by Judith Raiskin, Associate Professor, Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 

The Eugene Lesbian History Project is a community-based, digital humanities project that preserves and shares the unique history of the lesbian community in Eugene, Oregon. The project includes filmed oral histories with 83 narrators, searchable transcriptions, a digital exhibit that curates and contextualizes the interviews, and a forthcoming documentary film. I am grateful to CSWS for funding the website Outliers and Outlaws that serves as a landing page for all the aspects of this project. It will also soon offer an extensive digital exhibit funded by a Williams Grant and links to a documentary funded by The Oregon Cultural Trust (https://outliersoutlaws.uoregon.edu/). 

I arrived in Eugene, Oregon, in 1988 in the middle of a story. It wasn’t until three decades later that I had the opportunity to hear 83 versions of that story and could make out its arc and significance. In the 1960s-90s Eugene was known as a “lesbian mecca,” drawing hundreds of young women from across the United States. Many came as part of the counterculture westward migration, identified as feminists, and had been involved in anti-war and civil rights protests. The lesbian-identified women who came founded cornerstone organizations central to Eugene’s history and influenced Oregon’s political landscape. These women worked in collective businesses that were typically considered to be in the male domain, ran printing presses, were the leaders of Eugene community service agencies, worked in City and State government positions, and produced and disseminated lesbian magazines, photographs, music, films, theater, and art. A number were plaintiffs on key lawsuits that overturned discriminatory Oregon statutes.  

Linda Long, Curator of Manuscripts at the University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives, and I had talked for years about documenting and preserving the unique history of lesbian Eugene. Linda had already created many magnificent collections that were relevant to the history of Eugene lesbians and important to lesbian history in general. We thought we would be a good pair for such a project: I am a professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies with a Ph.D. in literature who teaches LGBTQ history and culture and loves to hear life-stories and interpret narratives. Linda has spent her career building collections and has the archival skills, the passion for history, and the phenomenal memory necessary to organizing such a project. 

This project fills in a gap of important history. Much LGBTQ history has been suppressed by the imperatives of the closet and rendered invisible by cataloging traditions embedded in systemic homophobia and heterosexism. As the artist Tee Corinne wrote, “The lack of a publicly accessible history is a devastating form of oppression; lesbians face it constantly.” These digitally archived interviews and the website preserve this lesbian history and make it publicly accessible for classroom use. Ideally, this project is an intergenerational experience where students can watch and listen to “real people” discuss the LGBTQ history they lived. My students have appreciated watching these videos because they have not had the opportunity to listen to people 50 years older than themselves talk about experiences they had when they were roughly the students’ age. Students are surprised and challenged by the shifting understandings of sexual and gender identity over the last half-century. 

The Interviews 

When Linda and I sent out word that we were interested in interviewing anyone who participated in the lesbian migration to Eugene in the 1960s-90s, we were inspired by the enthusiastic response of the women who crowded into our orientation meetings and brought with them boxes of business records, diaries, letters, photographs, buttons, and T-shirts they had been saving, each knowing that what they built in Eugene was historically important. Some came from out of state to be interviewed. I experienced the interviews as mutual invitations: We asked the narrators to come answer our questions and tell us their stories and they invited us to appreciate their struggles, joys, and inspiring accomplishments. By making their interviews public, the narrators generously extend this invitation to you, too. This website allows that virtual meeting to happen that much more easily. 

Oral history projects often have specific interests but they allow narrators to bring their own goals to the interviews as well. Our questions were fairly open-ended, allowing the narrators to create their own paths. We began to see that our role was to help form whatever story arc the narrator was creating. We asked most of the narrators how they understood their sexual identity, what brought them to Eugene, what memories they have of the lesbian community, what work they did here, and how they think about aging. We asked them to try to paint a picture with their descriptions and sometimes followed up with clarifying questions about dates and locations. 

As they described the neighborhoods they lived in and located the businesses and bars they built and frequented, Eugene began to look different to us: “The Riv Room is where the Actors Cabaret Annex now is. Mother Kali’s Books was first on Lawrence, then at 5th and Adams, then on Franklin. Mama’s Home Fried Truck Stop is where Pegasus Pizza now is. Jackrabbit Press was above the Grower’s Market.” While lesbian Eugene is still here, there is a faint trace all around the city of where it had been. 

These oral histories bring those traces into sharp focus and connect the Eugene lesbian past with the present. Looking back over 25-50 years, the interviewees reflect on the tremendous political gains and the poignant communal losses as they battled homophobia and assimilated into the wider community that they transformed. Their original radical commitment to non-monogamy, separatist businesses, collective ownership, and communal living offers us a remarkable model of lives courageously envisioned and lived. Many of the narrators are retired and they continue to create, protest, and contribute to artistic and civic projects. Having lived in communal spaces when they were young, many fantasize about coming back together either by taking over the top two floors of a downtown retirement home or building a co-housing community. If anyone can imagine better ways of living into old age, it would be these innovative and brave women.   

—Judith Raiskin is an associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at UO. The Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project is the recipient of the 2021 Oregon Heritage Excellence Award.