Off the Beats and Track: Finding Historical Lesbian and Queer Women’s Feminist Spaces through Musicians’ Tour Schedules, Concert Flyers, and Correspondence

Abstract

This article explores historical research methods used to locate lesbians and queer women, especially within American and Canadian contexts from the 1960s onward. It begins by discussing methods such as analyzing women’s and lesbian travel guides, directories, maps, periodicals, newsletters, newspapers, websites, oral histories, social media, archival fonds and collections. In particular, this article explores how utilizing lesbian and queer women musicians’ tour schedules, calendars, correspondence, and contracts for shows and appearances can be a valuable historical research method, especially for locating impermanent historical lesbian and queer women’s spaces off the beaten track. The article focuses on the Alix Dobkin Papers as a case study to explore aspects of historical lesbian and queer women’s spaces and demonstrate the utility of this historical research method beyond Dobkin. The papers of Alix Dobkin include business correspondence, fan mail, fliers and programs from concerts, subject files, t-shirts, photographs, and memorabilia. As Dobkin played an important role in the women’s music movement and toured regularly, her papers provide useful insight into historical debates about lesbian anti-racist politics, ethical consumption, community organizing, and transgender inclusion and exclusion.

Keywords:

• Methods
• musician
• lesbian
• queer women
• tour
• ALIX DOBKIN

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Notes

1 I have created a directory of every LGBTQ2s + archive in the United States and Canada, as well as a directory of archives that contain significant amounts of LGBTQ2S + materials. https://www.lgbtqarchives.com.

2 For a larger list of oral history projects, see the LGBTQ Digital Collaboratory’s Oral History Hub: https://lgbtqdigitalcollaboratory.org/oral-history-hub/.

3 Sometimes the advertisement of a potluck happening the day after a concert with the performer in attendance, with the secret location being announced only at the concert was an advertising technique. This advertising strategy appeared on the 1984 poster for Dobkin’s Saturday, April 14 show in Gainesville, Florida with a potluck the following day (MC 598, 2.13).

4 Although some concert organizers chose to use a template provided by musicians for their posters, other organizers were creative; one of my favorite posters in Alix Dobkin’s papers was for a potluck event with Dobkin at the UNM Women’s Center on April 18, 1985. This poster utilizes a page from the magazine Good Housekeeping (MC 598, 3.9) as its background. By studying the history of lesbian and queer women’s spaces through musicians’ records, scholars can also learn about the art history of graphic design within lesbian and queer women’s social scenes, in addition to spatial histories.

5 For more on the role of vegetarianism, child care, and substance use within lesbian spaces, see Ingredients for Revolution (Ketchum, 2022).

6 For more on the way that performers of women’s music incorporated ASL and other practices to include Deaf and hard of hearing audience members, see the work of Samer (2022), Elizabeth Currans (2020), Corbman (2018), and Linda Chapman’s film See What I Say (1981).

7 Even Dobkin, on a poster from the Washington Ethical Society, called herself a “lesbian connectionist.” She explained, “For me, Lesbian Separatism has always meant a consciousness, an analysis, and a commitment to the well-being and best interests of women in general and Lesbians, in particular. Marolyn Frye and Carolyn Shafer prefer the term, “Lesbian Connectionist’ and, to a great extent, I do, too. It seems more informative and descriptive since it is what thousands of us are doing when we make ourselves our first priority and insist upon women-only space—when we consciously prefer and create it in our lives.” (MC 598, 3.3).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research of Canada and by the Lower Workshop in Canadian History at Queen’s University.

Notes on contributors

Alex D. Ketchum

Dr. Alex Ketchum is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies of McGill University. She is the Director of the Just Feminist Tech and Scholarship Lab and the organizer of Disrupting Disruptions: The Feminist and Accessible Publishing, Communications, and Tech Speaker and Workshop Series. Her work integrates food, technological, queer, and gender history. Ketchum’s first peer-reviewed book, Engage in Public Scholarship!: A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication (2022), examines the power dynamics that impact who gets to create certain kinds of academic work and for whom these outputs are accessible. Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the trailblazing restaurant Mother Courage of New York City, Ketchum’s second book, Ingredients for Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses (2022), is the first history of the more than 230 feminist and lesbian-feminist restaurants, cafes, and coffeehouses that existed in the United States from 1972 to the present. You can find out more about her other writings, podcasts, zines, exhibitions, and more at https://www.alexketchum.ca.