Silence and Acceptance: The Lesbian Experience at the New York Public Library, 1901-1950
Sunday, June 3, 2:00pm-3:00pm
Location: Staten Island Museum at Snug Harbor, 1000 Richmond Terrace, Building A (NYC)
FREE with Museum Admission
Archivist and historian Bob Sink presents his research examining the sexual identity of the women working in the New York Public Library branch system in the first half of the 20th century. Using Adrienne Rich’s notion of the “lesbian continuum,” he has been documenting personal aspects of their lives to ascertain how many of the librarians would fit this description. In his own words, “I hope that this study indicates that the silence about sexual identity that existed in the period before the LGBTQ civil rights era can be breached by historians—not just for a few famous women but for rank-and-file librarians as well.”