Tracing queer footsteps: A visit to the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, New York

If you happened to catch my May piece, The legend of the lesbian wolf girls at Vassar College, you’ll know that I encouraged readers to check out the Lesbian Herstory Archives next time they found themselves in New York City.

At the time, though, I had to admit — I hadn’t been myself. So when I found myself in the Big Apple just a few weeks later, I decided to take my advice and book a visit to The Archives. It turned out to be one of the trip’s highlights. The Archives, tucked inside a brownstone in Park Slope (once affectionately dubbed “Dyke Slope” due to its vibrant lesbian community in the 1980s), was everything I had hoped it would be.

The Lesbian Herstory Archives in New York is widely recognized as the largest and oldest collection of lesbian history in the world. It was founded in the 1970s by a group of women active in the Gay Academic Union, who recognized an urgent problem: Lesbian history was disappearing as fast as it was being made.

Determined to preserve their stories on their terms — free from the filters and biases of patriarchal institutions — they created the Lesbian Herstory Archives. The collection began in activist Joan Nestle’s Upper West Side apartment, where it grew from a grassroots effort into a monumental act of cultural preservation.

As The Archive’s mission states, they exist to “gather, preserve, and provide access to records of lesbian lives and activities” — to document what patriarchal historians have ignored or erased, and to give future generations the tools to analyze and reevaluate lesbian experiences for themselves.

For 15 years, The Archives lived in Joan Nestle’s Upper West Side apartment, overflowing with donated books, photos, letters, and personal testimonies. But by the mid-1980s, it was clear that the growing collection needed a bigger home — and a more sustainable structure.

A coordinating committee was formed to share responsibility for the expanding archives and to launch a grassroots fundraising campaign to purchase a permanent space. In 1992, they found a brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Though the bank was hesitant to give a mortgage to a non-hierarchical collective with no formal income stream, the community rallied. Thanks to a powerful network of supporters, the loan was granted and paid off in record time. The new Lesbian Herstory Archives officially opened its doors in Park Slope in June 1993.

Today, The Archives are home to an incredible range of materials documenting lesbian life and culture. Its shelves include long-running publications like Lesbian Connection and Girl Jock, alongside pop culture artifacts such as marketing materials from The L Word and promotional flyers from the Dinah Shore Weekend.

There are entire collections dedicated to lesbian motorcyclists and athletes, as well as rich documentation of activist movements — from lesbian involvement in ACT UP to campaigns like “Lesbians for Liberty,” an initiative that prompted the New York Liberty to acknowledge and celebrate its devoted lesbian fan base. The Archives also safeguards the personal papers of trailblazing figures such as Audre Lorde and Anne MacKay, editor of Wolf Girls at Vassar: Lesbian & Gay Experiences 1930–1990.

Related

The legend of the lesbian wolf girls at Vassar College
On campus, you’ll occasionally hear about the “Wolf Girls”—lesbian folklore passed down from the all-women’s college days.

As a queer travel writer, I found myself wondering what queer travel looked like for women over the years. I gravitated toward Lesbian Connection, a publication that lived up to its name (and continues today!). While there were occasional ads for queer-owned lodgings, the heart of the magazine was exactly what it promised: connections.

If you were headed to Switzerland, for example, you could flip through the magazine and find a list of lesbians living there who were open to meeting up. You’d simply mail them a letter — yes, their full names and addresses were printed right there (risky, perhaps, or maybe pseudonyms — but either way, remarkable!) — and include a self-addressed, stamped envelope for their reply. In return, you might receive local tips or a friendly face in a foreign place. I was blown away by the ingenuity and boldness of it all.

Girl Jock, a women’s sports magazine kicks off with the delightfully cheeky introduction: “We are a container for cartoons, satire, and humor. Girl Jock addresses the lifestyle questions of sporting lesbians and their admirers. Since so many lesbians either play sports or have a friend who does, we feel there is a wide range of subject matter for us to ‘tackle.’” The magazine invites readers to submit their own stories, adding to its sense of community and playfulness. The breadth of materials dedicated to women’s sports throughout The Archives was both deeply satisfying and, frankly, not all that surprising.

There were advertisements scattered throughout the magazines — everything from tuxedo rentals to queer-owned bookstores. It’s fascinating to imagine a pre-algorithm era when brands had to make a deliberate effort to reach queer audiences, often through grassroots, community-driven publications. Some of the events and ideas were wonderfully creative and delightfully of their time.

Case in point: I had never heard of whipped cream wrestling, but it was all the rage in Southern California.

Visits are capped at two hours, but you could spend days there and still be uncovering new treasures. On our way out, we picked up an LHA T-shirt and made our way to Ginger’s Bar — a beloved relic of Park Slope’s “Dyke Slope” days that still has plenty of life and energy today. It was the perfect follow-up to an evening steeped in queer history.

How to visit the Lesbian Herstory Archives

If you’re interested in planning a visit, book your appointment in advance. The Lesbian Herstory Archives opens sign-ups during the last week of each month for visits in the following month. The experience is completely free. When you arrive, a volunteer archivist will welcome you, offer a brief orientation, and then set you loose to explore drawers, boxes, and shelves full of history. With such a vast collection, it can feel a bit overwhelming, in the best way.

For a full list of available materials, it’s worth checking the website.

Below, check out more pictures from The Archives…