LibGuides: Primary Sources: Human Sexuality: Women / Female

Online Sources: Women / Female

Documenting Lesbian Lives Oral History Project oral histories (Smith College Library) "... is a collection of life histories of women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, woman-identified-woman, queer, or who prefer not to identify with sexuality categories. The project provides a complex and nuanced collective story of American lesbian history and experience. Interviews were conducted by Smith College students in Kelly Anderson's 'Documenting Lesbian Lives' course in the spring of 2010 and 2011. " Transcripts available online
Gender Bender: Mary Masquerades as Murray "Most people have a clear stereotype of the urban political boss of the early 20th century, and in many ways Murray Hall, a leader of New York City’s notorious “Tammany Hall,” was its embodiment. Hall was known as a poker-playing, cigar-chomping, whiskey-drinking, “man about town.” But in one significant way, Hall departed from the stereotype: she was actually a woman (by the name of Mary Anderson) who “passed” as a man for more than a quarter century. Tragically, Hall died of untreated breast cancer and her deception was only discovered at her death in 1901. “Passing” was a strategy that some lesbians (a term that was not in use at that time) used both to avoid public condemnation and to increase their earnings so that they could live independently. It could also be an assertion of political independence—Hall managed to vote and serve as a political leader in an era when women were denied the franchise."
Mabel Hampton Collection (Herstories) "Joan Nestle started recording Mabel's oral histories in the late seventies, realizing the importance of documenting Mabel's life story as an example of racial and sexual freedom. In these histories--many of which are featured on this website--Mabel discusses her relationships with women, her struggles with racism, and her identity as an African-American lesbian in the twentieth century. Mabel died of pneumonia in 1989 at the age of eighty-seven. Her life as an advocate, activist, performer, and storyteller lives on in the images and oral histories collected by the Lesbian Herstory Archives."
Studies in Scarlet: Marriage and Sexuality in the U.S. & U.K., 1815-1914 Drawn from the Harvard Law School Library’s extensive trial collections, Studies in Scarlet features over 420 trial narratives involving the crimes and passions of both renowned and ordinary people.
“All These Mean Dykes Standing Around:” Shelley Ettinger Describes the Lesbian and Gay Community of the 1970s
“No Snuggling!” Sex Talks to Young Girls "In the 1920s, in part because of prohibition and the emergence of speakeasies, homosexuality became more open. At the same time, psychologists, physicians, and social reformers had been at work for several decades attempting to study, classify, categorize, and label human sexual behavior. Practices that had long been common, or at least tolerated, were now being viewed as problematic. In an excerpt from Ten Sex Talks to Girls, published in 1914, Dr. Irving Steinhardt of New York warned that any affection or intimacy—indeed, any sort of physical contact between women at all—carried the potential for disease, pauperism, and death. Steinhardt’s book attempted to classify as dangerous forms of intimacy between women that previously had seemed completely "natural.""
Women, Gender, and Feminism Primary Sources Women, Gender and Feminism : Primary Sources through the Douglas D. Schumann Library & Learning Commons