronald Reagan. Lesbians had already begun to be targets for violence in the late 70s, when they first become increasingly visible.  In early 1980, Lesbians and Gay Men Against Violence, an ad hoc group, picketed two area cinemas for showing the anti-gay film “Cruising,” which featured a serial killer of gay men. One of the organizers, David Jolly, told press that seeing gay people as fair game for such media stereotyping could lead to a backlash of violence against the gay community.

Several months later, four men invaded Womonfyre Books, a women’s bookstore on Masonic Street, threatening to vandalize the store and rape the Lesbian proprietors. Later, adding to community alarm, was the reappearance of the FBI . The Northampton Law Collective (formerly the Women’s Law Collective) warned in May 1982, the month of the first march, that several people in recent months had been stopped and questioned by agents. Again, people in the community were advised by the Collective they had a right not to talk to the FBI.

There was resistance from some of the City government to the idea of that first march. The City initially refused to waive the permit fee, as was traditional for other groups wanting to parade. Only five days before the event, City Councilman Mario Mazza denied the organizers access to Memorial Hall electricity to power the rally speaker system. Accounts differ as to whether Mayor Musante overruled Mazza or if the Unitarians eventually provided electricity. What is certain is that in an early act of solidarity, the Unitarians offered an electrical connection from their building near the Pulaski Park rally site.

The night before the 1982 march, the GALA organizers were phoned with threats of violence at the event. Nonetheless, the day went well, with reports of only a bottle and, then, a raw egg being thrown at marchers. The spectators lining the streets for the march were mostly surprised at the large turnout. Some were curious or thought it was fun. Some sneered or expressed disgust. The Daily Hampshire Gazette substituted the word “homosexual” for “gay” in their coverage wherever they could while printing an editorial congratulating Northampton on its tolerance of such an historic event.

Councilor Mazza’s attempt to sabotage the first GALA March was not forgotten in the following months. Efforts began to engage local Lesbian and gay political power. In August of 1982, a voter registration drive to involve more Lesbians in town politics began. The Pioneer Valley Peoples’ Gay Alliance’s political action committee began polling those running for state office. The need for more direct activism, however, soon became evident.

Assaults On Lesbians: Autumn 1982

Accounts of the initial outbreak of violence are varied, likely because of Lesbian reluctance to be out and the private horror of the crimes. As best as can be reconstructed, during a seven week period in the autumn of 1982, at least four women (three Lesbians) were assaulted on Market, Old, and New South Streets. Three of them were raped. One was beaten so severely she lost consciousness. According to the survivors, three men in a van, who approached “dykey-looking” women asking directions, made two of the attacks. Anti-lesbian comments were made during two of the assaults. One of the women, while still recovering in the hospital, received a taunting phone call from an anonymous male. The language used by him was similar to that used in the phone harassment that became widespread in December.

Valley Women’s Voice Oct. 1982

Northampton’s Lesbian community  was close-knit. Word of the assaults, including their frequency and pattern, spread quickly by word of mouth. In October, the monthly free newspaper Valley Women’s Voice printed a rape alert and notice of a Lesbian community meeting. About 200 attended this gathering at The Valley Women’s Martial Arts’ new dojo in Thorne’s Market.  A week later, in another community meeting convened by Jean Grossholtz, Lesbians considered the violence in context of the fundamentalist resurgence against all minority groups. The facts that the KKK was making new appearances in Springfield and that the Gay Community News office in Boston had recently been torched pointed to the need for wide coalition building.

An ad hoc group calling themselves Northampton’s Town Mothers drew attention to the assaults by posting a curfew ordering all males over the age of twelve to be off the streets after 6pm on Oct. 31. Halloween was a night when violence against women and children increased. Three hundred posters, with a faux City Seal, were placed at all the routes leading into as well as around town. In November, GALA organized a march against the Klan attended by about 200 people, many of them lesbians, in addition to members of the UMass Third World Women’s Task Force and the New Jewish Agenda.

Telephone threats begin: Dec. 1982

The new round of assaults began in early December by phone. The New Alexandria Lesbian Library in Leeds had messages left on NALL’s answering machine by an unidentified male. One threatened to “get” the manager and all other “dykes” in the area. “I think you lesbians are scum. You’re the sickest things on earth. You’re the most disgusting things that ever came to Northampton. We will never accept homosexuality or lesbianism in our town anymore.” Later the same night, a threat to break into her apartment was left on NALL’s phone machine. The manager reported the calls to the police, began keeping a log of these and other incidents reported by Lesbians, and brought them to another Lesbian community meeting which began to convene weekly.

In late December and early January, the Daily Hampshire Gazette printed what some saw as anti-lesbian/gay writing, two pieces by nationally syndicated columnist Joseph Sobran. Concurrently, at least three different males made an increasing number of threatening, obscene or annoying silent breathing or hang-up calls to not only NALL but to the Valley Women’s Voice monthly newspaper, GALA and Womonfyre bookstore. These were also reported to the City Police.  Even when given copies of the taped messages, police response was that they couldn’t do anything, though they suggested a trap by the phone company might lead to evidence. Suspicious, women declined to have what they thought would be having their phones tapped. In spite of having been given, months previously, the license plate number of a van resembling that of the rapists, nothing was apparently being done about the rapes. In fact no one was ever arrested for them.

SHUN Puts Threats In Writing: Jan. 1983

Threats took a new form in mid–January of 1983, a day after Sobran’s second column appeared in the DHG. Three handwritten notes were left in the door at Womonfyre Books with further threats. Noting that they “agreed with the paper” that “gays must be persecuted,…eradicated,…never accepted,” they identified themselves as SHUN, “Stop Homosexual Unity Now.” Copies of the letters were given to police. Refusing to remain silent through lack of police action and escalating threats, Lesbians and GALA started their own letter writing campaign to state and city officials and the news media exposing the harassment. Letters were also sent to the Editor of the Gazette protesting the Sobran columns. These prompted additional anti-gay letters to the newspaper. When members of the Smith College Lesbian Alliance wrote pro-lesbian letters to the Editor, they also began to receive threatening phone calls. Some of the anti-gay letter writers later proved to have used false names in spite of the paper’s stated verification policy.

Toward the end of January, SHUN left another note at Womonfyre. It promised to “route (sic) out and expel this extremist homosexual germ by peaceful or violent means,” including burning to the ground Womonfyre bookstore and the New Alexandria Lesbian Library. The Valley Women’s Voice stopped listing their staff last names and publishing phone numbers in announcements without explicit permission. Joe Lamott, Pioneer Valley Peoples Gay Alliance coordinator, noted in the PVPGA Gayzette that the threats were obviously anti-woman and anti-lesbian, since none of the gay men who included their numbers in the group’s openly distributed newsletter were being targeted. Lou Thomas of GALA reported, however, that the lives of three openly gay men had been threatened to the degree that one of the men had had to move several times.

  Gay Community News. Boston, MA. Feb. 12, 1983

Meeting With the Mayor: Feb. 1983

City officials appeared ignorant of the repeated reports being made to the Northampton Police. When it was finally brought to the attention of Mayor Musante, he suggested a meeting with community representatives to discuss the issue. After various negotiations, a Feb. 8 meeting took place at Memorial Hall. About 200 community members met with Musante, the Chief of Police, the District Attorney, and the acting Editor of the Gazette to present testimony on the campaign of intimidation and demand action. Outside another 100 people – holding signs that read “Stop the Violence! No More Silence!”—held a vigil in support. They stood on the lawn of the Unitarian Society since the group had been denied a permit to rally in Pulaski Park.

  flyer vigil Feb 8, 1982 Northampton, MA

Over the objections of the DHG, the meeting in Memorial Hall was “off the record” to prevent outing those offering testimony about what had been occurring over the last six months.

Opening Statement reprinted in the Valley Women’s Voice March 1983

A list of sixteen demands for action were presented, including immediate public statements from the Mayor, DA, police, and DHG opposing the violence; coordinated police action in cooperation with the community to investigate and end the crimes; the end of “libelous” coverage in the DHG; the formation of a Mayor’s Task Force to address the harassment; the Mayor’s endorsement of the upcoming Lesbian/Gay Liberation March; and a City Ordinance prohibiting discrimination. A group of males harassing people leaving the meeting had to be told by police to leave the area of Memorial Hall.

At a press conference the next day, Mayor Musante and District Attorney W. Michael Ryan issued statements denouncing the threats and violence. A Mayor’s Task Force with city officials, four Lesbians, and two gay men was set up. On his own initiative, Ward 2 Councilor William Ames introduced a measure to the City Council condemning the violence. This was defeated by a tied vote of the Council.

Activism Expands Along With Backlash

For several weeks after the Mayor’s meeting and resulting newspaper coverage, threatening calls subsided a bit. Even as the next March was being organized, GALA formed a Human Rights Ordinance Committee to begin drafting an anti-discrimination ordinance similar to the one that had been in place in Amherst for a number of years. After a mid-March story on Womonfyre Bookstore appeared in the Gazette, however, murder and arson threats began anew. Additional targets now included the Valley Advocate, which had printed a letter from GALA, and Valley Women’s Martial Arts, which had hosted the Lesbian community meetings. In the weeks leading up to the March, SHUN repeatedly phoned, threatening violence at the event, and shouted the same at two Lesbians on the street. At least five times, volunteers put Womonfyre under 24-hour protective surveillance in case the specific new threats of arson were carried out.

The second, now officially named, Gay and Lesbian Rights March was scheduled for the second Saturday in May, the 14th, 1983.

Coming next, an account of the second march. To get an email notice when that post is published add your email address under the (free) subscribe button.

Sources:

__ undated flyer (1978?) for an initial meeting to organize a Lesbian/Gay Rights march in Springfield.

__“Cruising” Boycotts Underway. Valley Women’s Voice. March 1980. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruising_(film)

__”Womonfyre Womyn Harassed.” Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. Sep. 1980.

__Northampton Law Collective. “Women and the Law.” Valley Women’s Voice.  Northampton MA. May 1982

__”Why Lesbians should Register to Vote. Flyer. August 1982.

__Grossholtz, Jean. “Open Letter to Lesbians.”  Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. Oct. 1982.

__”WARNING: RAPE ALERT.” Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. Oct. 1982.

__”Town Mothers Impose Curfew.” Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. Nov. 1982.

__”March Against the Klan.” Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. Dec. 1982.

__”NALL Threatened.” Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. Dec. 1982.

__Dyke, Ima. ”Lesbian Community Harassed.” Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. Feb. 1983.

__Thomas, Lou. Letter to the Editor. Valley Advocate. Hatfield MA. Feb.2, 1983.

__ “Death threats, Harassment Continues…Community Resistance On the Rise.” Mimeographed information sheet, #3.  New Alexandria Lesbian Library. Northampton MA. Feb. 2, 1983.

__Fitzgerald, Maureen. “City officials, gay community [scheduled to] meet.” Daily Hampshire Gazette. Northampton MA. Feb. 8, 1983.

__”Public vs. Private.” Editorial. Daily Hampshire Gazette. Northampton MA. Feb. 8, 1983.

__”Vigil of Unity, Resistance, Self-empowerment.” Flyer. Feb. 8, 1983.

__”Orientation and Unity Statement for the Lesbian and Gay Community. Northampton, February 8, 1983.” Four page mimeograph includes agenda for the meeting with the Mayo and other officials and the sixteen demands.

__Fitzgerald, Maureen. “Members of gay community detail threats, harassment.” Daily Hampshire Gazette. Northampton MA. Feb. 9, 1983.

__Mosley, Lisa. “200 gays and lesbians tell officials to make Northampton safer for them.” Massachusetts Daily Collegian. Amherst MA. Feb. 10, 1983.

__Clark, Jil. “Northampton Lesbians Fight Hate Campaign: Secret Group Harasses Lesbians.” Gay Community News. Boston, MA. Feb. 12, 1983.

__Bradley,Debra. “City Council ballots to a tie over anti-violence measure. Daily Hampshire Gazette. Northampton MA. Feb. 18 1983.

__Colfer, Kim. “A Call For Action.” Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. March 1983.

Angela. “A Plea for Understanding.” Statement read at the meeting with the Mayor. Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. March 1983.

__Boysen, Sherman. “Organizing in Northampton: Assessing the Results.” PVPGA Gayzette. Northampton MA. Mar. 1983.

__Unger, Bob. “Lesbians stake out lives in usually tolerant [missing end].” Daily Hampshire Gazette. Northampton MA. Mar. 12, 1983.

__ Fitzgerald, Maureen. “Ordinance wanted to ban discrimination.” Daily Hampshire Gazette. Northampton MA. Mar. 16, 1983.

__Lootens, Tricia.”Northampton Lesbians Unify Against Threats.” Off Our Backs. Washington D.C. March 31, 1983.

__”Anti-discrimination law discussed.” Daily Hampshire Gazette. Northampton MA. Apr. 5, 1983.

__Spooner, Kiriyo. Letter to the VWV. Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. May 1983.

__”Harassment Continues.” PVPGA Gayzette. May, 1983.

 

 

 

 

 

This Year’s March is Cancelled

Northampton came late to the Revolution, both the American and the Gay, but for the last thirty-eight years a march, originally in support of lesbian and gay rights, has taken place on the second Saturday in May. That first 1982 march came twelve years after Boston’s first but was finally prompted by the egregious behavior of a US President and Republican-dominated Congress eerily reminiscent of today. That march began as an act of resistance, drawing a wide coalition of allies defending all the people newly under attack. I have previously posted that story and you may want to visit it. https://fromwickedtowedded.com/2017/01/19/election-reflection/

VWV Summer 1982 photo by Kathryn Kirk

That act of resistance was not without costs. The backlash encouraged across the country by the New-Right reached onto Northampton’s streets. I will be telling that story, as well as the bravery of those who marched the second year, at the beginning of May, when we would usually have a parade and rally. Yes, this year the event is cancelled because of the COVID-9 pandemic.  Another pandemic, that of HIV/AIDS, was beginning and being ignored by a President back in 1983 as well. This blog has only briefly touched on the AIDS epidemic in the piece about former Northampton priest Robert Arpin https://fromwickedtowedded.com/2016/06/03/father-bob/.  Perhaps now is a good time to piece together an AIDS Quilt for the Valley. I would welcome online remembrances to sew together.

Woman of the Year 1964: Barbara Gittings

Little notes, typed on Dictaphone paper, used to come in the mail for me and my partner Susan. The scribbled initials on each were those of the editor of the Ladder and, sometimes, her partner Kay. Through such brief, dashed off, means she gathered news, reviews, stories and ,yes, illustrations from hundreds of gay women across the country to publish in this sole U.S. lesbian magazine. Two of my blog posts detail a few of my early interactions with Barbara Gittings. Time Magazine’s tribute to unsung women was an appropriate start to this Women’s History Month. It feels, at a time frozen in pandemic, an appropriate reminder of resistance to end this month of March with her cover and Michael Bedwell’s tribute as shared to OutHistory.

Michael Bedwell‎ to OutHistory.org

March 9 at 10:41 AM ·

Michael Bedwell

March 9 at 10:41 AM ·

GAY RIGHTS PIONEER BARBARA GITTINGS’ SURVIVING PARTNER of 46 years Kay Tobin Lahusen called me yesterday to alert me to Barbara’s inclusion in “TIME” magazine’s 100 Women of the Year project. They commissioned 89 new “TIME” mock covers to commemorate 89 women who should have been on the magazine’s covers over its near century of existence. The remaining 11 are existing real covers of women who had been named Person of the Year.

BARBARA’S cover used a 1964 photo by Kay rendered by Serbian artist Ivana Besevic, and incorporates the motto “Gay Is Good” coined in 1968 by Barbara & Kay’s close friend and mentor Frank Kameny, the father of the modern gay rights movement. The accompanying text by “TIME’s” San Francisco Bureau Chief Katy Steinmetz reads:

“The Stonewall riots have become the focal point of the modern LGBTQ-rights movement, but they didn’t start it. The groundwork was laid in the previous decade by activists like Barbara Gittings, who understood that before marginalized people can prevail, they must understand that they are worthy and that they are not alone.

In an era when it was dangerous to be out, Gittings edited the Ladder, a periodical published by the nation’s first known lesbian-rights organization, the Daughters of Bilitis, creating a sense of national identity and providing a platform for resistance. In the August 1964 issue, her editorial blasted a medical report that described homosexuality as a disease, writing that it treated lesbians like her more as “curious specimens” than as humans.

Gittings would go on to be instrumental in getting the American Psychiatric Association to stop classifying homosexuality as a mental illness and in getting libraries to carry gay literature. Whether she was wielding a pen or a protest sign, the militant advocate had a simple message: when society said that being gay was an abomination, Gittings said that gay was good.”

Prints of the illustration are available at: https://fineartamerica.com/…/barbara-gittings-1964-time.html

Barbara was memorialized in 2012 along Chicago’s Legacy Walk, the world’s first outdoor museum of LGBT history. SEE: https://legacyprojectchicago.org/person/barbara-gittings

Further source;

https://time.com/100-women-of-the-year/

Men Protest

 “It was scary,” Steve Trudel recalls, “but the police action and media reports were so outrageous that even though I wasn’t into cruising rest stops myself, I was moved to do something about it.”

Steve lived in Northampton in the late seventies. He and other men were galvanized into protest by October 23-24, 1978 newspaper accounts of a sting operation at an Interstate 91 rest area in Holyoke in which sixteen men were arrested for soliciting casual sex. The names and addresses of those arrested—along with the “morals” charges made against them –were widely reported in area newspapers, including the Daily Hampshire Gazette and the UMass Daily Collegian.

Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton MA and UMass/Amherst Massachusetts Daily Collegian coverage Oct. 23, 1978

Scenic Area 1 mile (today on I-91)

The rest area was not the one listed in GCN’s 1976 New England Gay Guide . It attracted men from up and down the highway, as well as locals. A fourth of those arrested lived in Connecticut. One was from Vermont, another from Eastern Massachusetts. Three were from nearby Hampden County. Northampton’s Daily Hampshire Gazette printed the names and addresses of the five from Amherst, Florence, Hadley and Northampton, including two who lived together. While the age of the sixteen men charged ranged from twenty to sixty-two, most were in late thirties and early forties.

   Springfield (MA ) Union Oct. 24, 1978

Police justified the entrapment because seven weeks previously a man reported that he had been raped and robbed there by another man. Such victimization of men who cruised for anonymous sex (and who were unlikely to report crime to authorities), was so common that it was referred to in the gay subculture as “being rolled.”

Rather than trying to solve the crime however, police focused on shutting down the sexual activity, which they characterized to the press as “homosexual attacks.” For two weekend evenings, Oct. 21-22, plainclothes police made themselves available for proposition at the rest area and then arrested anyone who approached them. The men were charged with “lascivious behavior,” “open and gross lewdness,” and/or, if there was any physical contact, “assault and battery.” In a follow-up article in the Springfield Union, the Captain of the local State Police said that the alleged homosexual activity was continuing in the rest area adjacent to Mount Tom in spite of the arrests, and that the state police undercover work there would continue until the situation [was] cleared up.

Only one of the sixteen arrested, the man from Somerville, submitted to the facts of the case in the Holyoke District Court on Oct. 23 and was fined $125. All the others pled innocent and were given trial dates, or were given hearing dates to enter a plea. Their court dates were scattered over the coming month. It would be interesting to know the results of further hearings or trials but I could find  no later newspaper coverage . Holyoke District Court records are not digitized for this time. Does anyone know where the paper records are stored?

The press coverage of the arrests provoked a response from Valley gay men and their allies. Several were moved to write letters to the editors of local newspapers, including, I am told, the Valley Advocate and one printed in Springfield Union from Amherst resident Paul Shepard.

Springfield Union Nov. 1, 1978.

Two weeks after the arrests, Nov. 5, approximately fifty people protested police and media action by bringing signs and mimeographed handouts to the rest stop at midday, standing so they could be seen from I-91 as well as by those pulling into the rest area. Steve Trudel and at least one other gay man from Northampton were among the protesters. The UMass Gay Alliance was one of the organizing groups with members present.

Springfield Union, Nov. 4, 1978

The purpose of the demonstration was to expose the harassment of gay men for adult consensual behavior; the waste of police resources which could better be used solving “real” crimes such as the rape and battery of women; and the general oppression of gay men. Demonstrators also wanted to correct the false image of gay men created by homophobic police and media.

Flyer distributed Nov. 5, 1978, mimeograph one of two sides, courtesy Bambi Gauthier

There were no hassles and at least one TV station filmed the demonstration. In an interesting aside, Steve recalls being interviewed at the demonstration by a Valley reporter who he recognized from other political events and who gave him “the creeps.” So Steve asked him if he had a history of doing undercover work. The reporter admitted he had previously worked for the government.

Springfield Republican Nov. 4, 1978.

It was very radical analysis and action for the time. While there was no overt reply or statement made by the local governments or state police in response to the rally, I couldn’t find news records of further arrests at that scenic area or of that nature. So it appears that the outcry successfully stopped further entrapment of gay men.

as seen today (2019), there are no holes in the fence and bushes and trees are cut back.

Steve remembers it as “the only exciting (pro-gay) political action at the time. It was difficult to do, to put oneself out there.”  Valley gay men with a political consciousness, it seemed to him, were few and far between in this decade. Just as many Northampton lesbians were energized working with feminist women, a few politicized gay men found support, albeit out of town, in other progressive groups.

Steve and Bill Starkweather were joined at the I-91 demo by members of a group they belonged to: a pro-feminist men’s action group formed at Hampshire College in 1978. This group referred to themselves as ”positively men”and continued until at least 2004. Steve’s realization that there was more to being gay than sex and dancing led him to demonstrate solidarity with other oppressed groups. In Northampton in 1978, he was among the group of men who provided care for children while the mothers participated  in the Valley’s first  Take Back the Night March  . He and others of the group of also attended the 1979 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.

It would be a few more years before gay men in Northampton formed their own group and began working in coalition with the city’s lesbians.

In a post note: I found documents online indicating that at least ten of those arrested in 1978 are now deceased.  It is too late to ask them how that public outing in the form of being charged with crimes impacted their lives. Seven of the deceased had enough information in their death notices to indicate their marital status.  Three of them had wives and children while four did not. One of those bachelors was the “Beloved friend of Robert…, William…, Rudy…, Bruce…, Todd…, Jack…,[et al.]” And he had volunteered at a local AIDS support organization. Another of the unmarried men was a resigned Catholic priest charged with child sex abuse in 2002.

SOURCES:

__Trudel, Stephen. Phone interview and email correspondence. Sep. 20, Nov. 22, 2004.

__”16 men arrested in sex raid.” Springfield Union. Springfield MA.  Oct. 23. 1978.

__ “Five men from area charged in sex cases.” Daily Hampshire Gazette. Northampton MA. Oct 23, 1978.

__Horgan, Sean T. and Quinlan, Joseph. “16 arrested in sex raid at I-91 South rest area.” Massachusetts Daily Collegian. UMass Amherst. Oct 23, 1978.

__Perkins, Robert. “Cops to continue probe of highway rest area.” Springfield Union. Springfield MA. Oct. 24, 1978.

__Shepard, Paul. “Questions raised by police raids on I-91 rest area.” Letter to the Editor. Springfield Union. Springfield MA. Nov. 01, 1978.

__”Gay Rally set at Rest Area.” Springfield Union. Springfield MA. Nov. 04, 1978.

__Blomberg, Marcia. “Group protests I-91 arrests.” Springfield Republican. Springfield MA. Nov. 05, 1978.

__”Diocese of Burlington releases priest sexual abuse report, names.” Vermont Business Magazine. Aug. 22, 2019.

__thanks to Bambi Gauthier for bringing this story to my attention and providing copies of some documents and contacts to interview.

 

 

 

 

The Gala Fight: 1977 by Judith Schenck

Judith’s Schenck’s  account of the fight at the Gala in Northampton, the summer of ’77, was previously published in Common Lives/Lesbian Lives in a slightly different version. The paragraph CL/LL cut, for space reasons, has been re-instated here and flagged for the reader’s attention.

  The Gala Fight: 1977                 by Judith Schenck

I claim this as a way

of letting go

 I give you the memory

I don’t need to carry it

anymore

 

We had all been enjoying the steaminess of the summer night, using the weather as an excuse to strip to tank tops and show off our muscles. As I leaned against the jukebox nursing my first beer of the evening, I imagined I looked interesting — droll, perhaps, witty, maybe – but interesting, definitely. This was how I viewed myself.

The few lights gave the bar the sleazy, smoky, familiar atmosphere we all knew. It was a world we had made our own.  At some tables, couples leaned close in earnest conversation, while next to them eight women crowded into a booth designed for half that number. The music was loud, and we knew all of the records by heart: 116, Marvin Gaye, Got to Give It Up; 108, Thelma Houston, Don’t Leave Me This Way; 115, Bee Gees, Jive Talkin’; Afternoon Delight; This Will Be; Soul Train; Rubberband Man; Love Hangover. Nobody needed the cure. We knew what it was: just dance.

In a slow-motioned, stop-action blur, I saw them come in through the door. I moved in front of them, standing directly in the path of the huge, blonde man with the twisted lip. If you’re going to call a place yours, you’ve got to be as willing as the next woman to stand up for it.

In the act of standing, however, I wasn’t really aware of the assumptions I was making. They had to do with how safe a white woman is in this culture, especially in New England, and about shared class values with white men. I was less surprised to learn that being a lesbian changes all of that than I was to discover that those really were my assumptions.

I told the three young men that they weren’t welcome. It was a private party. They should talk to Jeanie, the owner. I felt I had been firm, but reasonable. I had done exactly what Jeanie had always told us to do if men came into the back of the little pink bar. I had been a good girl. I was following the rules. But the big one in front shoved me, and I moved back to my spot in front of him, I heard someone yell that he couldn’t do that.

I remember seeing his hand coming toward me and I can hear again the blip-blip of thoughts flying through my mind. His hand became a mitt, a paw, an animal’s weapon, and encircled my left breast. He squeezed hard and then twisted it. In front of all of those nameless shadows of women there, he claimed a man’s power over a woman, the power to do what he would, power over, power to hurt, power to force.

I pushed him away and decided that I would step in and give him pain in the only place he could feel anything. I wanted to take the one place a man is soft and show him how it felt to be softness and vulnerability raped, ruptured, and destroyed.

But the man was better trained in tactics of violence and struck me while I was still (in the best lesbianfeminist tradition) processing my feelings. He struck with a force that literally rattled my teeth, and before I realized what had happened, he hit me in my jaw a second time.

The women had crowded up behind and caught me as I went down. When I opened my eyes, I saw another woman lying on the floor next to me with blood coming out of her mouth.

As the women I held me, I felt briefly safe. He stood over me, grinning, holding his fist at the ready. He taunted me, and I was filled with a fury that could reshape the world, a rage to destroy and kill. When I tried to get up, I found the women were holding me tightly, preventing me from responding. They put me in a booth and held me there while other women acted out their interpretations of my rage.

The worst bruises I carried away were the deep purple marks on my arms where I had been held and protected. Every day for three weeks, I looked at those marks and knew that he had no such marks to remind him. I had needed so much to release my anger at him, to somehow redeem myself in front of the women there. I was afraid that because I had not struck back immediately they might think I wasn’t a good enough dyke, that I hadn’t done it right.

My sense of shame was so deep that I was convinced that I smelled of him. I went to the local emergency room to have my jaw checked to insure it wasn’t broken, but when the nurse found out where the attack had taken place, she told me I got what I deserved and walked away. The doctor refused to x-ray my jaw, even though I had been hit directly on the hinge, when he discovered I had been in a fight with a man in a known lesbian bar.

When I learned the name of the blonde man who had hit me, I went to a local women lawyer – at that time the only female lawyer in town. She told me I didn’t have a chance with any legal action, because “in Northampton it wouldn’t even be considered against the law for a Polish boy to hit a lesbian.”

the following paragraph has been restored

I went to a community meeting on violence against women, surrounded by my friends who were helping me pick up the pieces of my soul. Standing near the doorway, I was stunned to hear woman after woman talk about what happened, criticizing “the woman” who had started it all. That woman, me, had done it all wrong. They detailed my failures in the attack. My failures. My friends urged me to speak up, to correct people, but I couldn’t do it. I left quickly. I could not find safety from that blonde man among my sisters. I smelled of him.

All of my life, I waited for the violence of the white man to fall on me. In Mississippi, I learned that safety for anyone is only temporary, and night after night as a child I lay in bed covered with the cold, immobilizing sweat of fear, waiting for the white man to come. I moved further and further north, but discovered that he is everywhere.

I internalized my anger, and one day realized with a shock that I had stopped washing my left breast, had stopped touching it altogether. To my eye, it seemed to physically shrink. He had touched it. It didn’t belong to me anymore.

I was afraid. Every time I saw a group of men, I broke into that cold sweat of fear again, and I waited for the harassment that eventually came. They smelled my fear and surrounded me with threats wherever I went. I held onto images of strength, but found no way to move them from the outside to the inside. I chanted, prayed, and then went a little crazy. I began to drink a lot, trying to blur the memory.

On the one-year anniversary of the fight, I celebrated a year of pain and frustration by walking the streets endlessly, roaming for hours with energy I didn’t understand and couldn’t control. One night I followed a man for almost an hour with my knife open. Someone had to pay besides me. A white man is a white man is a white man, I thought.

I was irrational, thoughtless, demanding, needy, and desperate. On a drunken dawn drive, I picked up a male hitchhiker whom I decided to kill. As he chatted on and on, I planned each detail of his murder. I opened my knife in my pocket, and as I readied it I heard him say that he was a construction worker only temporarily. What he really wanted to do was be a daycare worker. My mouth fell open. Yes, he said, he wanted to teach children that men could be gentle as well as strong. I cursed him, folded my knife, and drove on.

When next harassed by teenaged boys, the stab of usual fear passed quickly as I remembered a story I had recently heard. A man in a bar repeatedly bothered a local woman who was a karate expert, and she continued to warn him to leave her alone. He, of course, didn’t, and she broke his nose. I decided I would pretend to be her. I laid claim to one strong woman’s strength, and hoped in time to find my own.

I told the boys I didn’t think they knew what they were doing, that it would be best if they left me alone, that messing with me was not what they really should be doing. It would be in their best interests, I told them, to move along. And they left.

I laughed at them all the way home, and somewhere inside knew that not all of the strength used had been the other woman’s. It was a beginning.

Judith Schenck

Judith Schenck is a retired salesperson who has lived in Northampton since 1977. Her passions are painting and drawing, writing, the Red Sox, the Patriots, and her dogs Tessie and Kona. She lives in Florence with her wife and significant other of 42 years. She has written extensively about growing up in the Deep South in the 1950’s and 1960’s as well as her time at a woman’s collective in her blog  Looking Back.”

Sources:

__ Many thanks to Judith. It has taken many years for me to actually publish her generously shared story. Photos have been provided by her as well.

__Common Lives, Lesbian Lives. Iowa City, Iowa. Issue #2. 1981.

__Context of Northampton, bars and the lesbian community in the 70s can be found in this blog post : https://fromwickedtowedded.com/2017/10/02/bars-and-the-violent-backlash/

(another) Gala Cafe watercolor by Laura Kaye, from a photo by Belinda Starr.

used by permission

 

 

DJs For Dancing Womyn

Toward the end of the 1970s, the local women’s rock bands were playing larger, out-of-the-Valley music circuits. As “wimmin’s” dances grew in popularity, the music was more frequently provided by newly initiated professional lesbian disk jockeys, many of them Northampton residents. Dancing may be one of the oldest subculture traditions. It’s been important not just as recreation and community bonding, but also as part of the mating ritual. Longtime Northampton DJ known as Mary V[azquez] commented, “You often [didn’t] see women reappear at dances until they [were] looking for a new partner.” Mary also observed that lesbians into music and dancing were a different community from lesbians into softball.

Through correspondence and several interviews, Mary helped fill in the local DJ herstory. She recalled that Sheryl W. [later Jeribu (spelling?)] was the first Northampton lesbian DJ. Sheryl W. started in 1975 at the Gala Café and continued on regular nights there with assistance from Angela G. through 1979. Sheryl played a lot of Rhythm and Blues, spinning mostly Black women’s music with some by men.

Laura Kaye watercolor of the Gala Café (Bridge St. Northampton) 1981, commissioned by Mary Vazquez, used by permission of both.

Mary had followed all the developing women’s bands in the Valley and became interested in becoming a DJ when she heard Diane S. spinning for Wednesday Nights for Women at Farley Lodge/UMass. The 1976 remnants of the UMass Gay Women’s Caucus became the Lesbian Union and successfully lobbied for their own space and student government funding. In the summers of 1977 and 1978, the Lesbian Union offered events open to women from both off and on the UMass/Amherst campus. Diane S. was also part of the Women’s Media Project, producing and teaching women radio broadcasting at WMUA.

Notice in the Women’s Media Project newsletter Jul/Aug 1978

Sheryl let Mary assist a bit at the Gala Café and then let Mary borrow her equipment for gigs at other places. Soon Mary wanted to have her own equipment instead of being a roadie and lugging someone else’s heavy crate of records.

As she described recently, “ I met a very nice music man that made speakers in the late 70’s. They were beautiful but I could not afford them. He found me two speakers I could afford so I used them, an amplifier, and two record players I bought at a tag sale. In later years I was able to buy more professional turntables made for DJing and two CD players but continued to use those original speakers. They were very heavy but they worked just fine and did not cost me anything. The music had a good sound. “

“ I also had a great assistant that was strong so she did all the heavy lifting. I had what were called 12 inch [vinyl] records that contained one song so for a 3 hour gig I had to have between two and three milk crates full of 12 inch records that were also very heavy.  I used some 45’s but only used them on occasion. Set up time took about 30 minutes. It was a lot of equipment from the car to the dance place. I later used cassettes at the very beginning before CD’s. Too difficult to cue up. Now I could do the same gig with two light weight speakers and a computer.”

Mary Vazquez vinyl record collection. The plastic crates on the left were used to take a selection to dance gigs. Photo courtesy of Mary Vazquez.

With her new equipment Mary began working Common Womon Club’s  summer disco dances in 1978-79. The dances were first held in the Common Womon and later in the low-ceilinged basement of the Polish American Club/Home on Pearl Street in Northampton. Mary got paid $30 for a four hour dance gig.

undated flyer for a Common Womon Club dance

Mary Vazquez noted that ‘Hamp lesbians liked different music than the gay women at the Girls Club in Chicopee. While “Women’s Music” – that is, feminist – was beginning to be produced this decade (most notably through Olivia Records) except for a few slow songs, it just wasn’t danceable. This made it challenging for the new DJs to put together enough musicfor a four-hour dance that was not politically objectionable and also got women up on their feet and moving. In the beginning, Mary drew a lot on pop music by women as well, as, she said, “less offensive” men like Stevie Wonder to create the right eclectic mix.

By the end of the seventies, disco music began to come out with its distinctive dance beat. Disco was readily adopted by local lesbians, easing the DJ’s job of trying to be politically correct while getting women to have a good time dancing.

Mary Vazquez: “Here’s a few tunes from the seventies that I myself played when I first began DJing for the women’s community. As I said, it was a tough crowd as I had to be very careful that I was always politically correct. This often would put a ‘crimp’ in my personal choices. Here are some of the specific tunes that I know I played and were always a big hit on the dance floor:                                               [all with youtube links. please have a little dance 🙂 KM]

‘Love Hangover,’ Diana Ross, 1976

‘Don’t Leave Me This way,’ Thelma Houston, 1977

 ‘Dancing Queen,’ Abba, 1978

 ‘Boogie Oogie Oogie,’ Taste of Honey

 ‘If I Can’t Have You, Yvonne Ellerman, 1977

 ‘Bad Girls, Donna Summer, 1979

 ‘I Will Survive,’ Gloria Gaynor, 1978 (still a dance floor pleaser)

 ‘YMCA, Village People, 1979

 ‘Ring My Bell, Anita Ward

 ‘MacArthur Park,’ Donna Summer

 ‘Good Times, Chic, 1979

 ‘Hot Stuff.’ Donna Summer.

 Mary summed the list up:  “Most of these songs if played today would still be crowd pleasers. The end of the 70s was the beginning of the Disco era, a great time for dancing the night away.”

Ad in Fresh Ink, Mar. 8, 1979

Mary V. recalls that Mary C. and Faye Wilson also began DJing at about the same time she did, circa 77-78.  Mary C. spun the Common Womon Club’s New Year’s Eve Ball in ’77 at the Polish Home, a memorable costume event I wish we had pictures of. Faye incorporated New Wave into her mix. When the Polish Club/Home was sold circa 1979, the lesbian community lost a valuable large music venue. Since the Gala was sold and razed that year, as well, Northampton lesbians had to go out of town to dance. In the early 1980s, three of these pioneering DJs joined together to find a new venue in Amherst. Jeribu(Sheryl), Faye and Mary V. formed La Mix (the mix of their different kinds of dance music) to produce a regular series of womyn’s dances, a story for another time.

Sources:

__[Raymond,] Kaymarion and Letalien, Jacqueline. The Valley Women’s Movement: a Herstorical Chronology 1968-78. Ceres Inc. Northampton. 1978. https://www.vwhc.org/timeline.htmlChronology

__Vazquez, Mary. Interviewed by Kaymarion Raymond. July 6 and Sep. 1, 1998.

__Vazquez, Mary. Email correspondence Nov 29, 2004, June-Nov.2019.

__Vazquez, Mary. Music of the 70’s. Email to Kaymarion. January 03, 2005.

__Dyke Doings. Sep/Oct 1976. Northampton.

__Women’s Media Project newsletter. July/Aug 1978.

__Carney, Maureen. “The Common Womon Keeps the Pot Boiling.” Valley Women’s Voice. Sep. 1979.

Further reading: Women in DJing is a popular topic right now. Mary shared this recent New York Times article, which nicely sums it up, past and present, the challenge of changing technology and the scarcity of women in the profession;

__Women Put a Spin on the D.J’s Art by Tammy La Gorce. New York Times. July 28, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/23/nyregion/women-djs-brooklyn.html

In the next decade as recording technology rapidly evolved Mary Vazquez and other DJs had to make the change from vinyl records to cassette tapes to CDs. For those interested here are some links to that tech history;

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8qbz7b/an-illustrated-history-of-dj-gear

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_jockey 

Mary and the three other women mentioned were rare birds in the 70s male dominated Discjockey world. That hasn’t changed, as these articles attest:

__I Grew Up Loving Dance Music. But Where Are All The Female DJs? by Serena Kutchinsky 17 April 2017. She not only offers statistics but asks “what can be done to make dance music less pale, male, stale?”

https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2017/04/149671/female-djs-annie-mac-nightwave

__Women Weigh In On The Art of DJing by Sesali Bowen July 19, 2017.

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2017/07/164637/hip-hop-djs-2017-female-disc-jockeys

 

 

 

 

 

Working in the CWC Collective

 by Marjorie Childers

The club was really wimminspace in downtown Northampton—what Smith College might have been.  It was a place where wimmin could go and hang out and find someone to talk with and it didn’t matter age, race, class, appearance, etc. It was a center for lots of communication about feminist events and issues.

I joined the Common Womon Collective in the early spring of 1978.  I was part of the second collective group, which was recruited when the original collective felt that the food service and community support efforts were well launched and they were ready to move on to other pursuits. Some of them stayed to oversee the Ceres Inc. business.

The application process to join the collective involved a letter or essay about one’s personal philosophy of feminism and lesbian identity, as well as an interview with collective members.  Cooking skills and restaurant experience were a part of this but only a part. I can’t quite remember all the names of the collective members.  Of course Kate Angell and I had major responsibility for things for a couple of years, and we also had several UMass graduate students. Emma Missouri was also a part of the group and others about whom I remember odd details and bad habits.

I never knew when I answered the phone who would be on the other end and what they would ask or tell me.  It could be Robin Morgan or a UMass student or Frances Crowe or anyone.  I felt very much in touch with what was going on in the area and in the country when it came to what was important to wimmin.  Some of it was purely social, which was fun, but some of it was political—female genital mutilation, for example—but it was being a part of a movement as well as cooking.

The Common Womon collective Sep 1979. Photograph by Kathryn Kirk and used by permission. Marjorie is at the top left. Originally published in the Valley Women’s Voice.

 

While I was cooking at the Common Womon Club as a collective member we served an evening meal every day except Monday (when the collective met,) and the Sunday night meal was usually prepared by a guest cook who was a club member. These included intro’s to a wide variety of ethnic food.  Sundays we served brunch as well as the evening meal.  I cooked for most of those brunches between 1978 and 1980.

When I think about the club and the collective, I remember all the mornings when I would unlock the door and get the food started for the day and then have all sorts of people drop in and talk.  I really learned to organize my tasks, which academics (which I was at the time) are not very good at but nurses (which I later became) have to be very good at.  I would get the bread started, then get a soup started, then get a dessert going.  The dessert would bake while the bread rose and the soup simmered.  By the time I got the bread in to bake, the soup would be done.  Then it was time to prep the entrees for the evening.  Cutting up the salad happened mid-afternoon, and the quiche would bake during that.

A typical evening meal would offer a choice between two soups, salad, three entree choices and desserts.  Among the most popular soups were butternut squash and cream of potato, and we also made a vegetarian chili.  We always had a quiche of some sort, an Italian dish such as eggplant parmigiana, and other pasta or rice-based dishes.  We often made Chinese spring rolls, and occasionally we had a fish dish.  For dessert we tried to make honey-sweetened or maple fruit pies and cobblers, but we often fell back on commercial, sugar-sweetened ice cream as a topper.  Tea, coffee and fruit juice were served.  For brunch we had purchased bagels, but we also had eggs and omelets and pancakes made to order. We always had mixed grain bread that we made on an almost daily basis.

I usually didn’t stay to serve dinner if I opened up, but I had the line-up ready for whoever came in at mid-afternoon for that.  I would run the menu over to the copy place before I left and always enjoyed that walk along Main Street, seeing folks and feeling connected to the business part of Northampton.

The busiest times were when there was a concert or dance featuring wimmin artists.  We would serve as many and as fast as we could so that everyone could go. These were great times to dress up and enjoy the dating scene.

 

Editor’s note: Another post from Marjorie, on CWC in 1980s, will be published in the further unwinding of the narrative.

 

 

Marjorie Childers is a Professor Emerita of Nursing at Elms College in Chicopee and former director of the nursing program there.  She is a quiltmaker and retired quilt appraiser, certified by the American Quilters Association. Currently living in a retirement community in Holyoke, she remains committed to women’s history and women’s art. She notes re. her experience at the Common Womon, “ It’s complicated. I think about the club whenever I am in the kitchen, especially when cleaning up. Some of that discipline will never leave me.”

Additional history:  Northampton’s Common Womon Club (1976-82) existed within the context of a national feminist restaurant movement. Jan Whitacker provides an overview of this movement, as well as earlier First wave feminist restaurants, in a 2013 blogpost “Women’s Restaurants.” Included are links to other related content she’s written on the 70s and about vegetarianism. https://restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com/2013/06/18/womens-restaurants/?fbclid=IwAR1w8_8sbhhyJvmNYOAXJCMC9NHcfFKyvVQEKAj98LeDp37uG2mWRFLppUc

There’s been a plethora of mainstream interest in the subject of feminist (and lesbian) food in recent years.

A wonderful post on political potlucking appeared in Atlas Obscura.com:  “How Lesbian Potlucks Nourished the LGBTQ Movement: Now a queer stereotype, the lesbian potluck has radical roots” by Reina Gattuso. May 2, 2019 https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-do-lesbians-have-potlucks-on-pride.

The same columnist posted on a scholarly project on feminist restaurants: “The Scholar Mapping America’s Forgotten Feminist Restaurants: Challenging patriarchy, one eatery at a time” by Reina Gattuso. June 21, 2019. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/feminist-restaurants. The feminist restaurant project is quoted in the article, ” From the 1970s to the 1990s, according to Dr. Alex Ketchum, a professor of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies at McGill University, at least 250, and perhaps as many as 400, feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses opened in the U.S. and Canada. Almost all of these restaurants are gone. But for two decades, establishments from Alabama’s Steak n Eggs to the Canadian Yukon Territory’s Rendez-vous Coffeehouse challenged women’s traditional consignment to the home by reclaiming cooking for the feminist movement. The feminist restaurant was “a place where community could be built around food,” Ketchum says. “Places where cooking wasn’t antithetical to women’s liberation.”

More about this history project can be discovered at their webpage http://www.thefeministrestaurantproject.com/p/home.html. Of interest to me was inclusion of the Valley in their mapping of those hundreds of restaurants. From the updated directory;

http://www.thefeministrestaurantproject.com/p/new-directory.html

listed;

–Greenfield -Green River Café (1981-1985).

– Northampton -Common Womon Club Restaurant (1976-1982)*.

-Lesbian Gardens Coffeehouse and Bookstore.

-Northstar Seafood Restaurant (1989-1991).

-The Women’s Restaurant (probably referencing the Common Womon Club before it had its name) (1977).

The oldest and still existing feminist restaurant, Bloodroot in Connecticut is the subject of a documentary film released this spring (2019). Here reviewed in Variety; “ Film Review: ‘Bloodroot’; An affectionate portrait of both a long-running feminist restaurant and bookstore and its two still-active founders“ by Dennis Harvey https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/bloodroot-review-1203194133/

Variety editors conjectured that the Bloodroot film was prompted by the New York Times observance of the restaurant’s 40th anniversary two years ago with a tribute article “Mixing Food and Feminism, Bloodroot Is 40 and Still Cooking” by Tejal Rao, March 14, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/dining/bloodroot-feminist-restaurant.html.

Bloodroot’s own webpage introduces them https://www.bloodroot.com/about

 

 

 

The Wimmin’s Restaurant Project

There was a private dining club for feminist vegetarians on Masonic Street in Northampton for five years: 1976-82. What came to be called the Common Womon [sic] Club was the first vegetarian venue in the area. It became the only women’s space in town after the Valley Women’s Union was evicted from its home on Main Street and the businesses that formed the Egg  on Hawley Street closed. In addition to offering food at a reasonable price, The Common Womon Club was an organizing space and cultural center. Open to all women, it was a collective, Lesbian owned and operated. As reported in Dyke Doings,  nine lesbians began meeting as the Womyn’s Restaurant Project in March of 1976. They incorporated as the non-profit Ceres Inc., with the purpose of supporting the development of women’s enterprises. Their first project was a women-only eating facility housed within a membership club (the only way to legally be women- only), like the men’s clubs just down the street for Elks and Masons.

By pooling their personal funds, they were able to buy the 68-78 Masonic Street property, a small one-family house with a one story stucco storefront building next door.  Donations from other local lesbians, fundraising events, and a loan from the Massachusetts Feminist Federal Credit Union in Cambridge  allowed a do-over of the rundown house.  With the skill and guidance of two lesbian carpenters, the collective renovated the ground floor, creating three interconnected dining areas with a counter for orders and service (no waitresses) next to the small kitchen. They built the tables, gathered an eclectic collection of fifty used dining chairs, and sewed pink cloth napkins

A name was chosen from the Judy Grahn poem, “The common woman is as common as the best of bread and will rise and will become strong.”  The spelling of woman was changed “to take the man out of the word,” Laura, a collective spokesperson explained. The Common Womon Club  opened December 19, 1976  to serve lunch and dinner six days a week.

1977 Common Womon Club initial policies, handout for members.

With no waitresses (which is the word we used back then), order pads were at each table. Members wrote up their orders and took them to the order/prep counter. Here, Ynestra must have been treating me to dinner.

Looking along the order counter into the small kitchen. Probably Molly  in her logo T-shirt dishing something up. Thanks to Elisabeth Brook for these snapshots.

This part of the article in the Springfield Republican Apr 24, 1977 really got the food described. Jan Whitaker discovered that this coverage was further circulated by the UPI wire service and reprinted in various forms in sixteen mainstream papers across the country and into Canada. In a story published a year later in the Republican Collective members expressed their belief that mainstream coverage had focused on an alleged anti-male bias and, as a result, in interviews asked that their last names not be used.

Though the Common Womon (CWC) was many women’s first experience of vegetarian and/or the ethnic cuisine presented by occasional guest chefs, it was much more than a place to eat. The background music was by women, and CWC or next door Nutcracker’s Suite was the town’s first Olivia Records  distributor.  The walls were hung with rotating exhibits of local women’s art and crafts.

I don’t remember when I hung this show of my work at CWC but it’s a nice snapshot by Lis Brook showing the arches between dining areas. I was on the art exhibit committee and remember shows of member baby pictures as well as group and one women shows.

This snapshot by Lis looks like it was taken just before opening hours, with a view from one dining room, thru the other to the area with the order counter. Is that Holly coming thru the arch to set tables? Note the funky chair collection. Painting by me in corner top left was commissioned by Sarah Dreher and later used as the basis for T-shirt design by Nutcracker’s Suite.

Sunday evenings often included entertainment by local talent as well as presentations on a wide range of women’s issues. After Dyke Doings folded, the CWC membership newsletter was the sole lesbian news source in the area until the 1979 advent of the monthly newspaper the Valley Women’s Voice.

The enclosed front porch wasn’t only a place to wait when there was a line for tables. Beside an overflowing bulletin board of women’s event flyers and notices were loose leaf notebooks for housing and jobs, literature from women around the globe, and a lending library. The mismatched, worn overstuffed sofa and chairs invited one to hang out. Upstairs was the Valley Women’s Union mimeograph machine, shared with area progressive groups, and a room rented to therapists for their sessions and available for small meetings (and the occasional toke). Some of the groups that were begun by first meeting at Common Womon included Lesbians concerned with alcohol abuse, the Jewish Lesbian discussion group, the Valley Women’s Herstory Project, the lesbian Alanon meeting, and the 1979 March on Washington WMass Lesbian contingent.

CWC included in International Women’s Day coverage in Below the  Salt, a supplement to the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, March 2, 1978. Holly and Marjorie P. in photos.

Within a couple years, and as the original collective of nine changed, it was  found that afternoon tea was feasible, but not lunch. Business slowed significantly in the summer, as well. The collective was forced to reduce summer food service, often to nothing but the popular Sunday brunches and special seasonal efforts such as ice cream socials. Always operating on a shoe string budget, CW relied on sliding scale membership dues, fund-raising events, and sacrifice by members of the collective in order to stay open.

Artist unattributed, likely Molly or Kate. This format could be used repeatedly, pasting in that day’s menu into the frame for copying.

Special events helped pay the mortgage and basic expenses. The most popular of these may have been the wimmin’s dj’ed disco dances initially held at the Club, then expanded to the basement of the Polish American Home/Club on Pearl Street. Benefit events in collaboration with other feminist or lesbian groups at larger venues also included dances with the women’s bands Lilith and Liberty Standing at UMass, a concert by Willie Tyson at Smith College, poetry reading by Robin Morgan at Hampshire College, and a local Lesbian talent Show.

Income also came from the rental of the storefront next door at 68 Masonic St. This space, occupied in 2019 by Bela Vegetarian Restaurant was, in 1976, tenanted by the US Navy recruiters when Ceres Inc bought the property. The Navy was swiftly evicted and the space renovated for new tenants, the Valley’s first women’s karate dojo, the Nutcracker’s Suite . When, after a brief time, that enterprise became Valley Women’s Martial Arts and moved to Springfield,  the building then became home to the Valley’s first feminist bookstore, Womonfyre Books. With Common Womon next door, this block in Northampton became a feminist and Lesbian beehive from 1977 to 1982. One can only imagine what the closest neighbors at the Northampton Fire Department, Christian Science Reading Room, and Bell Telephone Company were saying amongst themselves.

What was it like being part of the Common Womon Collective? Stay tuned to this blog for future posts, including personal reflections  from collective member Marjorie Childers, as well as the story of CWC’s last two years and closing in the 80s.

SOURCES:

__Dyke Doings. Northampton. Sep-Oct, Nov, Dec 1976 issues. I am missing issues V and VI, if anyone has these I would appreciate copies.

__Valley Women’s Union newsletter. Northampton.  Oct 1976, Jan, Mar 1977.

__Common Womon Club. Untitled club policies mimeo. Feb 1977?

__Common Womon Club. Member info and application form. Undated, probably Feb 1977.

__The Common Womon newsletter. #2. “Progress Report” Feb 1977.

__Brown, Melissa.  “’Common’ ground for feminists.”  Springfield [MA] Republican. Apr. 24, 1977.

__Whitaker, Jan. Email to Kaymarion Sep. 11, 2019: “fyi: I was searching through digitized papers using Newspapers.com just now and found that a 1977 story about the Common Womon Club (much like the one in the Spfld Union) was sent out by UPI and reached 16 newspapers around the country and Ottawa Canada — in Brattleboro, Van Nuys CA, Hagerstown MD, Muncie IN, St. Joseph MO, Tampa and Fort Walton Beach FL, York PA, Pittsfield MA, Nashua NH, Nashville TN, Honolulu, Billings MT, Casper WY, and Biddeford ME.”

__Common Womon newsletter.  Scattered issues 1977-79. Where is there a complete set of these?

__Brook, Elisabeth. Snapshots. 1979?

__[Raymond],Kaymarion and Letalien, Jacqueline E.  The Valley Women’s Movement: A Herstorical Chronology 1968-1978.  Northampton, Ceres Inc. 1978.

__Traub, Lauren.  “The Uncommon Common Womon.”  Below the Salt [MDC sup. UMass] 2 Mar. 1978.

__O’Neill, Molly.  Missing, story in women’s words 78, the publication of the Athol Women’s Center. Lost my copy somewhere.

__Women’s Media Project newsletter. UMass/Amherst. Jul-Aug 1978.

__Associated Press. “’Common Woman [sic]’ anything but.” Sunday Republican, Springfield MA. Jul 30, 1978.

__Giudice, Angela.  “The Common Womon: A Feminist Enterprise.”  Fresh Ink: Campus and Community Newspaper of the pioneer valley.  Northampton 1 Mar. 1979

__Carney, Maureen.  “The Common Womon Keeps the Pot Boiling.”  Valley Women’s Voice Sep. 1979.

__Bishop, Holly. Email correspondence. June 25, 2019.

__More on Olivia Records: https://queermusicheritage.com/olivia.html

One of the Common Womon Club original collective nine died in June of this year, and was memorialized nationally for the career she was to expand into: “Molly O’Neill, Writer Who Explored and Celebrated Food, Is Dead at 66 ” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/dining/molly-oneill-dead.html . “Molly O’Neill, prizewinning food writer, dies at 66″ –  https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/food/molly-oneill…food-writer…/83e1b338-913c-1…

 

 

 

 

The Egg

The very first issue of mimeographed Dyke Doings, Sep/Oct 1976, carried the announcement that several lesbian-run businesses had opened in the rear of the building at 19 Hawley Street in Northampton. Calling themselves the Egg and (later added) Marigolths, the collectively-run spaces initially contained three businesses, as well as two craftswomyn studios, and a residence. Starting in July 1976, the all-Lesbian business ventures began sharing rent and utilities while operating independently.

Dyke Doings Sep/Oct 1976

Mother Jones Press, a feminist offset press collective, had been renting space at 19 Hawley St. since its founding in 1972. The staff had dwindled to three, all Lesbians. In May 1976, they decided to close Mother Jones and open Megaera Press to publish Lesbian work. They also continued to print for women.

The Women’s Film Coop was also an older venture, started in 1972 when the Women’s Institute project at the Valley Women’s Center inherited eight films and a slideshow from New Haven feminist distributors. Operating out of a teeny space at VWC 200 Main St., the Film Coop had expanded their holdings of films available for rent and formed a non-profit corporation, Women’s Image Takeover (WIT), with their own PO address and mailing permit.

In 1973, the Coop had produced the first Valley (and perhaps New England) Women’s Film Festival, a week-long event at what became the Pleasant Street Theater in Northampton. The dearth of positive images at the time is demonstrated by the only films available to show at the Lesbian night: Maedchen in Uniform; the Children’s Hour;  and several shorts. The shorts were Jan Oxenberg’s first film, Home Movie (1972), and maybe one by Barbara Hammer. The second edition of the Coop’s critical catalog of media that reflected the real experience of women included reviews of an increasing number of films just starting to be created by feminists and lesbians in the US.

1974 edition Cover art by Barbara Johnson

By the time it moved to Hawley Street in 1976, the Women’s Film Coop had dwindled to one Lesbian, Elana Dykewoman (later, Dykewomon), as minimally paid staff. In the new organization, Megaera Press was folded into WIT’s corporate umbrella, as was Dyke Doings, Old Lady Blue Jeans Distribution, and eventually Sweetcoming Bookstore.

Lesbian Tide Sep/Oct 1976, courtesy of Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College

The newest of the three businesses in the Egg was the Greasy Gorgon Garage. Two Lesbians repaired women’s cars on a scaled-fee basis and assisted women wanting to work on their own vehicles. They planned to offer auto maintenance classes, with a larger goal of establishing a non-profit training center for women mechanics. Also new were the two studios, one of which was occupied by a Lesbian carpenter/cabinetmaker and the other by a Lesbian jeweler/seamstress.

Ad Dyke Doings Sep/Oct 1976

Megaera Press’s first Lesbian publication came out in September 1976. It was Elana Dykewoman’s [Dykewomon] They Will Know Me By My Teeth: Stories and Poems of Lesbian Struggle, Celebration, And Survival.

cover by Laura K Vera, used by permission

It stated in the volume that “This book was printed, financed, typed, corrected and bound entirely by lesbians.” The 3,000 copies were hand-collated, Elana recalled in a 2001 interview. It also stated on the cover: “To Be Sold To And Shared With Women Only.”  While anyone may now get used copies through internet used bookstores, in the 70s before the feminist bookstores began, Old Lady Blue Jeans was the sole distributor of the book.

The local one-womyn enterprise was already distributing other art by Valley Lesbians: notecards by (now) anonymous; Linda Shear’s LP album of original songs “A Lesbian Portrait;” and Great Hera’s (Kaymarion’s) Incunabula prints-to-color. The old lady of Old Lady Blues Jeans took these items, a brochure, and Elana’s book to Lesbian events to sell. Mail orders were solicited through advertisements in the increasing number of national Lesbian publications coming into being at that time . OLBJ eventually circulated hundreds of Lesbian-made products, though the owner never made a living from this work.

Collage of parts of OLBG catalog. Linda Shear photo used by permission. Great Hera’s Incunabula by Kaymarion [Raymond]

Megaera Press’s second, and final, Lesbian publication was a collection of local Lesbian creations. Visual art, music, and writing by forty womyn were included in The Rock: a Collection of Lesbian Expressions. Decisions on what to include and the physical process of producing it were done collectively by the contributors and others from the Lesbian community. A publication party was held April 4, 1977 at the Common Womon Club  to premiere this for-wimmin-only book and celebrate its issuance. On a personal note, it included a drawing of me by a Green St. tenant; my fourth and last issue of Great Hera’s Incunabula, a woodcut print; and a poem by someone else that I think referred to me entitled, “Horizontal Hostility.”

Collage of the more public bits of the Rock

The Dec.1976 Dyke Doings contained an announcement from Elana Dykewomon that she was planning to leave the Valley the next summer and was looking for someone to take over the Women’s Film Coop.  By mid-1977, no one had volunteered for this, so the films and slides being distributed by the Coop were returned to their makers and the business was closed. Megaera Press sold their offset press and closed that summer as well. The papers for the umbrella non-profit corporation Women’s Image Takeover were handed over to a local Lesbian volunteer.

While the rest of the Egg collective withered after a year, the Greasy Gorgon Garage (Triple G) had expanded to three and a half womyn mechanics and two apprentices. Twice weekly repair classes were being offered. They found new space, a “real” garage, for their business in nearby Hatfield in August 1977. At the end of the year, according to their notice in Lesbian Connections, they were seeking funds to buy the rented building.  I find no record of their later history. Does anyone know?

  LC Dec 77

The Egg only lasted a year and the collective members became dispersed across the country. Some, Elana  recalls, moved to Minneapolis where there was a sobriety community. She herself initially wound up in Oregon via Springfield MA and Florida, and later settled in Oakland CA where she continued to write and circulate work by Lesbians. Raelyn Gallina  fetched up in California where she established herself in the Lesbian and S/M communities as a nationally known pioneering practitioner of piercing and scarification, particularly for women. Elana estimated that by 1978-79, all the dykes of the Egg had left the area.

SOURCES:

__[Raymond], Kaymarion and Letalien, Jacqueline, editors. The Valley Women’s Movement: A Herstorical Chronology 1968-1978. Ceres Inc. Northampton MA. 1979. http://vwhc.org/timeline.html

__ Dyke Doings. Northampton MA. Sep/Oct, Dec 1976.

__ Women’s Film Coop. Catalogs 1972 and 1974. Northampton MA.

__ “The Egg: Dyke Building Opens.” Lesbian Tide. Sep/Oct 1976. Courtesy of the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College. Northampton MA.

__ Dykewomon, Elana. Interview by Tryna Hope. Aug. 20, 2001. Valley Women’s History Collaboration Collection. UMass Special Collections and Archives. Amherst MA.

More information at https://www.dykewomon.org/

__Old Lady Blue Jeans. Catalog. Undated, probably 1976. Northampton MA.

__The Rock: a Collection of Lesbian Expressions. Megaera Press. 1977. Northampton MA.

__ “GREASY GORGON GARAGE.” Lesbian Connection. Dec. 1977.

__Vale, V and Juno, Andrea editors. Interview with Raelyn Gallina. Included in Modern Primitives. RE/Search 1989.

__Johnson, Barbara. http://barbarajohnson.com/index.htm

__Shear, Linda.  Family of Womyn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLM-xZnTsPA. 

More about the album  https://queermusicheritage.com/oct2001b.html

__Gallina, Raelyn. Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZRA0JmSIpQ

Obituary https://infinitebody.com/blogs/news/r-i-p-raelyn-gallina

__ Review and view Maedchen in Uniform https://www.afterellen.com/movies/79116-review-of-mdchen-in-uniform-1958 Link to view https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJDEvwftR94

__ Childrens Hour https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/childrens_hour

__ Jan Oxenberg https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC24-25folder/JanOxenberg.html

__Barbara Hammer the early films http://barbarahammer.com/films/barbara-hammer-the-early-films-1968-72/

1976 Gay Guide Reflects Valley Revolution

 

By mid-decade, the social revolution begun in the early seventies had markedly changed the gay subculture in the Connecticut River Valley in Western Massachusetts. This is graphically evident in the second edition of the New England Gay Guide: 1976 published by Gay Community News.

The southernmost, heavily-populated, and industrial Hampden County retained its traditional bar/cruising/bath scenes. By 1976, mid-Valley Hampshire County rivaled Hampden for sheer number of activities, all of which were new. Even northern, sparsely-populated, rural Franklin County had become semi-publicly “out” home for a few lesbians and gays.

Bambi Gauthier tells me that the 1975 first edition of the New England Gay Guide was a mimeographed and stapled publication by Gay Community News, the regional newspaper based in Boston that started in 1973. The Guide was organized alphabetically by states and then towns within each state. Bambi photocopied the Valley listings for me. For the purpose of this post I have cut and glue-sticked them into relevant segments for a close-up view.

While gay and women’s guides are notorious for being out of date, this 1976 version presents a fairly accurate approximation of what I’m finding in documents and/or anecdotes. Whoever wrote the copy also had a sense of humor. The Guide listings demonstrate not only the growth in the gay subculture that took place in the first five years of the decade, but also illustrate discernible differences in the character of that change, among the three counties and also among towns within the same county.

As the largest Valley city, Springfield, in Hampden County, has always been the epicenter of the area’s gay bar culture. It still was in 1976, when all three of the Valley’s gay bars were in the city. The Guide’s listing includes not only these bars, but the anticipated opening and noted closing of others, among them the bombed Arch downtown and the Hideaway (also known as the Girls’ Club) in nearby Chicopee. This appears to be so culturally typical that the Guide has a listing category “Bars, defunct.” Gay women appear to be comfortable at one of the three bars and encouraged at a second. The traditional baths, restaurant, nearest VD clinic, and interstate highway cruise spot near the Longmeadow exit are also included.

 

What had changed by 1976 in the heavily populated Hampden County, according to GCN’s Guide, was the addition of a few new activities outside the bars. A “small local sprig” of Dignity, the national religious group for gay Catholics, had a Springfield PO Box. The group appears to have been attending mass together in Hartford at the Metropolitan Community Church. The Springfield Gay Alliance also had a PO Box, as well as a phone, and the organization was meeting weekly at the Unitarian Church in Longmeadow. Another new activity, although bar related, is a listing for Artandryl, “An all-women’s band doing 60s rock and some feminist material.”

Listings for rural Franklin County are, not surprisingly, sparse but exciting. Though they had listed an agent’s address in NYC, the all-women band Deadly Nightshade  lived together in a farmhouse in Apple Valley, Ashfield. Though they had an Amherst PO box, the Hopbrook Community was just across the river. The Hopbrook Community of gay men in New Salem marked the beginning of the gay and lesbian (and radical hippie) back-to-the-land movement in the hilltowns of the Valley.

Nestled between Hampden and Franklin, Hampshire County is a mix of small cities, towns, and farmland in which the largest industry is education. In 1976, Smith, Amherst, and Mt. Holyoke were elite colleges. Hampshire College was founded in 1970 as an “experiment in education.” UMass was one of the state’s large universities. This county proved to be extremely fertile ground for the social change Movements sweeping the country, including the Women’s, Gay and Lesbian. By the time the NE Gay Guide was published, the number of activities listed in Hampshire County surpassed those in Hampden County. All were new in the seventies. Some were extensions of old bar culture in slightly different form. Others were groups and organizations consciously created as alternatives to gay bar culture.

The greatest number of Hampshire County listings are in Amherst, on the east side of the river. Along with nearby Hadley, bars are listed though they are only gay tolerant or gay-themed one night a week. UMass, home to the beginning of the Valley’s Gay Liberation Movement , had multiple student groups, a first effort to support teens, the first gay radio in the region, and feminist endeavors that welcomed lesbians.

Two business listings in town are especially notable. Amherst was one of the earliest towns in the state to pass a non-discrimination law that included gays and lesbians, long before the state legislation. I am seeking a date and confirming detail for effort, which I think was led by a gay Selectman, Tom Hutchinson.

The Guide’s listings for Northampton, across the river to the west, are a sharp contrast, highlighting a great cultural difference between it and the rest of the Valley. All of them are for women, even if only described as welcoming, such as Legal Services, which I believe was submitted by the lesbian who worked there.

About half the listings are an extension of the old bar culture: a lesbian dance night at a straight bar, and two of the all-women’s bands  that played the straight and gay dance club circuits. The other half are the feminist centers of activity that included lesbians , exclusively or with other women.

The differences within the Valley demonstrated in the 1976 New England Gay Guide show how the beginning of change was rooted here, to greater or lesser degree, in varying form, and for differing populaces. Gender and sexuality were both ways in which gatherings were called together, but so was political ideology. These differences come into play over the coming decades, sometimes in very dramatic ways.

SOURCES:

__New England Gay Guide 1976. Gay Community News. Boston. 1976.

__Gay Community News (Publication) Collection · Documented ...https://historyproject.omeka.net › collections › show

 

Nutcracker’s Suite and the Anti-Rape Movement

 The dojo’s name was a private joke, known in the Lesbian feminist community as the Nutcracker’s Suite and in public as the Northampton Women’s Karate and Self-Defense Dojo. That wry humor was also reflected in the mural painted on the side of the squat little lavender stucco building housing the school at 68 Masonic Street.

There is a photo of the mural taken in the summer of 1978 by Elizabeth Samit and reprinted fifteen later in Northampton’s Lesbian Calendar. Dojo student, and later instructor, Beth Holt’s VW bug can be seen parked next to the building. The mural faced the fire department next door and so confronted the town’s firemen every day as well as those passing by. The mural and the institution it decorated were among the results of more than half a decade of anti-rape organizing in the Valley and a connection to the larger national movement.

Photo and artwork copyright Elizabeth Samit a member of the Hestia Mural Collective, used by permission

Lesbian feminists were part of the Valley’s movement to begin ending violence against women, including rape. In 1973, after a series of rapes in Puffton Village, (an Amherst apartment complex lived in by many students), the newly-opened Everywoman’s Center (EWC) formed an action group to address the violence.

Enter a caption

Feb 20, 1973. Massachusetts Daily Collegian

It was essential to begin breaking the silence around this hidden and often misnamed form of assault, one of the many forms of abuse endured everyday by women. The next month, EWC, with the Valley Women’s Center in Northampton, convened a conference on rape, including a speak-out. Recruited to do the poster, I asked Jackie, another Green St. tenant, to pose on the floor of my room for the drawing I used in its design.

1973 poster layout by Kaymarion [Raymond]

At that speak-out, an increasingly emotional crowd of women filled the Main Street basement of the Unitarian Society to witness woman after woman share her experiences, many for the first time, myself included. Organizing immediately began in Springfield to include rape crisis intervention as one of the areas to be supported by the brand-new Springfield Women’s Center. A brief report on the conference and an action resolution were included in their dittoed newsletter dated March 21, 1973.

Springfield Women’s Center Newsletter Mar. 21 1973

Feminist-invented actions were needed on multiple fronts; public education and individual self-defense training to prevent assaults, physical and emotional support for victims in crisis, advocacy on behalf of victims with police and courts, education of law enforcement, and changes in laws concerning rape and victims’ rights. There was no easy fix in working on behalf of assaulted women. These activists had to deal with the varied competency levels and sexist attitudes of police departments and prosecuting attorneys across the three Valley counties.

As with many other issues addressed by the Women’s Liberation Movement in the U.S., the thinking and experimentation of feminists in other cities helped inform those locally. In the ad hoc library on the Common Womon Club’s porch, I found a manila file folder of articles on women and violence. There were mimeographed papers from feminist activists around the country, including guidelines for counselors helping rape victims, the Detroit Women’s Crisis Center (1973); the goals and objectives of a city-wide anti-rape campaign led by an Ann Arbor Michigan municipal advisory board, (1975); and a guide to self-defense courses and martial arts, NYC Women’s Martial Arts Union (second edition 1974).

Mimeographed literature from around the country was gathered and read in the Valley as feminists invented ways to address the violence against women. These examples from a folder in Common Womon Club’s library that may have been a Valley Women’s Center/Union subject file.

In 1974, the Springfield Rape Crisis Hotline was started by volunteers in the Springfield Women’s Center. There is a note in the Herstorical Chronology of the Valley Women’s Movement  that a “Sep 6, 1975 benefit for Springfield Rape Crisis Center was disrupted by police, one woman beaten. Protests made to Mayor of lack of police cooperation.” Can anyone add details or documentation for this?  They were an activist group, witness a clipping I came across in which women disrupted a lecture.

Undated and Unattributed clipping, likely April 1975 Springfield Union.

Springfield Rape Crisis Center brochure undated

 

One of the long-term goals of the Springfield Center was to establish a school for self-defense and karate.  The need for this was also felt in Northampton during the hot summer of 1975, with a noticeable increase in physical harassment of lesbians on the streets of Northampton in reaction to new activity at the Lesbian Gardens and Gala Café. This prompted not just the formation of a slightly trained ad hoc Dyke Patrol to protect lesbians coming and going from lesbian events in town, but also greater awareness in the lesbian community of the need for self-defense.

One result was the formation of self-defense classes at the Lesbian Gardens  space over the Valley Women’s Center at 200 Main Street. The Lesbian Gardens was where I saw a woman in a karate gi for the first time. She was Cindy Shamban, an instructor. A year later, in 1976, Cindy teamed up with Pat Turney to rent fourth floor space in the Masonic Building at 25 or 26 Main St. in Northampton and open “a wimmin’s self-defense and karate school.” Separate all-wimmin’s and all-lesbian classes were offered on a sliding cost scale. There was also a karate class for little women age 5-13.

From Dyke Doings Nov. 1976

Self-defense demonstrations and workshops became included at women’s conferences in the Valley along with more – and more specific – planning for support for victims.  In 1976, a Rape Advocate/Counselor Training Conference, based on feminist principles, was held by Family Planning at their newly opened Center Street, Northampton offices. The Springfield Rape Crisis Center closed, though it is unclear if this was because the Women’s Center lost space. The hotline may have continued but became housed at the Springfield YWCA as HERA, the Hotline to End Rape. I have no documentation for this. Please share if you do. Everywoman’s Center in Amherst began doing Rape Advocacy/Counseling. 1976 also saw the first anti-rape march in the Valley, held in Northampton by the Valley Women’s Union. Undated [May 14, 1976?] and unattributed publicity for Anti-rape March

In a related 1976 move, NELCWIT battered women’s services started in Greenfield for Franklin County, another Valley first. By 1978, Everywoman’s Center had established the Crisis line that continues to this day, and Necessities/Necessidades (now Safe Passage) Hampshire County battered women’s services had opened. When did Hampden County Womanshelter open?

Ceres Inc, which bought the buildings at 68-78 Masonic Street to start a women’s restaurant, evicted the Navy Recruiters from number 68 and rented it to the Nutcracker’s Suite in April of 1977.

“Robin and Cindy at the Nutcracker.” View onto Masonic Street. Photo courtesy of Cindy, photographer unknown.

At some point, that mural went up. I don’t know who painted it there, but the design came from the cover of the first issue of Black Belt Woman, published in 1975-76 from Medford Massachusetts. The image is from a woodcut by Elizabeth Samit.

First issue Sep 1975 of magazine from Medford MA. Graphic by Elizabeth Samit

Pat Turney, later named Banshee, became part of the network being formed among women across the continent. She contributed writing to Black Belt Woman, and included the dojo in the sixty page directory of women in the martial arts published by the magazine in 1976.

Pat and the Nutcracker’s Suite organized and hosted the second annual 1977 National Training Camp for Women and the Martial Arts. Ninety women from over a dozen karate styles worked out together for three June days at Hampshire College in Amherst. I had the pleasure of designing the teeshirt for that. The training was reported in Off Our Backs.

“Pat Turney and Cindy at Training Camp “, photographer unknown. Courtesy of Cindy

 

Tee shirt by-blow from summer training by Kaymarion [Raymond] photographed by Anne Moore

Perhaps because of the training camp, Wendy Dragonfire joined Banshee as an instructor at the Nutcracker’s Suite briefly before Banshee withdrew for further training elsewhere.

Undated [1977] flyer. the graphic on the right is by me and was used as the t-shirt design for the ’77 National Training

Wendy took over the school in September of 1977. Its name changed to the Valley Women’s Martial Arts and in 1978 moved to Springfield. As part of a now national campaign, Northampton’s first Take Back the Night March was held in 1978. Over 1500 women showed up.

abbreviated flyer (for space reasons). As a women’s march, men provided childcare and sideline support.

mimeographed songsheet first Take Back the night March

Springfield Union Nov. 6 1978

Undated Springfield Union clip of March coverage, estimated 1500 marchers

SOURCES:

__The Lesbian Calendar. May 1993. Cover photo of dojo mural “Olive Oyl on the dojo” 1978 by Elizabeth Samit.

__[Raymond], Kaymarion and Letalien, Jacqueline, editors. The Valley Women’s Movement: A Herstorical Chronology 1968-1978. Ceres Inc. Northampton MA. 1979. http://vwhc.org/timeline.html

__Ballou, Bill. ”Rape Crisis Committee Formed.” [Probably daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton.] Feb. 20, 1973.

__[Raymond,]Kay[marion.] Rape Conference poster. Northampton. [1973.]

__Springfield Women’s Center Newsletter. Mar 21, 1973. (Five page ditto.)

__Filosi, Penny. “Female Protesters Disrupt Rape Lecture.” [Springfield] Union. [April 1975?]

__Rape Crisis Center. Brochure. [Springfield.] Undated.

__Dyke Doings. Nov. 1976. Northampton.

__”Valley Women’s Union to Stage Rape March.” Undated [May 14, 1976?] and Unattributed.

__Black Belt Woman. September 1975. Medford MA. __ Black Belt Woman: Magazine for Women in the Martial Arts and Self Defense. Online description/contents of issues. “Historic magazine of the women’s martial arts and self-defense movement arising out of the second wave of feminism, published from 1975 to 1976.”  http://www.greenlion.com/BBW/bbw.html

__Valley Women’s Union Newsletter. Nov. 1976. Northampton.

__”articles on women and violence.” Subject file c. 1973-75. From Common Womon Club, Northampton reading library.

__Delaplaine, Jo. ”Martial Arts.” Off Our Backs. Aug. 31, 1977.

__Valley Women’s Martial Arts Inc.”Valley Women’s Martial Arts: 20^th Anniversary 1977-1997.” 1997. Easthampton MA.

__Bloomberg, Marcia. “Women plan march to underscore rape crises.” Springfield Union. Nov. 6, 1978.

__Weinberg, Neal. Springfield Republican. ”Women stage protest against […]” Partial clipping without date, probably Nov. 19, 1978.

__[additional source to find ?Author?  “3000 Women March In Take Back the Night March.” Valley Women’s Voice Feb. 1979. I have a note of this but not the coverage itself. Was this in reference to the Nov. 1978 March?]

 

 

Lesbian Alliance Forms at Smith College

As the student founders of Smith College’s first lesbian group graduated, the unfunded and unofficial Sophia Sisters folded in 1975. The next year, however, a new student group formed. Calling themselves the Lesbian Alliance, over the next several years they fought hostility from other students to achieve official group status, space in the Women’s Resource Center, and student government funding. As the 1977 flyer included below indicates, they laid the organizational foundation for  a much greater town/gown collaboration in the 1980s. It is likely members of SCLA attended the first (?) Seven Sisters Lesbian Conference held at Radcliffe in 1978.

 

 

Flyer/Agenda. Courtesy of the Smith College Archives

Sources:

_Braverman, Stacy. “Crushes at Smith.” Unpublished paper submitted to KMR for use in the chapbook. 2003.

__[Raymond], Kaymarion and Letalien, Jacqueline, editors. The Valley Women’s Movement: A Herstorical Chronology 1968-1978. Ceres Inc. Northampton MA. 1979. http://vwhc.org/timeline.html

__Lozier, Anne. “Records of the Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Alliance, 1976-2003.” Finding Aid, College Archives, Smith College. Northampton. 2003

 

Lesbian Gardens

After the early 1976 Separatist conflicts and Lesbian realignment, Lesbian Gardens on the third floor at 200 Main St. in Northampton fell empty except for a weekly music group. The Valley Women’s Union still had drop-in space on the second floor. In the fall, new “Gardeners” Stephanie and Robin began to revitalize the large open loft space where a rainbow painted across the windows looked out at the City Hall. Though there wasn’t much interest in massage, games, or drop-in nights, popular new activities included a drawing group, Lesbians in the social services discussion group, film showings, play performances, a Dykes and Tykes potluck, a dance (to bring-your-own records), and several skills exchanges. Donations from these activities paid the rent share.

First issue of Dyke Doings mimeographed newsletter Sep-Oct 1976

Getting these activities going was greatly aided by the mimeoed publication of  a monthly newsletter.  Dyke Doings was edited by Stephanie, Laura, and Robin. Before its demise in June 1977 after eight issues, it was hand delivered, often by bicycle, to two hundred, mostly Northampton Lesbian households. It included information on all the various doings in town, plus the first Lesbian classified ads, most for roommates. In later issues, it included two other area firsts: notices for a Lesbian teen rap group and a Lesbian land trust. As you will see from posts still to come, the newsletter provided a crucial communication channel for a plethora of newly created enterprises.

One Lesbian product printed in DD was directory of thirty-five Lesbians willing to trade a variety of skills. Compiled by the Skills Exchange as a way to form a community self-reliance network, it encouraged recognition of knowledge as a resource and barter as a way of strengthening a local Lesbian economy. The Exchange also sponsored three Markets at the Gardens, where goods as well as services were exchanged. These were the beginning of what in the 1980s became the Lesbian Home Show.

This new burst of activity was cut short at the end of 1976, when the Valley Women’s Union, and Lesbian Gardens within it, received an eviction notice for the two floors that had been rented since 1970. Both groups held emergency meetings and offered to double the rent being paid. This was refused by the landlord, who sued for $700 in damages incurred by the tenants and listed reasons for the eviction.

Valley Women’s Union handout, undated [early 1977]. Unknown artist.

The suit for damages and many of the landlord’s other complaints were specifically about misuse and abuse of the Lesbian Gardens space. Complaints included unpaid use of heat, use of the building at night (including people staying overnight), filthy bathroom, posters all over. In discussions between the lawyer hired by VWU and the landlord, it became clear that the issue of lesbians played an important part in the eviction, not only unauthorized use of the space, but alienation of the straight tenants sharing the second floor bathroom and stairwell entry. Although not stated by the landlord, the rumors in the community added that Dyke graffiti and yelling in the common stairwell during the Separatist implosion and the theft of fire extinguishers may also have been factors.

As a result, in Feb. 1977, Lesbian Gardens disbanded. Many activities simply ceased, though Sweetcoming Bookstore moved to the new Egg space on Hawley St. The Drawing Support Group went on meeting for several more months in homes of the members.  The Valley Women’s Union moved their mimeograph machine to a shared office a few blocks away at the newly opened Common Womon Club on Masonic St. Dyke Doings continued for several more months providing news of the moves Lesbians made and were to make.

Sources:

__Dyke Doings. Issues I-IV Sep/Oct1976-Jan 1977, (I am missing two issues), Issues VII-VIII Apr/May-Jun 1977. Northampton.  I would be very grateful to have copies of the two issues I’m missing. Anyone?

__Valley Women‘s Union Newsletter. January, March 1977. Northampton.

__[Raymond], Kaymarion and Letalien, Jacqueline, editors. The Valley Women’s Movement: A Herstorical Chronology 1968-1978. Ceres In. Northampton 1978. LINK https://www.vwhc.org/timeline.html

 

Rough Outlines: Preview the Past

This June, as the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots are celebrated, notice all the photographs, a few movies, and the many news clippings displayed in remembrance of that time. Someone saved them all so they could be seen today. Here is a combo note on blog housecleaning and a public service announcement.

I can see in WordPress statistics that visitors have been going to the 1980s page, probably expecting to find more than one story from that period. I created that decade page to hold the post about Northampton’s first lesbian and gay march. Posting that story is, to date, the sole jump forward in the narrative, aside from reflections on the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre in 2016.

Part of the housekeeping as the blog posts accumulate is figuring out how to make them more accessible to readers. Yes, they can be read in the order they’ve been written, or entered from a subject search, but it should also be possible to read the posts in the order the history unfolded. Over the last few months I have organized the posts chronologically within decades to make this possible. If you go to the 1970s page (select the tab at top of blog), you can now find such a chronological list with links to the accumulated posts. The About and BC/PreStonewall pages are also now re-organized with new listings of the related posts to form tables of content.

The major drawback to doing this is the lack of posts to fill in the decades. I am involved right now with a detailed accounting of the 70s, the period in which I was most active personally, with a few interspersed flashbacks to an older past. This is slow work. I have written pieces only up to circa 1975-76 right now.

However, even if I haven’t gotten around to writing about or finding writing for the 80s, 90s, 00s, I have plenty of material gathered in preparation. All these decade pages could legitimately be considered “Under Construction.” As this is seriously a work-in-progress blog, I have  created pages for some of later decades and posted my rough, working timelines as informative place-holding material.  Check out the new tabs at the top of the blog. I hope that this will give readers a sense of the scope of activity centered in Northampton and encourage participation in sharing and helping preserve this history.

The following information will be pinned to the top of the new 1980s, 90s, 00s pages, with some variation:

 [insert whatever timeline is appropriate]

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

This is one of my working timelines of LGBTQ+ organized activity centered in the Northampton area. I HOPE TO SHARE ALL THE STORIES REPRESENTED ON THIS TIMELINE SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE. It functions as a rough outline for organizing my work and has gone through multiple drafts. I last roughed out these four decades of timeline in 2004 from my research notes. Each timeline is also organized thematically. These can be laid side by side for continued content over the decades. They also fit within a larger Valley context (and timeline.) These timelines are not complete nor definitive. For example, I might have found mention once of a group meeting in some alternative Valley newspaper calendar, so noted them in that year but have no other evidence of their meeting before or after, or even if anyone showed up. I have a fantasy that someone(s) with Excel spreadsheet talent will transcribe it into a document, which, pie-in-the-sky, could become the basis for interactive content.

1970s working timeline of Northampton LGBTQ+ activity by Kaymarion Raymond

If you were part of this past activity please share that story. Show us a picture. Tell us here, throughout the blog in comments, or through the email contact tab above, or let me know where you can be contacted if I  or a trained interviewer have questions.

Do you have letters, T-shirts, buttons, journals, flyers, photos, posters, newspaper clippings, meeting notes, recordings, or any other items that document this history? If the community you are currently part of uses electronic communication via some form of social media please make a record of that activity in some form; a written  summary, copies of public posts, representative images or memes, event publicity. Paper endures without technology so printed material is a treasure.

Please document and share the story, as copies or as gifts to any of the many interested archives in the Valley or to this project. If there are items you can’t part with now, please make arrangements to have them given to an archive after your death. More information at end of this post.

1980s working timeline of Northampton LGBTQ+ activity by Kaymarion Raymond

If you are interested in this history as a student or researcher, please share here whatever you find: the stories regarding this place and activity, or the resources others can use to discover the stories; scans of documents, location of documents in archives, including periodical holdings, interview transcripts, articles or books. Links to your own published work related to this history are welcome.

As an independent scholar I have little access to the extensive literature now available through academic library database subscriptions, particularly scholarly accounts and interpretations of events that occurred here or elsewhere in the Valley. What are you finding that should be included in a queer Northampton bibliography? Where are these documents available?

Would you be interested in drafting a blog bibliography or source listing for researchers? More simply, as you read some of the posts, are you finding broken links or errors that escaped proofing? Let me know. Please add your comments on that post or email me through the blog contact.

1990s working timeline of Northampton LGBTQ+ activity by Kaymarion Raymond

Archival resources. The Valley is rich in repositories, though none of them are as rich in resources as they need to be to house and process all possible collections. They range from small local historical societies and private collections to large concentrations of documents with regional and even global content. They each have particular focus and try to avoid duplication.

There has been a gradual change in attitude so that many now welcome some part of the LGBTQAI odd-by-any-other name history, whether as that of a citizen of a town, an alum of a college, as feminist or lesbian, or a political activist in Western Massachusetts. Mechanisms have been developed to preserve some privacy if you choose to donate your papers, though archives can’t keep the FBI out.

I am happy to talk with anyone about the options available or passing on donated documents. “A Guide to Donating Your Papers” from the Valley Women’s History Collaborative is a good introduction, though the list of archival resources is incomplete.   http://vwhc.org/donor_guide.pdf

Archives interested in preserving this history;

__The Archive Project. POB 302 Hadley, MA 01035. (413) 585-0369. Contact Phil Gauthier, archivist. gokey3@gmail.com. The Project doesn’t have a webpage. Hours by appointment only. Private collection of mostly Amherst-Northampton area gay records including local ACT UP and Queer Nation chapters, gay organizations and the Northampton Pride March. Includes some regional material as well.

__Sexual Minorities Archive in Holyoke.

https://sexualminoritiesarchives.wordpress.com/

__Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn.

http://www.lesbianherstoryarchives.org/

__Historic Northampton.

https://www.historicnorthampton.org/

__Special Collections and University Archives, Du Bois Library, UMass, Amherst. Western Massachusetts history to include LGBTQAI.

https://www.library.umass.edu/locations/scua/

__Sophia Smith Collection as well as the College Archives, Smith College, Northampton. Women’s history globally to include Valley feminists and lesbians.

https://www.smith.edu/libraries/special-collections

__Amherst, Hampshire and Mt. Holyoke Colleges all preserve college group and alumni records. Your local town library or historical society may also be interested.

2000s working timeline of Northampton LGBTQ+ activity by Kaymarion Raymond

 

 

 

KJ Morris

Former Northampton resident, in memory Pulse Orlando three years later

three years ago, her facebook page

The Stone Wall

I was thrilled to discover I live just down the road from the childhood home of the author of America’s first lesbian autobiography, The Stone Wall. The book was published in 1930 in Chicago under a pseudonym. It wasn’t until 2003 that the author’s birth and married names were discovered by Tufts University doctoral candidate Sherry Ann Darling in what historian Jonathan Katz calls “a major example of creative, historical detective work.” I was just as excited to find that the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, NYC – oft cited as the place the Gay Revolution began in 1969 – was originally opened the same year the Stone Wall was published, as a tearoom and in probable tribute to the author.

I first found mention of the autobiography in The History Project’s Improper Bostonians (1998). One tantalizing sidebar paragraph: ”’Mary Casal’ (her real name is not known) was born in Western Massachusetts in 1864. Her autobiography, The Stone Wall, published in 1930, is the amazing psycho-sexual self-portrait of a young woman’s growing awareness and acceptance of her lesbian identity. For a time, she taught in a ‘very select girls’ day school on Beacon Hill’ and is quite possibly included in [a] photograph of Miss Ireland’s school… ”

Casal’s Massachusetts’ roots were not mentioned in earlier notice by lesbian literature authority Barbara Grier or historian Jonathan Katz. Darling includes Grier’s 1976 review reprint in an online OutHistory bibliography   :

Grier, Barbara (alias: Gene Damon). “Life History of a Lesbian: Mary Casal. Reproduced from  Lesbian Lives: Biographies of Women from the Ladder. Editors Barbara Grier and Coletta Reid. Diana Press 1976 :

“Apparently this is an undoctored life history of a Lesbian. Mary Casal wrote her life story in a casual conversational and entirely frank manner. Since Miss Casal was born in 1864 and was at the time of writing 65 years old, the complete detail of her love affair is almost amazing. Miss Casal was born in New England on a farm and apparently was a part of the class described as upper middle class. Her parents were a rather odd mixture, her mother a descendent of the very pure Puritans and her father a descendent of a distinguished English family of artists and musicians. She was the youngest of nine children and her childhood friends were all male… By the time she had completed her college education she had had three or four … crushes and one of them had apparently been physically satisfactory. In her effort to make her autobiography utterly untraceable, Miss Casal has obscured the sequence of her life to an extent that makes dates impossible to find in relation to her big love affair. However, somewhere in her middle thirties she met and fell in love with a girl two years younger. The affair was entirely complete and very happy for both women for many years, approximately fifteen years or a little more. During these happy years the women discovered many other women of like temperament and the authoress expresses her initial surprise at this, because previously Mary and her friend Juno had thought they were the only women in the world who loved another woman.

Miss Casal’s revelations about the Lesbian world of New York and Paris around the turn of this century are most interesting. Although Miss Casal tries to give the impression that she was never a professional author, it is hard to believe in view of the quality of writing in her memoirs. I heartily recommend this as almost a class[ic] case of lesbianism. Unfortunately the book is very rare and quite expensive. Those willing to take the trouble can borrow the book through the Library of Congress.”

This review by Grier was likely published in the Ladder before The Stone Wall was reprinted in 1975 by Arco Press. A more recent reprint in 2018 by Forgotten Books makes hardback and paperback editions more readily available. The Stone Wall  is also now available for free online.

Jonathan Katz offered a much longer critical review of The Stone Wall in his work Gay American History (1976). OutHistory.org has now made this available online.

I encourage anyone to read The Stone Wall. It is a concise two hundred pages. Given that the author would have been the age of my grandmother when she wrote it, I was struck by her unusual frankness about sex. Her autobiography also provides examples of of what are now called #MeToo moments in late 1800s-early 1900s. Casal discusses childhood abuse and struggles with marital sex. She also gives accounts of intimacy with other women and entry into the subculture of women like her. Nowhere does she refer to herself as a lesbian, though Sherry Darling discovered that Casal’s editor/publisher referred to her a lesbian in correspondence with others and may have edited out anything he considered “too hot” for 1930. At the age of sixty-six, the last of her family still alive, she was not too reticent, although she did disguise some facts to spare her peers.

It is a delight to see historians recover more of her story, linking her solitary work to a much larger, vibrant subculture.   In 2004, David Carter, investigating Stonewall: the Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution, discovered that the same year Casal’s autobiography was published, a tearoom named Bonnie’s Stonewall Inn opened on Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village NYC. The owner was Vincent Bonavia.

In those Prohibition days, the tearoom gained a reputation as one of the most notorious in the Village. Bonnie’s Stonewall Inn was raided for selling liquor. Carter also  postulated that its name selection sent a coded message that lesbians were welcome there. Casal and her woman partner lived for a number of years in Greenwich Village.

In Sherry A. Darling’s dissertation on Mary Casal, she uncovered the underground lesbian community centered around actresses in the legitimate theatre in NYC circa 1890-1920 that the author was part of. Darling believes, based on her research, that one character in Casal’s memoir is a male impersonator and actress who introduced Casal and her partner to others in that circle.

In 1934 the tea room, now a bar, moved to two former stables that had been merged and renovated at 51-53 Christopher Street, the current site of the Stonewall Inn.

In this pre-1930 photo, the horse stable on the left #53 had already been converted to use as a bakery and the third floor of the stable on the right had yet to be razed.

 

This 1939 NYC tax photo shows Bonnie’s Stonewall Inn sign on the far right over the joined buildings. Source:NYC Municipal archives.

The business changed hands and function over the decades but retained some variation of the same name on the old signage.

Matchbook cover circa the 1940s before it became a restaurant. Courtesy of Tom Bernardin.

 

In 1969, as the Mafia-owned gay bar the Stonewall Inn, it returned to its uproarious origins.

Diana Davies photo of the Stonewall Inn taken Sep. 9, 1969 after the June-July riots had closed it down. Note on the sign that “Restaurant” had replaced “Bonnie’s.” Photo courtesy New York Public Library.

Through extensive research into the few concrete details in The Stone Wall, Darling discovered that Casal was Ruth Fuller Field, born and raised in Deerfield, Massachusetts. Field later lived with her husband in nearby Montague on the Connecticut River. Casal had written that as a young lady she had spent the summer with a married sister whose family was great friends with the neighboring Governor, who had recently lost his wife. Given the approximate time period Darling was able to identity the Governor. Through his diaries and local property deeds, she identified his friends and neighbors. Through the genealogy records of those friendly neighbors and corroborating detail in The Stone Wall Darling found the name of the sister who had visited them that summer: Ruth Fuller Field.

I easily found confirmation that the person Darling identified as using the Casal pseudonym grew up in Deerfield. These documented details about Ruth Fuller Field echoed elements in Casal’s autobiography as well.

There is the 1870 U.S. Census record filled out by Deerfield’s historian George Sheldon. Ruth W. is the youngest, at 5, of six children living with their parents Joseph and Lydia Fuller. A black “colored” male farm laborer also lived with them.

George Sheldon also wrote Deerfield’s history and genealogy in 1896. In it, Sheldon included the Joseph Fuller family, noting that he was a teacher of music as well as a farmer and that by then he resided in Mont[ague]. In addition to the children in the 1870 census, three deceased children were listed. Ruth W. is the last of the living children listed. She was born June 17, 1864. She married Feb 12, 1887 to Frank A. Field of Mont[ague].

There appear to be no street names or house numbers back then, but an online search of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Society’s collection provided details about Ruth’s most famous uncle, George, who painted landscapes of the neighborhood where the Fuller families lived. Called the Bars, because of some residents’ use of whole tree trunks stacked up to make fences, it was several miles south of (Old) Deerfield center, just past the saw and grist mills on the Deerfield River.

I was curious about just where that might be. It sounded as if it was on or near one of my favorite drives, a back way to Old Deerfield that passes through woods and farm fields before it comes out along the Deerfield River, where I might pass an acre of lavender in bloom.

When I searched for old maps, I found a watercolor tinted lithograph online dated 1871, from an atlas of Franklin County by Frederick Beers. The mills on the river (Mill Village) were marked south of Deerfield center. The race, a small canal, diverted the river to the mills. Each building was marked with its function or the names of its residents. Clustered together on the road south of the mills were the Fuller residences!

Enlarged neighborhood detail from 1871 Deerfield map by Frederick Beers.

The J.N. Fuller family (Ruth’s) lived next to Joseph’s father Aaron and his mother Sophia, and across the road from his brother George, who became the acclaimed painter even as he struggled to make a living as a farmer.

A Mill Village Road starts across the highway from where I live. Since it was a sunny March day when I found the map, I copied it and drove down that road. I passed by odd housing developments and cornfield stubble still under melting snow. The road started to descend toward the river.

Coming around a wooded bend, I saw a sign on the right side of the road, the Bar’s Farm Stand. Pulling over into its vacant, muddy little parking lot, I stared straight ahead at an old gambreled house, large and immaculately preserved. It looked like the one in photos at the PVMA identified as belonging to George, Ruth’s uncle. Across the street were two houses, just as marked on the old map. One, a boxier, old white painted house was in the position marked as the residence of Ruth’s grandfather Aaron. Next to it, with a driveway lined with sugar maples, sap buckets hung out, was a dark-stained wooden house. It was just where the map indicates Ruth’s family would have lived.

Photo by Kaymarion Raymond, March 2019

The cluster of old houses were indeed located on a plateau, higher ground above the river flood plain with woods uphill and fields around that would have been in hay or planted with potatoes. As I continued north toward Old Deerfield, the road dropped down to the river, met Stillwater Road. The one room school the Fuller children attended at that crossroads was gone. Where the mills would have been on the river was now a dairy cow pasture, but running through it was a winding shallow gully that must have been the remains of the race that diverted water to the mill wheels. If I had gone farther, I would have passed a favorite Fuller swimming hole. Already I’d gone by a man pulling on his waders, getting ready to fish in the river.

Further Reading: Justin Cascio provides a overview of the Mafia in Greenwich Village and the Stonewall Inn in his blog https://mafiagenealogy.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/gay-liberation-and-the-mafia/

SOURCES:

__Casal, Mary.[Ruth Fuller Field.:] The Stone Wall: An Autobiography. Eyncourt Press. Chicago. 1930. Free online PDF.  https://archive.org/details/stonewallautobio00casa

__The [Boston] History Project. Improper Bostonians. Beacon Press, Boston. 1998.

__Darling, Sherry A. “A Critical Introduction to The Stone Wall: An Autobiography.” Dissertation, Tufts University. 2003. Hat tip to Anne Moore UMass archivists for accessing a copy of this for me.

__Katz, Jonathan Ned. Introduction, Mary Casal, pseudonym of Ruth Fuller Field: The Autobiography of an American Lesbian (1930). Outhistory.org. http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/casal

__Darling, Sherry Ann. Bibliography, Mary Casal, pseudonym of Ruth Fuller Field: The Autobiography of an American Lesbian (1930). http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/casal.         includes article by Grier cited below:

__Grier, Barbara (AKA Gene Damon). “Life History of a Lesbian: Mary Casal.” Lesbian Lives: Biographies of Women From the Ladder. Editors Barbara Grier and Coletta Reid. Diana Press.1976.

__Carter, David. Stonewall: the Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004.

__ Landmarks Preservation Commission (NYC).June 23, 2015, Designation List 483LP-2574STONEWALL INN, 51-53 Christopher Street, Manhattan. Includes pieces of the building history not included in other sources.

__Stonewall photos used here, and many more, gathered from various sources into an excellent online slideshow.  https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/site/stonewall-inn-christopher-park/

__”The 40 Songs on the Stonewall Inn Jukebox June 1969.” Just for fun if you read this far,  oldtimer nostalgia. Playlist on Spotify by Douglas Bender on Feb 18 2014.“[Motown] is not an audible sound. It’s spiritual, and it comes from the people that make it happen.” – Smokey Robinson. Record Compilation Credit: Williamson Henderson, President SVA. https://www.charentonmacerations.com/2014/02/18/stonewall-jukebox/

__Deerfield Mass. Census of 1870. Schedule 1, Inhabitants, Page 6.

__Sheldon, George. A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts: The Times when the People by Whom it was Settled, Unsettled and Resettled. Volume 2. Press of E.A. Hall & Company, Deerfield Mass, 1896.

__Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Society. Deerfield Massachusetts online collection. Much information online about George Fuller, Ruth’s Uncle, including paintings and descriptions of their neighborhood. http://www.memorialhall.mass.edu/collection

__Beers, Frederick. “Deerfield.” Atlas of Franklin County. 1871. http://historicmapworks.com/Map/US/8346/

https://openarchives.umb.edu/digital/collection/p15774coll6/id/6268

In the Field family since 1866.

	Cold Brook Farm, Montague, MA
Description	‘125 acre plantation, 6 or 8 buildings, electric water-powered generator, sawmill, cider mill, 26-room house for summer guests, dairy and beef hogs, tobacco, onions, asparagus, various garden vegetables, steamboat landing, Black family as cooks, had electricity before the town was electrified.’
Contributor Name	Parzych, Joseph A.
Decade	1990-1999

 

The Peak of Lesbian Enterprise

An unprecedented number of Lesbian enterprises existed in Northampton in 1976-77, both old ones and new, that evolved out of the 1975-76 Separatist struggles. What particularly made this creative flowering different was that Lesbians were, for the first and only time, able to control, rent, and/or buy multiple spaces within downtown Northampton.

This was made possible in large part by the economic decay of the downtown. Its largest business, McCallums Department Store, had closed and many others followed as the city’s population sprawled and shopping malls were built further and further down King St.

When I moved to Green St. in 1970,  everything I needed was within walking distance. Over the next decade, much of that disappeared except for a changing cast of banks, bars, and restaurants. One by one, all but two of the neighborhood markets folded as well as the A&P on Bridge St. and the supermarket on Conz St. The working population that lived downtown in rooming houses or over just about every business aged and declined, too. Two downtown schools – Hawley Junior High and St. Michaels – closed. The working people’s businesses I relied on began to close their doors: Fine’s Clothing, Woolworth’s Five and Dime, Tepper’s General Store, Foster and Farrar Hardware, Whalen’s Office Supply. For a brief time, before real estate speculation and gentrification took hold and turned Hamp into Noho (competing nicknames), space affordable to women became available.

Below is a map of current downtown that I’ve amended with the location of the major 1970s Lesbian enterprises, which peaked in 1976-77. Following it is a brief description of the activity that took place at each address. All of this will be detailed in future posts if I haven’t already.

#1. 200 Main St. Lesbian Gardens. Third floor space that was originally rented along with half the second floor by the Valley Women’s Center/Union. 1974-77. Currently Harlow Luggage building.

#2. 66 Green St. Green St.Top two floors, rooming house that started to be lesbian in 1972 and continued to be all or mostly lesbian at least until 1991. Building bought and demolished by Smith College. Currently grass.

#3. 1 Bridge St. Gala Café.  Lesbian backroom 1975-1979. Torn down, part of Spoleto’s currently in that space.

#4. 25 Main St. Nutcracker Suite. One large room on a back corridor as I recall, I believe on the fourth floor, 1976-77. This address also was used by the Grand Jury Information Project, Ceres Inc., and later, I believe, by Chrysalis Theatre. It was in what is now known as the Fitzwilly’s (Masonic) building.

#5. 19 Hawley St. The Egg and Marigolths. 1976-77 (estimated). Originally rented in 1973 by Mother Jones Press which in 1976 became Megaera Press and joined with Old Lady Bluejeans distributing and the Women’s Film Coop to form the Women’s Image Takeover WIT. Additional space in the building was rented to accommodate several craftswomyn and Greasy Gorgon Garage auto repair. These formed a collective of businesses with the self-chosen odd name. Sweet Coming bookstore moved there in 1977.

#6.  78 Masonic St. Common Womon Club. 1976-82. Private dining club for feminist vegetarians owned by the non-profit Ceres Inc. Later bought by Bill Streeter for his book bindery. Currently it is the Mosaic Café.

#7.  68 Masonic St. Nutcracker Suite: Women’s Self Defense and Karate Dojo. Moved from Main St. 1977-78. Womonfyre Books. 1978-82. Owned by Ceres Inc. Later bought by Bart’s Ice Cream as their bakery. Currently it is lesbian owned Bela Vegetarian Restaurant.

Jacqbear: My First Herstory Buddy

This winter I got an email from someone through this blog. A lesbian in California had done an internet search looking for information to include in an obituary she was helping write. At fromwickedtowedded.com, she had found posts of Jacqueline Elizabeth Letalien’s writing about the local herstory, the experience of being a Springfield bardyke in the 1970s .  Recognizing we had a mutual friend, Sue wrote to tell me that Jacqueline had died.

Over the next few weeks I met and corresponded with several California lesbians who filled me in on Jacqueline’s more recent life and the details of her death. Sue, who first contacted me, was editor of the Humboldt County lesbian monthly the L-Word , which had published Jacqueline’s “Kulture Klatch” column since 2001. I also heard from a friend and former co-worker of Jacqueline’s at a local library; and a former partner who had moved with her from Oakland to the redwoods land of coastal northern California. I welcomed their insights and reflections, along with the personal details about a woman I had known best back in the 70s.

I hadn’t been in touch with Jacqueline since 2016, when I tracked her down to inquire about republishing some of her bar dyke poems. Though we were not regular correspondents, I find in my files an accumulation of papers she sent me sporadically over the decades from the West Coast. These include document collections of Valley history given to or saved by her and copies of her writing, particularly as they reflected on Western Massachusetts. She was my earliest and closest collaborator in establishing a core record of the beginnings of second wave feminism and lesbianfeminism in the Connecticut River Valley, work that provided a basis for this blog forty years later.

Her ex wondered if I had brought Jacqueline out, an inference from the stories told about me. Although we had fumbled around in bed once, two sort of clueless butches, I didn’t bring her out, at least not sexually. Perhaps I had politically, in a way, by introducing her to the Gay and Lesbian movements at UMass. There is a clear trajectory in her published writing as a student at UMass. She moves from vague poems of abstracted angst signed by “Jackie” in a dormitory publication to coming out in 1971 as “Jacqueline,” lesbian, in the UMass student newspaper in order to point out some homophobic behavior.

Massachusetts Daily Collegian, student paper UMass Amherst, Oct. 1971

By 1973, it was “Jacqueline E.“ who was inadvertently starting her career as a journalist with frequent letters to the editor and articles in the student paper defending, explaining, and/or protesting the War, Women’s Liberation, and Gay Rights. She was living at Green Street  by then. In June, when she graduated, a group of us women caravaned from Northampton down to her folks’ backyard in Agawam to celebrate.

The next thing to come in the mail to me after the packet of her clippings were three files of documents. She explained in a cover letter that, after a year in Oakland, she had lived in Springfield, Massachusetts from 1975 to 1977. An envelope of clippings, flyers and mimeoed information attest to a period of activism with feminists there. Two additional folders, which were given to her by a Springfield lesbian and feminist, provided the material for the blog post on WAFs and antiwar protests by active duty service personnel at nearby Westover Air Force Base .

There is also a skinny file with yellowed paper dating from 1978. This is the laboriously typed (pre-word processor days) first draft of what became the Valley Women’s Movement: a Herstorical Chronology, 1968-1978.   Notes for correction and additions are penciled in for a final edition that had to be completely retyped. At some point, I will tell a more complete story of the publication, but Jacqueline took my idea and scattered notes and invented a format to hold all the bits of data. She ordered and fit it all together, twice.

Years later, when I thanked her again for this work she had done, she replied that the fact that I had given her that task had saved her life. Another decade went by before I asked her what she meant by that.

Eventually, she replied: “When I returned from California after my 1975 adventure…I was a survivor of a very intense Saturn cycle experience, feeling fragile, exhausted and terrified. I was a woman on the verge. With your assistance (including giving her the chronology task)… I could get my bearings and figure out what I needed to do to begin a healing journey and make closure with the first thirty years.”

One of Jacqueline’s former partners suggests that Jacqueline may also have quit drinking at this point, before there was any support for lesbians in 12-step programs.

Several months before her death in December of 2018, as I was drafting a piece about the early 80s, I came across a flyer for a reading from her work Babelogues at Annabelle’s in Northampton by, as she now called herself, “Jacqueline Elizabeth”.

She later sent me a copy of Babelogues, which she more informally referred to as her Bar Dyke poems, about her gay bar experiences in the Valley at the Girls’ Club, the Arbor, the Pub, the Cellar, and the Arbor II. Part of a larger collection of poems, some of them were published in the Fall of 1981 in the first issue of Common Lives/Lesbian Lives.

She also sent me a volume she published in 1982, Hostages: Underground Lies a Woman Buried. In the introduction, she called it a collage of the Women’s Movement: women’s experience with government terrorism 1974-75. Coming to awareness of these multiple violations was a large part of what hit her at the beginning of her Saturn return. On the West Coast she heard of the experiences of Inez Garcia, SLA women, Karen Silkwood, and Yvonne Wanrow. On her return to the East Coast, she was met by reports on the experiences of Joanne Little, the Watergate women, the women of the Weather Underground, and those lesbians called before the New Haven Grand Jury and jailed. What she saw was that, from coast to coast, being battered was the bottom line for women as a class.

She self-published these two volumes from Oakland in 1981 and 1982, with second and third editions in 1997 and 1999. They are stapled-together photocopied collections of poems. There was a long gap in our communications. It was not until 2001 that she sent me copies of the later editions.

Jacqueline after reading on the main stage at a San Francisco Pride. photo courtesy Dora Abrahams

Along with them came a slim binder of her first seven “KultureKlatch” monthly columns for the L-Word, 2001-02. I love the introduction: “The name of this column is an Herstorical reference to mothers coming together in a coffee klatch with other mothers in the neighborhood to talk about children, husbands, marriage, cooking, dreams; what they live, know.”

The very first column, August 2001, opens with: “Currently a timber company is spraying poisons along the Klamath River, near and on the Yurok reservation.”

Jacqueline in the Redwoods c. 1990, photo by Dora Abrahams

Jacqueline cut her signature long hair about 1999. Here in a characteristic reporter pose, photo courtesy Dora Abrahams.

Another few years passed. I had started doing this blog and tried to find a current address for Jacqueline. Searching online, I found that she had a blog, for one intense year it appeared. It had come and gone in 2011, but there was a contact address for “jacqbear!” (I love this.), and a wonderful photo of her, (unattributed). I left a message.

unattributed photo from her 2011 blog

Four months later, she responded via email. “Sorry, I have a love/hate relationship with computers.” We reconnected one last time in 2016. That time, the batch of files came electronically. I printed out five years of KultureKlatch, Aug 2002-2007.

Rereading this more recent work now, I am struck by her occasional circling back around again to her/our experiences in the Valley in the 1970s. Each retelling gains depth of insight, candidness, and greater narrative skill. She illuminates areas of our lives that it takes a long time to see and understand before trying to share it with each other. She always keeps a radical perspective. Among the many issues she addresses, I note particularly her references to coming to know herself as a woman of color, the problems of drinking in the bar culture, and the violence lesbians do to each other in intimate relationships. The need for truth, for our stories to be told, writing as activism.

I read Jacqbear’s obituaries  with great interest. I recognized my old friend in the descriptions given of her stubbornness, magic, love of earth and cats, grumpy bear need for solitude. I very much want, as promised by California sisters, to hear, to at least read, the final cycle of her writing. Those are stories she became known for telling in Humboldt County “that take one on a journey of… the natural cycles of earth, wind and water, the heartbeats of women, and echoing sacred silences.”

 

Lost Coast Outpost Jan. 19, 2019

LoCO Staff / Saturday, Jan. 19 @ 6:45 a.m. / Obits

OBITUARY: Jacqueline Elizabeth Magdalene Letalien, 1947-2018

Jacqueline Elizabeth Magdalene Letalien
December 29, 1947 – December 28, 2018.

She was born in Lowell, Massachusetts to Lillian and Arthur Letalien and had one sister, Vicky. Her family were French Corsican, Miqmaq, Maliseet, Scottish and Jewish.

Jacqueline was a writer, activist, and poet. She considered herself a crone, an elder teacher, a dream manifester, a truth sayer “I am Ya’akova Elishiva de L’Etoile.”

Jacqueline attended the University of Massachusetts where she began a lifelong process of bearing witness, telling untold stories, and working to make a difference in the various communities in which she lived. Moving to the Bay Area in the 1980s, she wrote for the New Bernal Journal, the North Mission News, the Bay Area Reporter, and began Spoken Word.

Once she moved to Humboldt County  she worked for the College of the Redwoods library, then the Humboldt County library, specifically the Kim Yerton Memorial Library in Hoopa, organizing poetry readings in both locations. She wrote a monthly column for The L-Word and Humboldtgov.org described her as: “a spoken word artist known to Humboldt County audiences for her powerful, thoughtful retellings of Native American traditional tales, and her poetry, words from the deep springs of an individual human spirit. Her poems take you on a journey of world mythology, human history, natural cycles of earth, wind and water, the heartbeats of women, and echoing sacred silences.” She wrote poetry and prose for a wide variety of publications and two collections of her work are in the process of publication.

Jacqueline was “grateful to live in this beautiful valley and would like to thank the Hupa people for their warmth and friendship.” She appreciated both the beauty and isolation of this area and the community here, so much so, she stayed on after she retired. Jacqueline created many overlapping families for herself in the various places she lived, and she is missed by many of us. Her final request is for you to continue to enjoy the library and to live peacefully.

In Jacqueline’s honor, an open poetry reading is scheduled for January 19th 10:30 am at the Kim Yerton Memorial Library, all are welcome. Reception to follow at the Straight Arrow Café, 12651 CA-96, Hoopa, CA 95546 530-625-1083.

###

The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Jacqueline Letalien’s family. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.

L-Word remembrances published in the Feb 2019 issue:

Dora: Jacqueline and I were partners for 6 years, beginning around 1994. We met in Oakland at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center where she was the office manager and I was a volunteer.   I was drawn to her immediately, from the first time I heard her talk. She was Butch, keys hanging out of her pocket, long hair, Native jewelry, grounded and solid. She had a presence/a way of speaking that made a room listen. We became friends, fell in love, and saved together to move to Humboldt.  I had gone to HSU and planned on moving back eventually. She had visited and hoped to move to Humboldt.

One of the first presents she got me was a tiny plastic deer, a reminder to be gentle with myself. She taught me how to organize my paperwork, encouraged me to get rid of things with difficult energy attached to them, taught me to reward myself after doing hard work, and believed in my strength far more than I did at the time. She was my first live-in relationship, and we were as married as two women at that time could have been. It wasn’t until my relationship with her that I was able to sleep without the covers over my head.

She was not easy. She was a bull-headed Capricorn; a self described “growly bear” at times.  She could come across as stoic and cranky but she was a pussycat inside.

She trusted me with her vulnerability and effortlessly told me she loved me very early on in our relationship. One day early in our friendship, a mean ex of mine came into the Resource Center. Jacqueline silently came over to me, put down a chair, and just sat down. She was protective and chivalrous.

She had powerful magic. She lit candles, set intentions, said silent prayers, and situations would shift. She told me about her “bar dyke” days, referring to herself as a “drunk” in those times. She had quit drinking completely on her own. She was a Witch, a Poet, and an Activist.  She left far, far too early.

Dora Abrahams 1-23-2019

Sue: Those of you who’ve been to my house know that it’s seldom heated, but most of you don’t know that the only reason there’s heat at all is because of Jacqueline.  She’d been to my house and I think realized the problem, so at one point when she was moving she told me she didn’t need her (very nice, new-looking) space heater and brought it over, with a long extension cord so it could go anywhere in the house. It’s made many L-word layouts warmer.

Lori: I met Jacqueline at the first LWord Poetry Reading, at the Expresso Bar in Fields Landing, in the summer of 2010. We submitted and read our poetry, published in the LWord’s “Voices From the Edge of the Continent” (Vols I-IV). Whereas Iwas new to submitting and reading my poems, Jacqueline had been a writer and poet for decades. When Iwas organizing our last LWord poetry reading, Jacqueline emailed back, “I will come anywhere, any time, to read poetry.” It was just a couple of weeks later, in April 2018, that I joined Jacqueline to read our poems at the Eureka Public Library as part of their Poetry Series. Jacqueline was there when I arrived, having come all the way from Hoopa. Her poems and her style were different from mine, often epic in length and mythic in content. Jacqueline read with ease, which I greatly admired and hope to emulate. I looked forward to seeing her at an LWord poetry reading I am organizing this spring. I was saddened and shocked to hear of her passing, so soon after the loss of our fellow poet and writer, Suzanne Moore, as well as the loss of Montanna Jones, whom I always enjoyed seeing at the LWord brunches and song circle.

As announced in the January LWord, please email Sue (suejh@humboldt1.com) if you are a poet, a lover of poetry, and/or would like to read your own or one by Suzanne or Jacqueline. They and Montanna will be missed, and we will remember them through their words and how they touched our lives. I will always be grateful to Jacqueline and Suzanne for their kind words and as role models.

May they all be resting in peace. Lori Cole

 

 

 

SOURCES:

https://fromwickedtowedded.com/2017/04/14/mafia-bars-and-the-male-gaze/ https://fromwickedtowedded.com/2016/01/30/bar-dykes/

www.lword.mamajudy.com

the Valley Women’s Movement: a Herstorical Chronology, 1968-1978.   http://www.vwhc.org/timeline.html

http://www.lword.mamajudy.com/kulture_klatch.html

http://jacqbear.blogspot.com/

Obituary written by friends in the Lost Coast Outpost: https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2019/jan/19/obituary-jacqueline-elizabeth-magdalene-letalien-1/

Obituary and remembrances in Feb. 2019 issue of the L-word.  www.lword.mamajudy.com

 

Mysterious Hanging in 1676

Thomas Cole, the Oxbow

I only had the vaguest sense of the Puritan origins of Massachusetts when I moved here from out of state. In my search for Northampton’s queer past, I have become more and more astounded that from a foundation of severe social constraint this Commonwealth has moved to become a national leader in gay rights and same-sex marriage. It’s as though, even as Puritanism and capitalism seems to still prevail, the state’s rebellious radical roots surface from time to time as well.

Among the colonies of Europeans trying to plant themselves on the east coast of this continent, the Massachusetts Bay Colony had a reputation for extreme intolerance. While chartered by the King of England and under that law, the settlers were secretly religious radical separatists intent on establishing a new Eden, separate from the English Anglican Church, in which everyone belonged to a congregation based on the same ideologically “pure” Christian covenant.

Throughout much of Massachusetts, one sees remnants of this past in the frequent presence of the white spires of Congregational Churches, whose founding dates back to the origins of those towns, when the towns were not distinguished from religious congregations. The colonizers went beyond English law to form this new society by requiring every new plantation (as towns were often called) to be strictly organized around Church, State and Family. The church mandated attendance by all, whether townspeople were admitted members or not. Initially, only those men who were full Church members and property owners constituted town government, with a vote and the ability to serve in offices both in the town and in the government of the colony. Everyone had to live within extended family households headed by such patriarchs.

This congregational social form was reflected in the regulated development of each new plantation as specified in detail by the Colony’s government. The meeting house was built first in what would be the center of the community. It was used for both church and government meetings. All dwellings, in early Nonotuck/Northampton on four acre lots, were built within a half-mile walking distance of the meeting house. The commonly held land of woods, pasture and field surrounded this center.

From James Trumbull, History of Northampton. Historic Northampton’s digital map collection. The Meeting house was at the intersection of Main and King Streets. Its common was probably where punishment stocks were located and where this hanging may have taken place.

It’s hard to imagine how small, closed, and conformist early Nonotuck, as it was first called, would have been. While the founding fathers may have been as interested in establishing their own estates as in creating a religious community, they did follow the Puritan blueprint dictated by the colony. The settlers were a single congregation that literally built the town around the church.

Within it, individual behavior came under constant, but often unsuccessful, regulation. No one could settle or even visit for more than ten days without permission. From the beginning, no single persons were allowed to live alone, but had to be part of an established household monitored by a patriarch for “disorderly living.” As the plantation grew, tithingmen were appointed to regularly inspect ten to twelve neighboring households to enforce the Sabbath and the 9pm curfew. They were also on the alert for idleness and drinking.

Amongst such constraint and near constant oversight, the existence of people who we would today call gay, lesbian, queer, or transgressive in some way would have been severely challenged. Research in queer history, summarized in a recent post , demonstrates that same-sex eroticism and gender crossing existed from the very founding of the Massachusetts colonies. It is likely to have existed in Northampton as well, yet is still hidden history.

A standard source on the history of the early settlement is James Trumbull’s History of Northampton (1898), the first and largest published town history. There is only one major entry suggestive of queerness in this entire two-volume work: a mysterious hanging in 1676 in which neither the man nor his crime are named. Under the heading “First Capital Punishment in Northampton,” Trumbull quotes from the journal of Rev. Simon Bradstreet of New Haven:

“July 1676. A souldier in ye Garrison at Northampton in ye Collony, was hanged. * * *    He was condemned by a councll of warre. He was about 25 or 26. He was but a stranger in this county, prest out against the Indians.”

Trumbull found no other reference to this hanging and remarks on the lack of facts, noting that “the crime must have been of a more than usually reprehensible character.”

from James Trumbull History of Northampton

I am left to wonder if this man was hung for sodomy, one of the Colony’s capital crimes. Although only one such execution has been discovered so far in Massachusetts, historians have suggested from records for all the eastern Colonies that sodomy was disproportionately punished by death. Such executions most  often occurred during early colonization, within communities struggling to survive.

We do not know what form the execution took beyond it was a hanging. Here is an artist’s later interpretation of a hanging that took place that same year (1656) in Boston on the Commons of Ann Hibbins for witchcraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Hibbins#/media/File:ExecutionAnnHibbins1.jpg

Northampton had been established for barely twenty years and consisted of eighty households at the time of the hanging. It had also recently suffered both internal dissension and external threats. In the past year, the settlement had undergone witchcraft and sumptuary law trials. The conflict between displaced Indigenous people and settlers had been raging throughout New England. Just four months previous to the hanging the plantation had been attacked by five hundred Native Americans who had broken through the recently erected palisade, killing five settlers and burning ten buildings. The attack on Northampton was one of the last of the southern campaign of “King Phillip’s War,” and the reason militia from outside the area had been garrisoned in the settlement.

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Although the judgement was reached by a “councll of warre,” it is very likely that Northampton militia officers, other settlement officials, and its minister Rev. Stoddard were part of the council. It is quite possible that Stoddard may have read a sermon published and widely circulated two years before on the sins of Sodom. Attributed to Boston’s Rev. Danforth, it urged the death penalty for sodomy and bestiality as a way to set an example for youth and avoid God’s vengeance on the community. Was the extreme measure a way for a settlement feeling under siege to placate a deity? The very lack of facts about the hanging suggests active censorship. Was this because the capital crime committed was “filth…not fit to be known in a public way,” so as to prevent further spread of the idea as a pathogen? We are left to wonder if Rev. Bradstreet simply didn’t know any more about this case or if he was one of those ministers who literally applied the injunction that it was “wickedness not to be named.”

If any early court records for Northampton exist, they still remain to be examined for similar obscuring language. Although Jonathan Edwards scholars have made a start, search needs to be done for the entire colonial period for any local examples of lesser offenses known to have prosecuted in the Massachusetts Bay Colony that covered same-sex eroticism or gender crossing such as: “unchaste or lewd behavior, unseemly practices, uncleane carriage one with another, uncivell living together, licentiousness, lascivious speech, disorderly living” and improper dress.

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SOURCES:] 

 

__Katz, Jonathan. Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A.: a Documentary History. Meridian, 1992.

__Katz, Jonathan. Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary. Harper & Row, 1983; reprint NY: Carroll & Graf, 1994.

__[Boston] History Project. Improper Bostonians: Lesbian and Gay History from the Puritans to Playland. Beacon Press. Boston. 1998.

__ Haskins, G. L. Law and Authority in Early Massachusetts – A Study in Tradition and Design. Macdonald & Co.1960.

__Trumbull, James Russell. History of Northampton Massachusetts from its Settlement in 1654. Press of Gazette Printing Co. Northampton, Mass. Volume I, 1898. Volume II, 1902.

Available online: Volume one: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=pst.000004746782;view=1up;seq=11 

Volume two: https://books.google.com/books/about/History_of_Northampton_Massachusetts.html?id=PrkWAAAAYAAJ

Further reading:

__new perspective; Our Beloved Kin: Remapping a New History of the King Philip’s War by Lisa Brooks, an interactive website. https://ourbelovedkin.com/awikhigan/index

__ McLain, Guy A. Pioneer Valley: a pictorial history. Virginia Beach, Va. Donning Co. 1991. By the Director of Wood Museum of Springfield History, it has an excellent essay on the largely exploitive economic relationship of the European settlers and the local indigenous people. Readily available in local libraries.

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Toni Brown, Valley Alumn

’Dreadlocks”: remembering an important #lesbian poet #ToniBrown

Ending the Campaign of Terror

Unless you count the teenage boys calling names or speeding through on their bikes with signs bearing slurs, whoever was making threats of violence in Northampton under the name of SHUN (Stop Homosexual Unity Now) did not have the courage to make themselves known at the second March for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Northampton, MA on May 14, 1983. But the campaign of harassment continued with more phone calls that very afternoon.

In the month following the March, ”Harassment Chronology.” Lesbian and Gay Task Force Newsletter. Northampton MA. June 1983. Courtesy of Bambi Gauthier.

Over the next few weeks, eggs were sporadically thrown by unknown persons at Womonfyre Bookstore at 22 Center Street, the most publically visible sponsor of Lesbian events. Kim Christensen, the March’s spokesperson, who had made her phone number public in order to answer City official and press queries, received not only phone calls but 4:30 a.m. visits from males who stood shouting outside her home.

Affidavit from Kim Christensen  harassment experienced by her Jun-Jul 1983.

One lesbian began receiving as many as thirty phone calls a day. When this woman went to City police, on-duty officers refused to take her complaint or listen to the message machine tape and misinformed her about what could be done. Only after contacting the Northampton Lesbian/Gay Task Force was she able to make her complaint to the police, with the support of Task Force members. It was reported in the Valley Women’s Voice that while Northampton Police Chief Labato appeared sympathetic, he referred to her and accompanying Task Force members as “you gays and lezzies.”

“Harassment Reports Ignored.” Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. Sep. 1983.

The Task Force strongly disagreed with Mayor Musante’s decision to disband the group because he thought that their work was done. The group continued to work to stop the violence after being disbanded by the Mayor. While the Mayor, his assistant and the Northampton Police representative withdrew, the three Lesbians and three gay men, and the Assistant DA Dave Angier continued to meet. In response to the ongoing threats Angier got the DA’s office to assign State Police Trooper John Gibbons to join him in working with the group. The Task Force encouraged the communities to report any incidents to the DA, Police and Task Force. While the Lesbian and Gay Task Force members names were kept confidential, under pressure, when one man allowed his name to be public he also became a target. Threats to beat “faggots” began.

Other people in the community were working on a City anti-discrimination ordinance. In July, after four months work, N’CAN, the Northampton Citizens Action Network, circulated a draft ordinance and asked for help to get it passed in the coming year. That same month, the task of educating the people of Northampton was aided by a series of articles on the community written by Maureen Fitzgerald for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. At the same time, Boston’s Channel 4 aired a two-part special on the harassment in Northampton.

Outreach Committee, Antidiscrimination Ordinance Coalition. Letter. PVPGA Gayzette. July 1983. Courtesy of Bambi Gauthier.

All of this publicity seemed to spur the numerous anonymous males, whose telephoned threats were being taped, into overdrive. As harassment increased, Lesbians working with the DA’s office finally agreed to help set up a phone trap. The co-owners of Womonfyre Books and Kim Christensen worked with ADA Angier and the city police to put it in place. Lesbian events were deliberately advertised with a home phone number. One of the women stayed home after the advertisement appeared to monitor the phone calls and tape them with a machine furnished by the DA’s office. As threatening calls came in, the time was to be noted so that the phone company could then trace specific calls to the phone from which they were made.

Two of the three women who were key to trapping one of the harassers, Kiriyo and Kim. Bookstore co-owner Jil Krolik isn’t pictured. “Northampton’s Gays Fight Back.” Boston Globe. Boston MA. May 22, 1983.

“Interestingly,” Kim Christensen recalls, “as soon as the trap was to go into effect, the calls temporarily stopped. Sometimes it was uncanny. E.g., we’d be planning to turn on the phone trap at 9:00 AM and I’d get a call at 8:00, 8:15, 8:30 and 8:57, and then they would stop.” For weeks, the procedure was repeated with the same results. Kim adds, “Finally the ADA decided to put on the trap without notifying the police department beforehand, and boom! a member of SHUN was trapped on the very first attempt. It was extremely suspicious.”

On Saturday, July 30, while the phone trap was in place, thirty-five calls were made by boys and three by an adult male  who identified himself as belonging to SHUN. Suspicious events didn’t end there, according to Kim, but continued with difficulties with the local phone company. While the originating phone number could have been identified immediately, the Northampton office refused to give it to the authorities involved. Five days later investigators from the DA’s office, armed with a search warrant, raided the Northampton phone company business office looking for the number, without success. Eventually it had to be obtained from the phone company’s Boston headquarters.

Armed with this information, on Aug. 5 State Police went to the Northampton address identified. They questioned a 23 year-old local male living there. One of his relatives was a former Northampton policeman.  After initially denying the charges, the suspect confessed on tape to the State Police that he had made the three July 30 phone calls and he was arrested.

The next day he was formally charged with repeatedly telephoning Jil Krolik for the purpose of harassing and annoying her, and for threatening bodily harm to Kim Christensen and Kiriyo Spooner. Additionally, District Attorney Ryan charged that the threatened reprisals were violations of the women’s civil rights; the rights of free speech and assembly, free association, and privacy.

When the accused agreed to submit to a sufficiency of evidence that indicated his guilt, a sentencing hearing before a judge was set for Aug. 24. A maximum penalty of two and a half years in jail was possible.  Though no other males were arrested, calls from SHUN ceased. [If you really want to know his name, you can look it up. He is still living in the area and I will not credit him.]

Although ordered to stay away from the complainants, the guilty male confronted one woman on the street before the next scheduled court appearance and shouted names at her. At the Aug. 24 sentencing hearing in Hampshire Superior Court, Sherman Boyson later reported in the PVPGA Gayzette, the defendant’s friends hissed at the testifying lesbians and called them “scum.” The tape from July 30 was played. It included this threat: “We promise systematic violence…Beware when you walk home! Beware when you walk the streets and where you live at night!” Boyson called it quite chilling.

The prosecutors then moved to play the taped confession made by the accused. Before that could be done however, the accused’s lawyer stopped the proceedings, changed his client’s plea to “not guilty,” and asked for a trial. Boysen later surmised that the seriousness of the evidence already presented was clearly pointing toward jail time, which the defendant’s lawyer wished to avoid for his client.

Both the prosecutors and the State Police believed that the accused had made many more threats then the three he had admitted to. In preparation for a jury trial, the PVGA Gayzette reported, the District Attorney’s office made plans to send some of the fifty message tapes accumulated to the FBI for voice analysis in order to determine what  additional charges would be made.

The three complainants continued to aid in preparing the case for trial. One of the woman was alarmed, however, to be asked by the State Trooper and later an FBI agent for information totally unrelated to the case. She was asked to try to identify people in a photos she later learned were suspected members of the Weather Underground. Kim Christensen remembers that the telephone message tapes that would hopefully be analyzed by the FBI were sitting in the room at the time of this interview, and it was made very clear to her by the Agent that cooperation was a two way street.

 “FBI Questions Northampton Lesbians: Agent Probes Progressive Politics.” Gay Community News. Boston MA. Sep. 24, 1983. Courtesy of Bambi Gauthier.

The FBI Agent went on to ask about the size and composition of the Northampton lesbian and gay community, its support for Sandinistas, belief in blowing up buildings, and any coalitions with leftist groups. All three of the women interviewed by the FBI felt  pressured to cooperate in this fishing expedition. Kim  immediately recognized what was occurring and refused to cooperate. The women sent word out to the community of the FBI’s intrusive presence. No voice analysis was ever done by the FBI to help the court case and the proffered message tapes disappeared. If copies had not been made and kept by the women complainants, there would have been no recorded evidence to present at a trial.

Before a jury could be convened, the confessed harasser changed his mind once again and agreed to submit to facts rather than face a trial. A sentencing hearing was once more scheduled, but before it could take place, his attorney got a continuance so his client could undergo psychiatric testing and counseling.  Finally, on Oct. 11, 1983, the hearing resumed before Judge Alvertas Morse in Hampshire Superior Court.

The defendant’s attorney argued that counseling and community service was appropriate punishment, that his client had been raised in a “staunchly Roman Catholic family” which believed homosexuality was immoral, which may have contributed to his feelings against the gay community. Judge Morse, however, found the defendant guilty on all charges and sentenced him to one year in prison, three months of which were to be served and the rest suspended while he was on probation for four years. DA Michael Ryan  told the Daily Hampshire Gazette it was the first time anyone in the Commonwealth had been imprisoned for violating a person’s civil rights as guaranteed by the 1980 Massachusetts Civil Rights Law.

I find no record that the male convicted expressed any remorse. Interviewed outside the courthouse after sentencing he blamed his “big mouth” for his behavior. He stated he didn’t know what going to jail would prove. Intimating that he was justified in his behavior, he said, “I would like to know what the community thinks about this,…the Northampton natives.”

In November, all of Northampton’s City Council, the Mayor, and half the School Committee would be up for reelection. In a new chapter of political activism, Lesbians and gay men would demonstrate to the City that they would not only march in the streets but would wield the power of their votes.

The PVPGA Gayzette. Northampton MA. Aug. 1983.

Sources:

__Sege, Irene. “Northampton’s Gays Fight Back.” Boston Globe. Boston MA. May 22, 1983.

__”Harassment Chronology.” Lesbian and Gay Task Force Newsletter. Northampton MA. June 1983.

__”Brief History of the Task Force.” Lesbian and Gay Task Force Newsletter. Northampton MA. June 1983.

__Christensen, Kimberly. Affidavit: Exhibit R. March 20, 1984.

__Outreach Committee, Antidiscrimination Ordinance Coalition. Letter. PVPGA Gayzette. July 1983.

__Logan, Rebecca. “Harassment Reports Ignored.” Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. Sep. 1983.

__Goldsmith, Larry. “FBI Questions Northampton Lesbians: Agent Probes Progressive Politics.” Gay Community News. Boston MA. Sep. 24, 1983.

__Hasbrouck,Amy. “Fallout From the FBI.” Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. Dec. 1983.

__Christensen, Kim. Email correspondence with Kaymarion Raymond Aug 8- Nov. 17, 2004.

__Blomberg, Marcia. ”Arrest made in phone threats to gays.”  Springfield Union. Springfield MA. Aug. 6, 1983.

__”Gay Man Runs for Northampton City Council.” The PVPGA Gayzette. Northampton MA. Aug. 1983.

__Boysen, Sherman. “Results! Man Arrested in Hamp Harassment.” The PVPGA Gayzette. Northampton MA. Sep. 1983.

__”gay man runs for northampton city council seat.” Gay Community News. Boston MA. Sep. 3, 1983.

__Thomas, Linda. “Empowerment by Vote.” Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. Sep. 1983.

__Boysen, Sherman. “…Case Still Not Settled.” The PVPGA Gayzette. Northampton MA. Oct. 1983.

__Fitzgerald, Maureen. “Man jailed for threats to lesbians.” Daily Hampshire Gazette. Northampton MA. Oct. 11, 1983.

Marching In Spite of Threats: 1983

 

In spite of the continuing threats of murder, arson and unspecified violence from those anonymous males calling themselves SHUN (Stop Homosexual Unity Now) the Gay and Lesbian Activists (GALA) organizers of the Northampton March stepped up efforts to ensure that the event happened a second year, 1983. The March was given an official name , for Gay and Lesbian Rights, with snazzier artwork  for publicity , and, once again, scheduled for the second Saturday in May. Organizers aimed to bring out at least a thousand supporters. They made efforts to build a broad coalition as well as to protect the marchers.

Flyer for the March. May 14, 1983. Artist Unknown.

Invitations to participate were sent not only to progressive groups around the state but also to each of the City Councilors.  For the first time, endorsers were sought to buy a full-page ad in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Only three hundred donors were needed to pay for it. When it was published the day before the March, it included the names over 600 individuals and groups.  It read, in part:  “The harassment, the threats, the violence directed at gays and lesbians appalls and frightens us. But like the intended victims of this campaign of hate, we are not silenced.” For a history of that previous year of threats of violence see the previous blog post “The Backlash to the First March.” https://fromwickedtowedded.com/2020/05/09/the-backlash-to-the-first-march/

Supporting the right of all people to be free from harassment and fear, the endorsers called on everyone (including straight people) to “Come Out for Justice.” Close to 90% of the endorsing organizations were not focused on gay issues. They came from Boston, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Western Massachusetts as well as more than thirty Northampton groups and businesses .

Daily Hampshire Gazette May 13, 1983. Full page ad (here partially)

This first “signature ad” in some ways made up for City government’s foot dragging. The day before the second March, Northampton’s Mayor Musante released a statement on civil rights, but neglected to endorse the event. He had also dissolved the Lesbian/Gay Task Force created to address the communities’  concerns about increasing violence and lack of City government and media responsibility. After only two meetings, he was satisfied it had accomplished all that was needed.

Those anonymous male phone callers identifying themselves as SHUN had threatened to disrupt the March. As March endorsers became public, they, too, were targeted with threats. This included New Jewish Agenda, Hampshire County NOW, Northampton Law Collective, Circa Counseling, and Women’s Community Theatre.

Log of phoned threats on GALA phone answering machine for May 9, 1983.

In the weeks leading up to the action, a Hatfield man announced in the Daily Hampshire Gazette that NOAH, his newly formed group, would counter-demonstrate that day. The scheduled event also received unanticipated attention when local TV station Springfield Channel 22 aired a five part documentary report the week before the March. “The Changing Lives of Lesbians and Gay Men in the Pioneer Valley,” by Vivian Sandler , included segments on family, religion, culture, and oppression.

For the first time, GALA put out a call for several dozen people to be trained in non-violent intervention and serve as peacekeepers at the March. Over fifty volunteers responded to keep potential conflicts from getting violent. They would appear at the March and the rally to follow it in turquoise T-shirts. Printed on the back of each T-shirt: “An Army of Lovers Can Not Fail.”

On May 14, 1983, an estimated 2,000 Lesbians , gay men, and supporters turned out to march a circuitous route from Bridge St. School, past City Hall, to Pulaski Park. This was twice the number of marchers anticipated and two to four times that of the previous year. Sherman Boyson, reporting in the Pioneer Valley Peoples Gay Alliance newsletter the Gayzette, found the number of people, with their clever disguises and purple balloons, overwhelming.

The handful of counter demonstrating members of NOAH, “National (Hatfield) Organization Against Homosexuals,” couldn’t believe there were so many ”homosexuals” in the Valley and accused the organizers of bringing them in from out of state. In fact, the great majority were from the Valley, many of whom were “out” at home for the first time.

The singing, chanting, sign-carrying and waving marchers included some people in masks and facepaint (no paper bags this year), babies pushed in strollers, and an occasional gay or lesbian dog.  Among the groups with banners were Womonfyre Books, the Valley Women’s Voice, and many others who had been threatened with violence. The hit of the day was the large banner carried by Lydia Nichy and Mary Patierno of Northampton. In a direct response to SHUN’s Stop Homosexual Unity Now, the banner read “Stop Heterosexual Intolerance Today,” or SHIT.

Coverage of the March, Valley Women’s Voice, June 1983. Photo by Sue Tyler.

Ward 2 Councilor William Ames, one of the few Republicans on the town’s governing body, had, right up to the day of the event, hesitated to join the March even though he had publicly endorsed it. He explained in a DHG story that he had received such angry phone calls in response to the anti-violence statement he had introduced to City Council (which failed to pass) that he feared for his family’s safety. Setting such apprehension aside, however, he joined the passing marchers, becoming the first city official to do so. His colleague, Councilor-At-Large Edward Keefe, became the first official to demonstrate in opposition. The Democrat stood on the sidewalk with NOAH. Other counter demonstrators included about a dozen people from Rev. Paasch ’s Faith Baptist Church in Florence.

Marchers filled Pulaski Park for speeches and entertainment. Gwendolyn Rogers, a Black lesbian mother and activist from Boston, delivered the keynote urging coalition building. Bet Birdfish, the coordinator of the New Alexandria Lesbian Library, spoke about the local harassment and need for community action. Other speakers scheduled included Ron Dion, a gay Springfield lawyer and father, LL Thomas of GALA, and Jerry Fresia, a straight man representing the Northampton Committee on Central America. The Valley Womyn’s Chorus, Vermont folksinger David Gott, and local lesbians Liz Foley and Kore offered entertainment.

Coverage of March Gay Community News, Boston May 29, 1983

The names of endorsing groups were read out at the rally. One precedent-setting list was read by Senator John Olver’s aide Stan Rosenberg, who had called local politicians to poll them about their stance on the March. In addition to several from Amherst and Charlemont, the endorsers he gathered included Olver, Representative William P. Nagle, Northwestern District Attorney Michael Ryan, County Commissioner Robert Garvey, Northampton School Committee members Maria Tymoczki, Susan Peterson, and John Lawlor, and Forbes Library Trustee Russell Carrier.

Although the City Clerk had declined an invitation to set up a voter registration table at the rally, office hours were extended that Saturday so marchers could register. At least thirty Northampton people took advantage of the opportunity and signed up at the City Hall, a few doors away from the Pulaski Park rally.

In spite of threats, the event was enthusiastically joyful. SHUN never made its presence visible. Peacekeepers silently surrounded several groups of heckling teenage boys, who shut up and retreated. One bike-riding boy shouted “Kill Lezbos” as he raced past marchers but other bikers with anti-lgbt  signs riding through the rally remained quieter.  The celebration continued that night with a dance. Lesbians and gays were now rallied for the actions needed in the coming year to push back the homophobes  and end the threats of violence.

Boston Globe coverage of March, May 22, 1983. Rare photo that includes two of the three women who were to bring charges against a male harasser in the coming year, Kiryo Spooner and Kim Christensen.

SOURCES:

__Boysen, Sherman. “Organizing in Northampton: Assessing the Results.” Pioneer Valley Peoples’ Gay Alliance (PVPGA) Gayzette. March 1983.

__ “Northampton Expects a Thousand Marchers.” Pioneer Valley Peoples’ Gay Alliance (PVPGA) Gayzette. May 1983.

__”Gay, Lesbian Rights Focus of May 14 Rally: Counter-protest Possible.” Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton MA. May 4, 1983.

__Spooner, Kiriyo. Letter to the [Editor] VWV. Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. May 1983.

__Christensen, Kim. GALA log of harassing phone calls, May 9, 1983.

__Fitzgerald, Maureen. ”Mayor Issues Statement on Civil Rights: Falls Short of Endorsing Gay, Lesbian March.” Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton MA. May 10, 1983.

__”We Support Lesbian and Gay Liberation.” Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton MA.  May 13, 1983. Political advertisement.

__Gay and Lesbian Activists. Northampton MA. Flyer for the March. May 14, 1983. Artist Unknown.

__Northampton Citizens’ Action Network. ”Register to Vote Today!” Flyer circulated at May 14 rally.

__Sege, Irene. Northampton’s gays fight back: Reports of harassment trigger action.” Boston Globe, Boston MA. May 22, 1983.

__Goldsmith, Larry. “Peace and Pride Mark Northampton March.” Gay Community News, Boston MA. May 29, 1983.

__”the March.” Pioneer Valley Peoples’ Gay Alliance (PVPGA) Gayzette. June 1983.

__Logan, Becky. ”A March for Justice.” Valley Women’s Voice. Northampton MA. June 1983 Photos by Sue Tyler.

__Benal, Jolania. The Northampton March: Meeting the Enemy.” Gay Community News, Boston MA. June 25, 1983.