Fonds F0053 - Lesbians Making History Collective fonds

Title and statement of responsibility area

Title proper

Lesbians Making History Collective fonds

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  • Textual record
  • Sound recording

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Fonds

Reference code

CA ON00047 F0053

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Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)

Dates of creation area

Date(s)

  • 1985-1987, 2000 (Creation)

Physical description area

Physical description

18 cm of textual records
20 cassette tapes
72.8 MB of digital records
1 banner

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Archival description area

Custodial history

Records were kept by Maureen FitzGerald after their creation and until they were donated to the CLGA in 2015.

Scope and content

The fonds consists of records of an oral history project about lesbian lives in Toronto, conducted by members of the Lesbians Making History (LMH) Collective from 1985–1987, and in 2000. It was inspired by oral history projects of gay lives coming out of Buffalo, Boston and San Francisco. The collective interviewed 9 women about their experiences as ‘out’ lesbians in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. The collective slogan, “We’re interested in older women,” reflected their interest in capturing rarely documented stories of lesbian life during the pre– Gay Liberation period. The LMH collective recorded interviews and their planning meetings on audio cassette tape, and kept a select record of paper documents related to their work.
The LGBTQ Digital Oral History Collaboratory, a SSHRC-funded project directed by Prof. Elspeth Brown from 2014-2019, collected, processed, and digitized this collection for the CLGA. The main people who worked on the project include: Elspeth Brown, Cait McKinney, and Rebecka Sheffield. The main person the Collaboratory worked with from LMH was Maureen Fitzgerald, an original member of the collective.

Notes area

Physical condition

Many of the cassette tapes have degraded. Access copies of digital files have been noise reduced to improve clarity.

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      Restrictions on access

      The collection is open to researchers. The audio of interviews with Dorothy Knight may not be circulated online and so can only be accessed via the original audio cassettes.

      Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication

      Researchers quoting from the Dorothy Knight interviews must use pseudonyms provided in the interview transcripts, rather than names provided on original audio recording. Researchers wishing to publish materials must obtain permission in writing from the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives as the physical owner. Researchers must also obtain clearance from the holder(s) of any copyrights in the materials. Note that the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives can grant copyright clearance only for those materials for which we hold the copyright. It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain copyright clearance for all other materials directly from the copyright holder(s).

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      Further accruals are expected.

      Conservation

      Cassette tapes have been digitized to preserve audio recordings.

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