Cheryl Nassar was a photographer and active member of the lesbian activist community in Southern California. The majority of the collection comprises photo albums documenting the West Coast Women’s Music Festivals, Michigan Womyn’s Music Festivals, and other lesbian and feminist events.
Read MoreZoe Nicholson is a prominent feminist activist, artist, speaker, educator, author, and organizer. She centered much of her activist work on fighting for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). In 1892, she was one of seven women who fasted in support of the ERA. She also contributed to movements including Peace, Labor, Civil Rights, Pro-Choice, Public Health, Women, LGBTQ, and is rooted in her commitment to nonviolent direct action. The Zoe Nicholson Collection comprises books she has written, awards she has received for her activist work, political and activist presentations she has created and presented, articles, photographs, films, audio, and objects documenting her activism and life.
Read MoreMary Norcross was a therapist and social service worker assisting the elderly, as well as a lesbian active in the Los Angeles community after coming out later in life. Her materials include her dissertations, some personal photographs and ephemera, her degree plaques, and an interview conducted by the Mazer in 2013.
Read MoreJess Hawk Oakenstar (1957-2022) was a notable lesbian feminist guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Born in Harare Zimbabwe, Jess’s musical career took her all over the world. She put out two acclaimed albums as a solo artist, "Your Heart Will Show You," and "Leave a Little Light Behind"; she also played as part of the duo Wayward Maggie with Kate DeLaPointe. The collection contains materials documenting Jess’s personal and professional life including publicity materials, recordings, concert programs, correspondence, and Jess’s collections of music, periodicals, and songbooks.
Read MoreSharon Raphael and Mina Kay Meyer were advocates for old lesbians and organizers with the Gay Rights Movement in Los Angeles in the 1970s-2000s. Sharon worked as a sociology professor at CSUDH for 40 years specializing in gerontology and LGBTQ aging and Mina Meyer wrote the first social science thesis on lesbian aging, “The Older Lesbian.” They co-founded the first LGBT synagogue in Los Angeles, CA, Beth Chayim Chadashim, the AIDS Hospice Committee, and the National Association of Lesbian and Gay Gerontologists. They also organized with Old Lesbians for Change, (OLOC). Established in 1989, OLOC is an international community of lesbian elders combating ageism through education and advocacy. The collection contains papers relating to Sharon Raphael and Mina Meyer’s personal and professional lives. The collection also contains OLOC administrative records. A large portion of materials in the collection relate to the planning of OLOC’s 2008 National Gathering.
Read MoreThe Margaret Porter collection contains materials relating to the personal and professional life of the poet and translator, Margaret Porter. Porter was born in 1911 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and attended Marquette University where she first began publishing her poetry. She later went on to visit France, where she developed an interest in researching and translating the works of Renée Vivien, Natalie Clifford Barney, and other expatriate writers in Paris. In the 1960s and 1970s, Porter continued to publish her writing in small press lesbian and feminist publications and in 1977 became one of the first to publish Renée Vivien’s poetry in English.
Read MoreVaughan Rachel is an artist, photographer and feminist organizer. Vaughan was a founding member of the Pasadena Women's Political Caucus and a member of XX, a Feminist Women's Artist Collective in Los Angeles. The collection is comprised of original artist books and photographs by Vaughan Rachel, production materials and photographs from the documentary “Visible Lives - Vintage Voices,” and personal and professional correspondences from Jill Johnston (May 17, 1929 – September 18, 2010), a cultural critic, leader with the lesbian separatist movement of the early 1970s, and writer of “Lesbian Nation” (1973).
Read MoreJuanita Sanchez was a celebrated poet who organized writing spaces for other women and the elderly community in Albuquerque. The Juanita Sanchez Collection houses Sanchez’s personal journals spanning over 40 years, a published essay by Sanchez featured in the anthology Hard-Hatted Women: Life on the Job, and photographs of Sanchez. Sanchez (1948-2014) was raised and spent a majority of her life in and around the rural areas of Sun Valley and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sanchez wrote about her life as a Mexican and Native American woman experiencing racism and sexism during her education and her career in the U.S. Air Force and Army. Her journals also feature her poetry, drawings, and descriptions of her everyday life.
Read MoreSharon Siegel (b. April 9, 1943) is a psychotherapist, community organizer, and a lifelong advocate for women’s health in the Los Angeles area. The bulk of the collection consists of materials from two organizations in which Sharon was involved: the Los Angeles Women’s Community Chorus and Connexxus Women's Center/Centro de Mujeres.
Read More
