Lisa and Laura talk about how the People's Archive preserves and amplifies local stories. In this episode, we talk about searching for spring in Dig DC, Women in the Life, and Archive This Moment DC.
See everything in more detail at these links:
Women in the Life, Winter 2002
Washington Free Press, April 26, 1967
The Washington Blade, April 22, 1994
Archive This Moment D.C. in Dig DC
Contribute to Archive This Moment D.C.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
dc, cherry blossoms, collection, lesbians, people, year, protest, moment, kennedy center, voting, archive, laura, women, hand sanitizer, ballot box, review, loved, pandemic, document, object
SPEAKERS
Laura Farley, Lisa Warwick, Labs DCPL, Patrick Swayze
Labs DCPL 00:00
DC Public Library Podcast is made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and is a production of the Labs at DC Public Library.
Laura Farley 00:11
Heads Up. This episode contains a discussion about COVID-19 and losing loved ones.
Lisa Warwick 00:20
[old timey music] Hello, and welcome to our very first episode of the People's podcast. I'm Lisa Warwick, Reference and Outreach Coordinator at The People's Archive.
Laura Farley 00:30
And I'm Laura Farley, Digital Curation Librarian at The People's Archive.
Lisa Warwick 00:35
Today, we'll highlight a few collections you can access from home and go on a little searching adventure in our digital collections. Plus, as we mark one year living with the pandemic, we're going to talk about what we've been doing to document life in DC during COVID-19.
Laura Farley 00:51
But before we get started, allow us to introduce ourselves. We're Librarians in The People's Archive, which is the Local History Center at DC Public Library. We collect all kinds of materials that document culture politics in day to day life in the district. That means things like photos, maps, letters, reference books, and also digital objects like tweets and websites.
Lisa Warwick 01:16
To get started, I'll show you one of our collections that you can find in Dig DC.
Lisa Warwick 01:23
Welcome to collections corner,
Patrick Swayze 01:25
Nobody puts baby in a corner.
Lisa Warwick 01:26
To wrap up Women's History Month, we are highlighting a collection that lifts up the contributions of women in DC. Started in late 1993, Women in the Life LLC, an events management company, carved out safe spaces for Black lesbians to interact through dance parties, concerts and open mic poetry sessions. Long before social media existed, Women in the Life connected black lesbians in DC and ultimately around the world. Women in the Life magazine started out as a four page newsletter and evolved over a 10 year period into a 26 page glossy cover magazine. If it affected Black lesbians, the magazine covered it. The magazine focused on an audience that few if any mainstream or LGBT media outlets considered in their coverage. At its peak, Women in the Life magazine reached hundreds of thousands of readers across over 40 cities, supporting and affirming queer communities of color during a crucial period in American history, and the LGBTQIA+ movement for equal rights. The entire 10 year run of Women in the Life magazine was digitized in honor of the publication's 25th anniversary and is available to view and download at DigDC.dclibrary.org.
Lisa Warwick 02:49
I am not a Black lesbian, but I still really love reading women in the life. The writers have a great sense of humor. I love this one article that shows the difference between big press and local press. In the 2002 issue, Sheila Alexander read lists her 10 most intriguing people for the year, and then reviews the Times list of 25 most intriguing people. Her list includes Frida Kahlo, Don Cheadle and Michael Jackson, as well as Pamela Johnson, the highest ranking woman of color at Fannie Mae. Sheila then reviews times lists with comments like, "George Bush: he's about as intriguing as the nail on my baby toe," and, "Julia Roberts: I refuse to take time and energy to wonder why he is on this list," and "Britney Spears: two words, who cares?" This has been Collections Corner. Back to you, Laura.
Laura Farley 03:46
Thanks, Lisa. Now let's go on a little searching adventure in Dig DC, the DC Public Library's home for digital historical collections. Now I've lived in DC for several years, but I cannot get over the ridiculous beauty of spring in this city. A couple years ago, my parents came to visit during cherry blossom season and we made the terrible mistake of renting a car and driving around to lots of cherry blossom destinations. Everyone else had the exact same idea and it was not a good time at all. But despite the tourists and the pollen, I still really look forward to the blossoms every year. And sadly, we're coming up on the second year of a quiet cherry blossom season here because of COVID-19. So I thought I'd turn to our digital collections and Dig DC for some cherry blossoms of the past. And boy, I was not disappointed. My search strategy was to enter "cherry blossom" in quotes in the keyword search on the homepage of Dig DC to search the entire phrase across all of our collections.
Laura Farley 04:54
I found a couple pictures the tidal basin in bloom and some announcements of the Cherry Blossom Festival, but what else I found was a little surprising. Let me share a couple of finds. First, I came across an article on page seven of the April 26, 1967 issue of the Washington Free Press, which is a radical leftist Independent newspaper published from 1967 to 1969. The article titled "This Napalm Spring" by Will Eema was written by the then college student. Will describes the tension and outrage of the moment and writes about a protest during peak cherryblossom bloom. "On Saturday, April 8, in an open track, a dozen of us rode through Washington under the cherry blossoms past our national monuments, shouting and the war in Vietnam, stop the killing and Vietnam. Peace is our profession now. These calls individual in the chorus echoed among the tourists and down the federal streets between buildings, and they beyond logical and even foolhardy trumpet of human conscious, a trumpet yet witness to our conviction that if we will speak out, the fear and apathy among us can be routed."
Laura Farley 06:13
Next, I came across a stinging review of the Kennedy Center's production of the musical the mystery of Edwin Drood on page 31 of the April 15, 1988, City Paper, an independent paper published since 1981. The reviewer expresses their disdain for the performance, and for some context, this review mentions sheer madness, which is a long running interactive play staged at the Kennedy Center. "The show subjects viewers to nearly two hours of belligerent bad vaudeville before hounding them sheer madness dial into voting for one of several principles as the murder of the title character. Patron polling, evidently at the Kennedy Center gimmick of choice for attracting the cherry blossom crowd may rank right up there artistically with celebrity bullying, but it's by far the most interesting aspect of this misbegotten musical."
Laura Farley 07:17
And last, I'd like to highlight an article page 41 of the April 22, 1994 issue of the Washington Blade, DC is principal LGBTQ newspaper first published in 1969. Mark Martinez looks back one year later at the March on Washington for lesbian, gay and bi equal rights and liberation, and writes about his experience traveling to DC with his partner to participate in the March. "April 1993, Washington DC, cherry blossoms bawling, tulips blooming rain washing the air, and 1000s of men and women converging on a pilgrimage of pride. My lover and I arrived on the 21st and spent a week in the heart of our democracy, redefining ideas such as freedom and equality. In the process, we were also reshaping ourselves moving from what we were to what we envisioned." So I came for the cherry blossoms but I ended up finding so much more in Dig DC and you can too. Visit Dig DC at digdc.dclibrary.org
Laura Farley 08:32
When the covid-19 pandemic brought life in Washington, DC to a standstill in March 2020, The People's Archive began looking for ways to document how this historic event was affecting everyday life. We know the value of first person accounts for historical research, and we wanted to do something to preserve the story of daily life in the District during the stay at home order. Beginning last March, we collected materials from public Instagram and Twitter posts submitted through the #archivethismomentDC and people also sent us materials directly. We received over 2000 digital files telling your stories. Many of them are now posted in the Archive This Moment DC collection in DC.
Lisa Warwick 09:18
For lots of reasons, we originally set out to collect materials only from the official DC stay at home order which ended May 28, 2020. But now a year later, we're asking how has COVID-19 changed your life over the whole year. Submissions are open again until the end of June 2021, and we're asking anyone who lives in DC to submit up to five pieces of media that show how your life has changed since March 2020. Laura and I are going to share a few objects we're going to submit to the collection.
Laura Farley 09:55
Okay, Lisa, it took me a minute to think about the moments that really touched and changed me over the last year. We've talked about how there are so many moments that are just too difficult to try to capture. Like, for me the process of just getting ready to get out the door every morning with the mask and the hand sanitizer and the do I or don't I wear the foggy sunglasses debate. I chose three items that capture the range of emotion and experience over the last year. One that's very silly, one big civic moment, and one that was very difficult.
Lisa Warwick 10:31
I chose one object that is bittersweet, and one that hints at a big part of 2020 that is missing from our collection. Just a little teaser to keep you listening. Laura, what's your first object?
Laura Farley 10:45
My first object is a boomerang from a zoom dance party. Now a boomerang is a short video that takes a burst of images, stitches them together, then plays them back and forth. So what you end up with is this infectiously joyful, short video of people dancing in their little Zoom Brady Bunch boxes. My friend Ruth hosted a Zoom dance party for her birthday in late summer. It was such a smash that she began hosting them on the regular. So this item captures my social life over the last year, stuck on the internet, a little hyper at times, but we're all just doing the best to still feel connected to one another.
Lisa Warwick 11:26
I think there will definitely be something we all remember the creativity around how we stayed connected this year. My first object is a picture of me in front of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library sign. Photo credit to Jerry McCoy on this one. I'm gesturing at the sign wearing a mask, a face shield and an apron. The apron I discovered was very useful for keeping that hand sanitizer and gloves handy all the time. I was so excited about the reopening of this library in September after the three year renovation. I had been daydreaming about events to hold in the auditorium for years, but none of that was able to happen. We had an adjusted opening where the public was only allowed in the first floor of the building. And later during the holiday surge in cases only allowed in the entryway to pick up books. It was difficult to be welcoming while having all the safety equipment and restrictions in place and feeling a little scared about people getting too close.
Laura Farley 12:29
So speaking of history, making moments my second item is an image of me voting. There I am at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library with my mask and my ballot very happily depositing it in the ballot dropbox. While voting wasn't a new experience for me, like so many other Americans using a ballot box was. DC made it really easy to return ballots by mail or ballot box for the 2020 presidential election. Plus, they even included that little I voted sticker in the voting kit which I loved because I really missed voting in person. It might have been the most rewarding part of working during the pandemic watching people do their little selfies in front of the ballot box.
Lisa Warwick 13:15
My second piece is also about civic engagement. It's a picture of a spray painted stencil reading Medicare for All. You can see my feet framing the art because it was spray painted on the ground in front of the bench and Petworth. For me, this expresses the anger and frustration that came from knowing we didn't all have healthcare or the support I would want from our social services during a very difficult time. It also connects to a larger theme from 2020: protesting.
Lisa Warwick 13:47
Protest items are going to be glaringly missing from the archive this moment DC collection, because in June of 2020, our staff chose to prioritize concerns around privacy and safety for protesters over our desire to document the Black Lives Matter protests in DC. We have decided to stick with this policy for this round of collecting as well. We definitely encourage you to learn more about these issues and document your experiences protesting in a way that is safe. You can utilize our personal archiving resources at the Memory Lab. And you can learn more about why we made this decision at www.dclibrary.org/archivethismomentDC.
Laura Farley 14:37
So my third item is deeply personal but I think it's important to share because it's an experience many have endured during the past year. On December 24, 2020. My father in law passed from complications due to COVID-19. After eight weeks of hospitalization at the time of recording he is one of over 536,000 Americans to lose their lives this illness. I've kept a journal and I'll be donating the entries from the night he passed and the day of his funeral to our collection. My husband was able to travel to the Midwest to be with his family while I stayed here in DC. I'll share one line written after the funeral, which I watched as a live stream that for me really sums up the experience of losing a loved one during this time. "The most oddly gut wrenching part of today was in the live feed cut off at the end. I wanted to stay connected to Jay, but I couldn't."
Lisa Warwick 15:36
I'm really sorry for your loss Laura, and the losses anyone listening has experienced. This year, even the easy things got harder and the hard things became really, really difficult. I recently lost my Great Aunt Irene to COVID and would like to share a piece of her obituary here. "Irene was a loving Mother, Grandmother and Great Grandmother. She absolutely loved spending time with her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren she enjoyed baking. shopping in person particularly liked her holiday decorations." I won't get too deep into how this is an understatement to say I really loved her family and liked holiday decorations. It's still the only home where I saw even the bathroom decorated for every holiday. I know we are ending on a sad note, but I don't think it would be accurate to end any other way when it comes to talking about this year and this pandemic. So if everyone listening could join us in taking a moment to remember the ones you've lost, or the ones who have missed the most this year.
Laura Farley 17:01
This episode was written by me Laura Farley
Lisa Warwick 17:04
And me Lisa Warwick.
Laura Farley 17:07
Sound engineering was provided by Siobhan Hagen. Shout out the staff from the Labs at DC public library for their help with this episode.
Lisa Warwick 17:16
Learn more about archives this moment DC at dclibrary.org/archivethismomentDC or find us on Facebook at The People's Archive at DC Public Library. Have a question? Email us at peoples.archive@dc.gov
Labs DCPL 17:44
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