Author Archives: Lesbian Home Movie Project

Maine III

After Mabel’s death, Ruth sold a parcel of Mabel’s land to the Lord family which features in this reel as do several summer neighbors, and Mimi and Chennie, now a couple. Wonderful footage of the Ellsworth Falls archaeological dig, too.

World’s Fair & Jones Beach, c. 1939

Ruth Storm’s 1939 World’s Fair footage includes construction footage shot before the fair opened as well as a visit to Jones Beach, which also opened in 1939.

World’s Fair, c. 1964

World’s Fair, 1964, including a glimpse of Storm herself and several of her last lover Almeda “Meda” Benoit

Greater New York, 1937-1941

Storm took full advantage of the roads & bridges built by Robert Moses that appear in this reel. She had a summer place upstate and friends & family as well, and she also managed to film the 1937 Chinese Boycott March.

Maine I

Three lesbian friends — Ruth, Chennie, and Mabel — enjoy Corea, Maine, c. 1938-1944.

Archiving Separatism

While lesbians shot home movies and amateur films well before Stonewall, the idea that making sexual identity public was essential to winning civil rights changed filming friends and lovers into a radical act, altered the way participants behaved in front of a camera, and changed what the women behind the cameras shot. For lesbians the

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The Archival Gets Personal

Even if Lesbian Home Movie Project’s first collection had been a talkie, there’d have only been one way to know for sure that at least some of the women in it were lesbian: to know the filmmaker or one of the women in the footage. As it happened, I did know one fairly well. Friends

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