Arleen Olshan (born 1945), Interviewed June 8, 1993
by Marc Stein. Copyright © Marc Stein 2026. All rights reserved.
Introduction
I wanted to interview Arleen Olshan because I knew that she was a past owner of Giovanni’s Room bookstore in Philadelphia and that she had been active in the Philadelphia LGBTQ movement in the 1970s. Olshan asked that I obtain her permission to use any quotations from the interview in my book, which I did in 1998. We corresponded a few times in 1998 and she then thanked me for sending her a copy of my book in 2000. I reached out to her in 2026 in anticipation of publishing this transcript on OutHistory; she asked to see the lightly edited transcript, which I provided to her, and she then asked me to delete a few sentences and paragraphs, which I did.
Before the taped interview began, Olshan provided me with the following biographical information:
Date of Birth: 28 February 1945
Place of Birth: Manchester, New Hampshire
Place of Mother's Birth: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Mother's Occupation: Office worker
Place of Father's Birth: Atlantic City, New Jersey
Father's Occupation: Steelworker, drycleaner
Race/Ethnicity: Semitic
Religious Background: Jewish
Class Background: Working class
Residential History
1945-47: Manchester, New Hampshire
1947-50: Sansom and 54th Streets, West Philadelphia, Philadelphia
1950-56: 2500 block of Myrtlewood St., Strawberry Mansion, Philadelphia
1956-58: 6th and Indiana Streets, North Philadelphia, Philadelphia
1958-61: 11th and Louden Streets, Logan, Philadelphia
1961-63: 9th Street and Roosevelt Boulevard, Logan, Philadelphia
1963: 20th and Spruce Streets, Center City, Philadelphia
1963-65: New York City
1965-66: California
1967: 13th and Rodman Streets, Center City, Philadelphia
1967-68: High Street and Germantown Ave., Germantown, Philadelphia
1967-68: Bryn Mawr/Norristown
1967-68: 10th and Locust Streets, Center City, Philadelphia
1969: 35th and Baring Streets, Powelton Village, Philadelphia
1970-75: 33rd and Hamilton Streets, Powelton Village, Philadelphia
1970-75: 36th and Hamilton Streets, Powelton Village, Philadelphia
1975-77: Baynton Street, Germantown, Philadelphia
1978-86: 1215 E. Oxford St., Fishtown, Philadelphia
Work History
1975: Graduated from Philadelphia College of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
1974-75: Houseparent for people with disabilities
1975-76: Leatherworker
1976-86: Owner, Giovanni’s Room
Interview Transcript
Marc Stein Interview with Arleen Olshan, June 8, 1993. Transcribed by Kate Wilson and Marc Stein.
MS: This is Marc Stein. I'm interviewing Arleen Olshan in her home in Germantown on June 8th, 1993. And I just thought we should start by talking a little bit about your family, where you grew up, early childhood experiences, things like that.
AO: Well as you can see from all the addresses, my people moved around a lot. My father struggled really to support the family. And we were also a working class Jewish family. Neighborhoods would change and we'd leave. And so I was brought up in kind of a racist home. My mom had a desire for us to have a decent education and to be in decent schools/ And I think she was worried that when neighborhoods changed we would get beat up or we would get hassled or the quality of the education would change in the communities that we were living in. And I think that was part of the tribal Jewish attitudes during those years.
MS: During the forties.
AO: During the forties, yes; during the forties and fifties. It was real negative. But it was also a thing of wanting to live in your own ghetto.
MS: So you lived in a Jewish neighborhood when your family moved to Philadelphia?
AO: Yeah, yeah. We lived in a primarily Jewish neighborhood. And when we didn't live in Jewish neighborhoods, my mother wasn't happy until we got out of them. Like there were times when we had to move to one neighborhood in North Philadelphia that she really hated because she thought it was white trash and she didn't want to be there either. So until we got to Logan she just bantered my father into making a successful business so we could get out of that neighborhood.
MS: So was Logan the first Jewish neighborhood in Philly that you lived in?
AO: No, West Philly was. Then there was an interim period at 6th and Indiana. And then Logan had a good reputation for decent schools at that time and Olney High School had a pretty high academic standing. And access to Girls' High and Central would be more possible if we were living closer to the schools.
MS: You have brothers and sisters?
AO: Yeah. I have an older brother and a younger sister; I'm a middle child.
MS: So was there anything at all that made you think when you were growing up that you might be a lesbian?
AO: Yeah. I was pretty ornery as a child, and when I was three, my parents only celebrated one Christmas. And I was about three and my brother was about five. My father and my brother got into a fight and then my mother and I went head to head. She brought me a miniature kitchen set for Christmas and thought I should love it. And I cried and I said, “These aren't toys.” And it's too weird. I didn't want a miniature kitchen set. It was like everything. It was a refrigerator, a gas range, a little table and chairs, the whole thing. And it was horrible. It wasn't anything I wanted to play with. I was also really bad about dolls and things. And I had my own ideas about what I wanted people to give me.
MS: So what would you have wanted in those years?
AO: Well I had to buy my own bicycle. My brother got a bicycle. I had to save my own money and buy my own bicycle because nobody would buy me a bicycle. Roller skates. Freedom things. And I also was very much interested in art supplies. And I didn't like the clothing that they would buy me because it was all real femmy and things like that. I had a reputation for being very difficult to buy for at a very young age.
MS: Would they have called you a tomboy?
AO: Yeah, I was a tomboy. And I played with my brother, and he was my best friend, and that went on until I was about thirteen or fourteen.
[question and answer deleted at Arleen’s request]
MS: Did you get called names on the streets or in school?
AO: No, no, cause I was kind of the class clown and people did like me. I was likable, and I was funny, and so I always had friends. I was always a sociable person. So no, later in my later teens, one of my friends implied that I was always different when it came to relating to boys and things like that.
MS: Was it a she?
AO: Yeah.
MS: What did she say?
AO: [sentence removed at Arleen’s request]She was pregnant and was going to have to have an abortion. And we were trying to figure out where she could have this doctor do this illegal abortion. And they were going to use my apartment. I was seventeen and I had moved out early. I had moved out earlier than any of my friends. And I was willing to lend my apartment for this operation. And we're in the car and she raised her shoulder and she said, “You always were different.” And it was like I knew exactly what she meant. Nobody had ever called me a lesbian before, but I knew that that’s what she meant. And I started having fantasies about other young women my age. I knew that I had always had crushes on people.
MS: Do you remember your first crush?
AO: Oh, I had a lot of them. I had a lot of them. Probably one of my first crushes, and this can't be published.
MS: O.K., why don't we pause. O.K.
AO: Yeah, you can do that.
MS: Alright, let's just pause it.
[interruption]
AO: But I did have crushes on girlfriends. There was a girl in my high school. We'd have pajama parties and we'd practice doing hickeys at the pajama parties. And this one girl was really cute, this little blond, turned up nose, blue eyes, very desirable. She always had boyfriends. But I mean I felt so honored that she slept privately with me. And I flirted with her and stuff, and she encouraged it, but it didn't go too far. It wasn't really physical.
MS: Did anything physical happen while you were still living with your parents?
AO: No. Actually my mother said to me, “If you ever get pregnant, don't come to me.” And so I made sure that I didn't have sex at all until I left my family's home.
MS: Were you dating boys when you were a teenager?
AO: Yeah, yeah. I was dating gay boys.
MS: Is that right? Tell me about that.
AO: Well my first love, real love, was a guy named Gil Forman. He's still a good friend of mine. I'll be forty-nine and he'll be fifty-two. And he's still a honey pot and he lives in New York. And I was also in love with his mother. I mean he knows it, I know it, she knew it, and I was seventeen, and she was forty-seven. And I did live with her for about a year in a transitional state before I moved to New York after I lived at 20th and Spruce. Not even a year, maybe a few months. And I moved to New York. Gil moved to New York to become a dancer and I moved to New York to become an artist. And we both moved to New York to get gay.
MS: Now what year was that? Did we figure this out?
AO: It was like 1963, I think. '64.
MS: Had you been dating other gay boys here?
AO: Yeah, there was a guy named Louis in my high school who later I found out was gay. There was a guy named Stanley. We paired off at these pajama parties where we knew there was a lot of sexual pressure and we were safe with each other. And we didn't know why.
MS: So words were never spoken.
AO: No, words were never really spoken. But Stanley has since become gay. Louis. Some of them are not alive today, I think. Many of my older friends are either dead from HIV, from the virus, from AIDS, or are living with HIV. And it was the era, too, where a lot of blatant sexuality was happening. Too many partners having too many partners.
MS: It’s interesting that you were dating that way because you're not the first person whose told me stories like that. I think something was going on.
AO: Yeah. Well there was a lot of sexual pressure and we adhered to it but we didn't. We picked out people who were easy, that didn't pressure us. I mean Gil was with a woman, a younger woman a couple years earlier than me. He felt really insulted. He felt like she was really trying to push him into sexuality. And he clearly didn't want it. He wanted the friendship and the companionship, a girlfriend, and no trouble with me. I mean we did eventually sleep together though, maybe like five years after we started dating. We lived in all different places. I moved to California. And we finally did it. But by then we had been with so many other partners of our own sex. I mean it was just like we kept up the illusion, like well maybe someday we'd get married.
MS: Right.
AO: Which would have been like the worst thing in the world for either one of us to do. But we grew up in an era where we weren't proud to be gay either. I mean it was very hard for me to come out. I mean even though I had always been the rebel in my family, even though I knew who I was, the standards that I was raised with and the gay people I was meeting, like the women I met in New York, were heavy drinkers, getting out of hospitals for attempted suicides. Every party, couples were breaking up or fighting or cheating. I didn't see any really positive examples in those early years, in the bars or at the parties, that would say, “Oh yeah, this is the lifestyle I really want to embrace.”
MS: Right. Now did you have any encounters with lesbianism in Philadelphia before you moved to New York?
AO: Yeah I did. I was like a young beatnik in the late '50s. And a lot of people hung out in Rittenhouse Square. And it was all different kinds of people. There were musicians there, there were gay people, there were straight people, there were people smoking reefer back in those days, and undesirables, as Frank Rizzo would call us all. And they were always trying to rid the park of undesirables.
MS: Was it a cruising area?
AO: Mmhmm.
MS: For gay men and lesbians, you think?
AO: Heavily, yeah.
MS: What was the lesbian cruising scene like?
AO: Well, one afternoon I had met a young dyke. And she was real obviously a lesbian, like blond DA haircut, all men's clothes, and we had really good conversations. And we wound up riding home on the subway together. And I think that lesbian cruising and gay male cruising were slightly different. People teased that you go out with a lesbian and you bring a U-Haul and you move together and that's the end of that. And there was I think that fantasy for a long time in the lesbian community. I think there were also wild elements in the lesbian community, too. I mean coming to the bars on 13th Street when I first started going there, there was always an attendant that handed out toilet paper, because it was reputed that people were having sex in the bathrooms. So they had to hire an attendant to make sure that only one person went in the stall at a time.
MS: And this was in the women's bathrooms?
AO: And this was in the women's bars, yeah.
MS: So there must have been wild things.
AO: Yeah, so there must have been some wild stuff going on, too. Also, recently I dated a younger woman who said that there was all kinds of wild stuff going on in the bars. She was a bar dyke. She was a young bar dyke. And she was coming out maybe fifteen years ago. And there was plenty of things going on. It was not part of my scene. I mean I had lovers. I had long- term relationships.
MS: Were you going to any of the coffeehouses around Rittenhouse Square?
AO: Yeah.
MS: The Humoresque? Do you remember very much about them?
AO: I went to the Proscenium. I went to the Humoresque. I went to the Gilded Cage. And yeah, I remember a lot about them.
MS: Were they gay and lesbian hangouts?
AO: There were some lesbians there. There were some gay people there. And some of the parties, I mean there were opportunities for lesbians to get together. But I wasn't out at that point, which is a damn shame. That was right before I left Philadelphia, and by the time I came back, it was like three or four years later and I was going to 13th Street.
MS: So you weren't going to 13th Street before.
AO: Mmhmm [negative].
MS: Did you ever go to the drag queen parade on Halloween night before you went to New York?
AO: Yeah, I did with Gil.
MS: Can you tell me everything you know about it? People have forgotten about it and I'm really trying to reconstruct what exactly it was like.
AO: Oh.
MS: Can you remember when you went? Late '50s?
AO: When did I meet Gil? I met Gil, I guess, let's see, yeah, like '58, '59. No. Must have been about '59 or '60, '61. And he and his mom went to 13th Street on Halloween. I don't know if I went with them, though. I mean I remember that Center City was wild on Halloween.
MS: Mmhmm. Do you remember where the parade was? You said on 13th St.?
AO: Yeah, 13th and Locust.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: And I heard about it but I was still living in Logan with my mother.
MS: So you're not sure you actually went.
AO: No, she was very controlling.
MS: You just heard about it.
AO: Yeah, she was very controlling. And so I don't think I actually went. And by the time I was living in Center City, I was hanging more in a straight crowd. I mean the coffeehouse scene was much more of a straight scene. I mean there were some gay people interspersed and I wasn't really sure where I was at yet. I mean I had feelings of attraction toward other women my age, and older women, and crushes and things like that, but I wasn't acting on my sexuality. Part of that was also that I was sexually abused as a child.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: And I really had what I would consider a late blooming. I started being sexual when I was seventeen, eighteen years old of my own choice. And I felt very comfortable coming out as a lesbian.
[section deleted at Arleen’s request]
AO: Yeah, but I think that I was very shy about my sexuality. Like Meg Christian says, they weren't lesbians in the old days; they were just shy. And I think that that's how I identified for awhile as a teen and all my friends were being sexual and I was not.
MS: But before you went to New York, you did know of lesbians, because you had encountered them in Rittenhouse Square.
AO: Yeah. And I used to think it was really amazing, too. Like I rode home on the subway with this woman. We obviously were really connecting, really having a good conversation. I enjoyed her company completely. And when she left, because she had to get off at the stop before me, or two stops before me, and I thought, “Isn't it interesting that I wasn't self-conscious about being out in public with this woman who is clearly a dyke?”
MS: Why do you think you felt that way?
AO: I felt really comfortable. It was like coming home. And we had a really good time just talking and laughing and being young. I mean she couldn't have been much older than me and I was only about fifteen. And I did try to get into Rusty's when I was a kid, too.
MS: Oh really? Tell me that story.
AO: Yeah, Rusty's. I used to hang out with gay guys in Rittenhouse Square a lot. If my regular friends weren't there, and I happened to be in the Square, I knew a lot of the gay guys. And I was very comfortable in their company. And they were totally outrageous. I mean it was wonderful and it was fun and we'd hang on the corner of Broad and Spruce. And it was just outrageous. We'd laugh and cut up and oh Mary this and oh Mary that.
MS: White guys mostly?
AO: Mostly, well white and black. White and black. So a couple of my friends, we used to go to some of the dance clubs. And the guys could get me into places even though I wasn't eighteen. Some places, the dance bars, they weren't bars, they were just dance clubs but they were for people over eighteen.
MS: They weren't gay places, right?
AO: No, but the gay people were there. Kind of like the bandstand era. The gay people were there, too.
MS: Right.
AO: And so every now and then, they'd try to get me into a bar. And we did go to Rusty's and it was great. I mean here's this woman greeting us in full drag, with a suit and tie, looking absolutely handsome and wonderful, totally self-assured, and she said, “Honey, you got age cards?” And I said, “No.” She said, “Come back when you do.” And that was all. I mean I couldn't get in but it was fascinating.
MS: Do you remember how old you were?
AO: I was about sixteen, so it was like 1950 something.
MS: Where was Rusty's then?
AO: Where it had always been, on that street. What it that? Is it Quince?
MS: Everyone can't remember that street name. Yeah.
AO: It's Quince, and it's behind, it's like off of Walnut and up the back stairs. There's a restaurant there now on the first floor and they're not doing anything with the second floor, right? It must have been against code, fire code or something like that. It finally got closed down.
MS: So then you went to New York, remind me, in?
AO: Like '63.
MS: '63. And you said that it was those two or three years you lived there when you really came out.
AO: Two years, yeah. Well I started having my sexual experiences there.
MS: O.K.
AO: And going to the Sea Colony and I was kind of dragged in. People always talk about fag hags. Well there are straight men who are like dyke rags, too. And there was this one guy who really loved lesbians, and he loved hanging with lesbians and being around lesbians, and he really dragged me into that bar the first time. And I watched the women dance and it was such a turn on. I also went to Cherry Grove, a bar which was a mixed bar, of men and women.
MS: Sea Colony was mixed as well?
AO: No, Sea Colony was all women.
MS: All women. But this guy was there.
AO: Occasionally men could come in.
MS: Was he trying to hit on you?
AO: Yeah, yeah. I mean I guess he found it really titillating. And he introduced me to women that would become my lovers and stuff, too. So I mean he was a good comrade for that period. He was like a good transitional friend.
MS: Right. Were you living with Gil?
AO: No, no I never lived with Gil. He had his own apartment. Actually I stayed with this guy in Jersey City for a brief time until I got a job in New York.
MS: Did you two become involved?
AO: No, not really. I mean in his mind we became involved. I was just looking for an apartment and a job. I mean he thought I was living with him. I was living at his place.
MS: Could you compare for me what Cherry Grove was like as a mixed place to the Sea Colony, which was primarily lesbian? Was the atmosphere totally different?
AO: Oh yeah. Oh absolutely. It was a heavy dance bar.
MS: Which was?
AO: Cherry Grove was a real dance bar. It was in the middle of Greenwich Village. It was much more out in the open. It was near the Cherry Grove theater. And it was big. It was much more sprawling with a huge dance floor and very few lesbians but some. Maybe twenty percent lesbian.
MS: O.K.
AO: And there were drag queens in there and there were like every gambit of the gay and lesbian community really, and multiracial. And the music reflected a multiracial atmosphere, too. There was a lot of Latin music playing. And it was during an era when Latin dancing was very popular, too. So you could see a merengue or you could see almost ballroom dancing.
MS: And how was the Sea Colony different?
AO: Sea Colony was really a lesbian bar. Very dark lights, a bar on one side, a very small dance floor. Steamy, sensual, underground kind of feeling. All the bars back in those days really had that kind of feeling.
MS: And were butch/femme roles still in operation, would you say?
AO: Yeah, oh yeah. Clearly.
MS: So how did you find your own place?
AO: Well, I knew I would have to be butch, because I was always a tomboy.
MS: Uhhuh.
AO: And for working, for jobs, I would dress in dresses and high heels back in those days, and makeup, and hairdos. I actually did all that shit. And also I was kind of Gil's Pygmalion. He was a dancer and he worked in theater and he loved making me up. And we'd play games with makeup and hairdos and shit like that. And it was O.K., because I liked being fussed over. I really didn't mind it. “Sure, wash my hair. Oh you want to set my hair? Set my hair.” And I would just lay back. And also he would say things like, “I have box seats to see Nureyev and I'm not taking you to the ballet unless you really have a nice outfit and you look like a girl.” I mean he would really do that shit to me. And I'd say, “O.K., I'll dress appropriately for the Academy of Music.” And I saw Nureyev the first time he came to the United States. I mean with Gil I saw some of the best ballet that had ever been performed in the United States to date, in those years. And I saw every Russian company. So it was very exciting and also I didn't grow up in a home where a lot of culture was available. I mean I sought out my art, but I didn't have theater, I didn't have live music, live dance, that kind of thing. So there was a lot of awakening going on with Gil's family, with him and his mom. I got to see Josephine Baker on stage live before she passed at the Academy of Music. So I mean neat things were happening during that time in my life, too.
MS: So just to go back to the butch/femme stuff.
AO: O.K., the butch/femme stuff. I definitely related as a butch. And there was an older dyke in there. [interruption] Sylvie was this little older butch, real tight, real handsome. And I happened into the Sea Colony on a Saturday afternoon. It was quiet. And she was at the bar and we were just kind of hanging out. And I said to her, “I'm eighteen years old and I know I'm a butch.” And I said, “Can you give me any advice?” And she kind of joked around with the bartender and said, “That's what I'll do in my old age. I'll run a school for young butches.” And she really didn't give me any advice. “Find your own way.” But it was just nice to be able to feel free enough to say that and to find somebody I could say that to. And she was sweet. And then I could have a friend, like I could come into the bar and I could feel safe. And there was a lot about brothers. Dykes used to call each other brothers.
MS: Butches?
AO: Yeah. “You're my brother.” And you were family and you protected each other, from the police, from the other butches, from sailors who wandered in, from straight guys who were hanging outside to beat you up.
MS: Did any of that stuff happen to you specifically?
AO: No, but I saw it happen. I was there, especially on 13th Street when I first came back to Philly. Like in '66, maybe, '67. There was a lot of that.
MS: Tell me what you saw.
AO: There were straight guys hanging out [words deleted at Arleen’s requestion]. It's now called something like the Family or something, a bar on 13th Street. And I forget the name of it now. It'll come to me. But there was a woman named Larry that worked at the door who was like this massive stone butch, total drag butch. And there were sailors and straight men who did come in regularly. There were drag queens. It was a real mixed bar. I mean it was mostly women, with a lot of drag guys, but not many real straight appearing gay men. But straight men would come in. Or supposed straight men.
MS: It was on 13th Street and what?
AO: And Locust, yeah.
MS: 13th and Locust.
AO: Yeah. There's a bar on the corner and the second one down is a large dance bar. I can't remember what the hell it was called. That block has not changed.
MS: Right.
AO: That one street has not changed.
MS: You don't mean Woody's?
AO: No, no. It's on the block where Woody's is, but it's closer to the corner.
MS: O.K. And so tell me about some of the things you saw, some of the worst things.
AO: Oh, sailors would try to horn in on the femme in couples. And the butch would have to try to take him out. And he had no greater pleasure than to beat the hell out of a butch dyke. And people were being thrown out of there all the time, all the time. And so the fight would go out on the street. And you saw people get cut. People would break glasses and hurt each other badly and stuff. And it was crazy; it was a crazy scene. By the time I did start really going to the bars then, in those years, I was there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Wednesday through Sunday I was there.
MS: Right.
AO: And it's not like I was an alcoholic, thank god. It really didn't take hold, but there was something about that seamy environment that I needed.
MS: Was it that bar specifically?
AO: It was that bar and Rusty's.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: Yeah.
MS: Did Rusty's also have drag queens?
AO: No.
MS: It was all lesbians.
AO: Rusty's was really primarily lesbian, with an occasional straight man who was friends with the bartender.
MS: Were the bartenders all lesbians?
AO: No. They were men.
MS: Gay men or straight men?
AO: Gay and straight, I think.
MS: At Rusty's and at this other bar?
AO: I think lesbians at the 13th Street bar. But men, male bartenders, I don't know whether they were gay or not, at Rusty's. Rusty was a car saleswoman during the day. So she probably had all kinds of straight friends that knew about her bar.
MS: And was it pretty much all white, both of those bars?
AO: No, no. 13th Street wasn't. And Rusty's had a mix. There weren't many black lesbians coming out to the bars in Center City. There were other black lesbian bars and other black gay bars. I know that there were.
MS: Did you ever go there yourself?
AO: No. I went to Mahogany years later.
MS: Do you remember when you went to Mahogany?
AO: Mahogany was in the '80s. Yeah, much later. And there was a bar up here, at Germantown and Chelten, that I did stop in at, but it was mostly men and it was mostly black.
MS: You stopped by in the '60s?
AO: Yeah, I stopped in that bar in the '60s, just to see what it was.
MS: Do you remember the name?
AO: Uh, no, no. It was Top of something. It was upstairs. It was an upstairs bar. And there was a place around the corner from Temple Hospital, like on Old York Road or Germantown Avenue, around Broad and Erie, that I stopped in once, too, with friends. But it was also mostly black, mostly men, a couple of women in a crowd of maybe fifty. And that was maybe in the early '70s I stopped in there.
MS: Were there other places aside from bars that you were socializing in in the '60s?
AO: In the '60s.
MS: With other lesbians? Parties?
AO: Well, when I lived in California, I was really running away from the whole scene in New York. I had an opportunity. I had a ride out there. And I moved into a neighborhood in East LA because that's where I got my job and I didn't have a car. And I thought I was getting away from lesbianism. And I signed the lease with this landlord. And we're walking up the steps to my apartment and six Chicano dykes start walking down the steps. And I thought, “Well, fate.” And I kind of hung with them in the mid-60s, and that was kind of like at home, very butch/femme also. They were constantly trying to fix me up so that I wouldn't be a threat to their relationships. And they did take me out and help me get my drag clothes together and my outfits together. And that was really nice. And we did go to a couple of bars in LA together, but it was more at home entertaining.
MS: Did you have that here, too, in Philly?
AO: Philly is a more an at home entertaining town, too.
MS: Yeah?
AO: Yeah. Especially in the early years of Radicalesbians, people were doing lots of parties in their homes.
MS: Right. What about in the '60s, though, do you remember anything, any big house parties, with or without gay men also?
AO: No. The first real miracle that happened, I think, was the GAA dance at St. Mary's, where there was something like a thousand gay people that showed up with a live gay band. And about three or four hundred of the people in attendance were women. And it was hot. It was hot.
MS: So this would have been in 1971?
AO: Like 1970, yeah.
MS: Was that a HAL dance or was it a GAA?
AO: It could have been HAL; it could have been GAA. I'm not sure. HAL was predominantly lesbian.
MS: Were you at all involved with HAL?
AO: Only with the people, as friendships.
MS: Which people?
AO: Rosalie Davies. Byrna.
MS: Aronson?
AO: Byrna Aronson. Sharyn Labance, who’s still around.
MS: How did you know these people, from the bars?
AO: From Radicalesbians.
MS: From Radicalesbians.
AO: Yeah. The Radicalesbians organization was also a miracle. I mean there was this one woman from New York who was part of Radicalesbians, who was in school at Penn, and I forget her name, like Rochelle something or other.
MS: She was part of Radicalesbians in New York, you mean?
AO: Yeah, and then she was a student at Penn. She advertised for four weeks in a row in Thursday's Drummer, which was a supposedly underground newspaper in Philadelphia.
MS: [?]
AO: That's what it was called, Thursday's Drummer.
MS: O.K.
AO: And it came out on Thursdays. And then it was just turned to Drummer. It was called Drummer newspaper, cause then I think it came out on Fridays. It changed.
MS: It was a sort of a lefty alternative newspaper, weekly?
AO: Yeah. And she advertised that the first meeting of Radicalesbians would be on X date at X place. And she kept running the ad, so that everybody eventually would see that ad. And so you'd run into somebody and you'd say, “You going to this Radicalesbians meeting?” “I don't know, are you going to go?” “I don't know.” I went to this meeting and there were like two, three hundred women who I'd never seen before.
MS: Really?
AO: At a gay bar, at a lesbian bar.
MS: Where was the meeting held?
AO: Oh, the NOW office, at 9th and Chestnut. The Philadelphia NOW.
MS: Now, do you remember what year this was, because that would really help me if you could pinpoint it, because I haven't talked to very many people from that early in Radicalesbians yet. It was obviously after Stonewall.
AO: I was twenty-four and it was after Stonewall. So it was '69. It was 1969, it was like September of '69.
MS: So it was right after Stonewall.
AO: Yeah.
MS: O.K., and so two or three hundred women were there at the NOW office. Why was it at the NOW office, do you know?
AO: Because National Organization of Women, I guess, was friendly, gay friendly.
MS: But you don't know if there was a person who was....
AO: There probably was.
MS: Right.
AO: Like Kay Whitlock or one of the early members of NOW. Cause Kay Whitlock was very active; Roberta Hacker was very active with NOW. There was a lot of us who gravitated toward feminism.
MS: Was that also your first experience, really, with organized feminism?
AO: Possibly. I mean I had it in my head, but….
MS: You hadn't gone to meetings.
AO: I hadn't gone to meetings.
MS: Or CR groups or anything like that.
AO: No.
MS: Why don't you tell me what Radicalesbians, what those meetings were like? Or what that first meeting was like, if you remember it?
AO: The first meeting was great. Everybody was like so overwhelmed by everyone else. I mean it was just like “this is fabulous!” I mean it was really wonderful, it was very uplifting, and the first thing we planned was a dance.
MS: A Radicalesbians dance.
AO: Right.
MS: And what was the crowd, what was the group of people at the meeting like? Was it mostly white? Was it mostly young people?
AO: Well, we were all in our mid-20s. A lot of us were in our mid-20s, early to mid-20s. And a lot of college students and a lot of hippie types and a few older dyke types. Barbara Gittings might have showed up at that meeting. We certainly invited her to things afterwards.
MS: Why do you think it was that young and that college student oriented in ’69.
AO: Because of who read the newspaper.
MS: Uhhuh.
AO: I mean that's who it reached initially, kind of a leftist crowd, a college crowd, an artsy crowd. There were also a lot of lesbians who were coming out of marriages, knowing they were lesbian, with two or three kids in tow.
MS: Were there children at the meetings.
AO: Yeah, yeah. And it's real interesting because all those kids are grown up now, and I still am in contact with half of those people and I know their children.
MS: Uhhuh.
AO: It's so wonderful. It's so wonderful. And a lot, well not all the kids, most of the kids are heterosexual, but there are a few lesbians or gay guys in that group of children.
MS: Right.
AO: I mean two of the women I know, one had three, four kids. One of her kids is a lesbian. And one had two kids and her daughter is a lesbian. And with Rosalie, her children are not gay and her children were at all the meetings until she lost custody of her kids. You're going to interview her.
MS: I already did.
AO: Oh good, O.K.
MS: So....
AO: She didn't go to the first meeting of Radicalesbians?
MS: She didn't talk to me about it.
AO: Oh, O.K.
MS: Sometimes things come up and sometimes they don't.
AO: Yeah.
MS: But what did I want to ask you? Oh, this first dance, was that also held at St. Mary's?
AO: No, it was held at a warehouse that was the food coop of Powelton. And it was 33rd and Race. And the building's no longer there. And we had a live band come in from Rhode Island.
MS: Uhhuh. Do you remember the band?
AO: Yeah, I have an album of theirs from way back. I have to look it up.
MS: How did you get that space?
AO: We lived in the neighborhood.
MS: O.K.
AO: And were able to get it. And there were lots of dykes living in Powelton Village at that point.
MS: That's another good question, I guess. Where would you say that lesbians were concentrated at that moment in time?
AO: The lesbian ghettos were Germantown and West Philly.
MS: Not Center City, you would say?
AO: No, we couldn't afford it.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: None of us were professionals.
MS: And when you say West Philly, you mean?
AO: Powelton Village. Well Powelton is in West Philly. It's just a little pocket, a university pocket. And a lot of Drexel students live there and Penn students, but now that neighborhood's become inaccessible. It's really insanely expensive. It wasn't then. I guess borderline neighborhoods. Sure, like there was Rodman Street, there were streets around Center City, South Street, that was cheap back in those days. Spruce and Pine in the higher numbers were cheaper. You could get little apartments, little studio type apartments or efficiencies at not very much money. But Powelton you could get space. You could get one and two bedroom places, or houses, very reasonably priced. I mean we had a big communal house. And we had six bedrooms in it and at one point we counted and there must have been like thirteen women living in that house. And everybody would come to our house to come out.
MS: Where was this house?
AO: The 3300 block of Hamilton.
MS: And you were there for long?
AO: Three, four years, during that whole epic period. Lots of good stuff was happening.
MS: So tell me more about Radicalesbians. Would there be regular meetings?
AO: There were regular meetings. There were regular social nights.
MS: Did that many people continue to participate?
AO: Yes, yeah. There was thirty, forty women at a time. There were different CR groups. We broke up into different CR groups. We had general meetings. We had action meetings where we were going to participate and be a presence at marches, at kiss a homosexual booths on Super Sunday. I mean we were invited to go and speak at churches. We were interviewed by Playboy magazine. I mean it was like insane stuff.
MS: Was that interview published?
AO: Yeah, somewhere.
MS: I'll have to dig it up.
AO: Somewhere in their archives.
MS: Who was it, Philly Radicalesbians?
AO: Yeah, yeah.
MS: And what other sort of things, demonstrations and stuff and actions, do you remember participating in or doing?
AO: We were always doing gay marches. But we were also doing things like abortion rights and other issues relevant to women at the time, whether it was like wages due. I don't remember all the actions that we were involved in.
MS: You mentioned before we started the tape that Radicalesbians sort of spun off a lot of other groups in the city.
AO: Yeah.
MS: Why don't you just repeat for me, for the tape, what some of those groups were?
AO: Right. Well we did a training for the Lesbian Hotline. And the hotline was originally housed in the Women's Center building at 47th and Chester. And I'm really sad to see that there's no been support this year and it's going to be closed. It's over at 35th and Lancaster. And the article in Labyrinth says that it's only ten years old. That's not true. It's much older than that. And the Tell-a-Woman newspaper was published out of that building originally. And so we had a lot of mutual interaction with feminist activities. Women in Transition was spearheaded by one of our most vociferous Radicalesbians people, Jennifer Fleming.
MS: What did Women in Transition do? What was it?
AO: It was for women who were coming out of marriages, unhappy marriages or marriages that were over. And helping them find services for single moms, particularly. Custody Action for Lesbian Mothers.
MS: So Women in Transition was not specifically for lesbians, is that right?
AO: No, no it was for all women, but Rosalie was certainly active with Radicalesbians. She was also active with HAL, so we were all real aware of CALM right from the get. Women Organized Against Rape did a training at our house. There were women’s karate groups. There was the Free Women's School in West Philly. The Pocono weekend came out of 500 dollars being left over from Penn's Women's Center one year, and a number of lesbians, myself included, were the founding mothers of that organization, which later was passed on to Amazons, Inc., which is now part of Sisterspace's regular activities.
MS: So when was the first Pocono weekend?
AO: It had to be like 1971, '72.
MS: And what was the whole idea of that?
AO: Just a gathering of lesbians.
MS: For a weekend?
AO: For a weekend in the Poconos. It's not the middle of the summer. We rent these summer camps, so it has to be after season or before season. And we did it in September, after the regular summer camp. I mean I think it was at a Boy Scouts camp in the Poconos.
MS: And how many people went the first couple years?
AO: Ninety. Ninety the first year.
MS: Ninety women.
AO: Yeah. And I think the second was maybe 150. And one year I had planned kitchen so I knew how many people were coming because I had to buy food for 150 people. Now it's like 1400 people probably, 1200 people.
MS: And I guess I want to spend a little time talking to you about why it is you think that women were organizing in Radicalesbians and wanting to organize separate from gay men, separate from straight women? Why was that happening right then and there at that time?
AO: The gay men were obnoxious in the beginning. Nobody wanted to relate to specific individuals for the kind of tactics they were doing. It had nothing to do with women's issues at all. They'd always say, “We really want women to be involved.” And the only organization that really, really respected women's ideas, wanted to hear what women had to say, was HAL.
MS: What were the main groups that weren't listening?
AO: I attended GAA and felt very uncomfortable there. One group seriously did Robert's Rules of Order. And it didn't really welcome newcomers. It didn't. Lesbians really needed to talk to each other, too. There was a desperate need. The only lesbianism that we encountered was at the bars.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: And there were a lot of women who didn't fit in the butch or femme category or didn't want to. They just wanted to be an individual. With feminism, egalitarianism was very important, helping women to find their own power, their own voice. To be able to say what you felt was such a unique opportunity. I mean I identify as a butch now, and I say, “Yeah, this is who I've been all my life.” But I really, really tried to have egalitarian relationships where what my lover needed and said and felt was really, really important. And I still feel that way as a butch now, and I don't feel uncomfortable that I can be butch and I can be a feminist.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: But it was very hard back in those days. I mean a lot of women would say, “Well why would you want to be like a man?” I don't want to be like a man. Just because I say I'm a butch doesn't mean I want to be like a man.
MS: Right. So can you describe to me some more of the alienation you felt towards gay men.
AO: I guess it has to do with power. And white men--I don't want to make any stereotypes, and I don't want to say anything that's really hostile--but I think that maybe in white educated middle class homes, young men, certainly in the '50s and '60s, were kind of trained toward being heard, to having a voice, to taking leadership roles, more so than women were accustomed to. And I mean there were a number of men, feminist men, who did want egalitarian environments, that really wanted to hear what women had to say.
MS: Do you remember any of them specifically? Or what groups they were involved with?
AO: Well, it was a pleasure working with Ed, Ed Hermance, and certainly Giovanni's Room in the early years, all of the staff were on equal footing. We were so happy to have a staff because mostly it was all volunteer. And the people who were paid staff were getting nominal wages, just like we were in the beginning. So certainly their wisdom, their ideas, their input was appreciated and respected. I don't know if we felt that way. I don't know if lesbians early on felt that way in the gay movement. That it was really a gay male movement in Philadelphia.
MS: Did you encounter GLF or any of those people?
AO: Yeah.
MS: Were they any better than GAA?
AO: No.
MS: No?
AO: No.
MS: Some people say that Radicalesbians and GLF were counterparts.
AO: We were a separatist organization.
MS: That GLF was for men and Radicalesbians was for women. And they were the two radical groups. Would you say that's true?
AO: I don't completely remember.
MS: O.K.
AO: O.K. I know that there were some very vocal lesbians who were good at playing to a male audience. Barbara was certainly one, Kay Whitlock was terrific at it. She was an academic and very well spoken. And I didn't necessarily feel like a separatist, because I had come out, I did have a history with gay men.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: So when I got involved, like with, say, the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, I felt comfortable. And also I was still involved with Radicalesbians. Or I was still involved with the people of Radicalesbians even when Radicalesbians was folding and Amazons, Inc., was evolving.
MS: How did Radicalesbians fold? Did people just stop meeting or was there a decision made at some point?
AO: I don't know exactly how it happened, but I think there were fears that the left was infiltrating and I think there were fears that we were also being bugged.
MS: What do you mean the left was infiltrating?
AO: There was leftist lesbians who were coming and trying to organize socialist lesbians.
MS: Oh I see. And the bugging, was that part of the whole Susan Saxe thing?
AO: I think so. Yeah, I think there was a lot of paranoia that evolved. And it was justifiable. I mean my house in the 3300 block of Hamilton Street, somebody called there asking what I thought of the Susan Saxe arrest. They said they were from the Inquirer and they wanted my opinions. And I felt really paranoid, like how did they get my address? How'd they get my name, my phone number?
MS: Would you say that for Philadelphia lesbians that was a real turning point watershed? Was that a really important moment? Did the community get really devastated by that series of events?
AO: Well, there was a combination of things. A lot of the organizing that had been done was almost becoming professional, too. WOAR had gotten off the ground. Women in Transition had gotten their grants. The Lesbian Hotline was surviving at that point. We had a few gay papers floating around. We had a gay and lesbian community center. We had a gay and lesbian bookstore. We had a women's bookstore. We still had a number of gay organizations at the universities that were doing social events. So things were evolving. The Pocono weekend kept happening.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: Come hell or high water, whatever organization was doing it. I think there was a lot of paranoia, though, because there were a lot of women who were working in straight jobs. Or didn't want to be identified as lesbians. We really felt that our community had been infiltrated. Yeah. There were a lot of people that were really scared.
MS: What was your position on that whole debate, do you recall now? Were you involved in some of those discussions about whether it had been cool for her to be here.
AO: Well I don't think I ever judged it. She was here. And she was with somebody who I really respected. I loved Byrna. I loved her politics. I liked her hard work. She was one woman that worked between all the organizations. And I supported her getting a fair trial.
MS: Were there people you were aware of who were really hostile to her after the story came out?
AO: Probably I was at the time. I don't really recall now.
MS: O.K.
AO: But I'm sure that there were people that were.
MS: Somebody said to me that the lesbian community was really divided on Susan Saxe.
AO: Yeah. I'm sure that there were. I mean I guess I was so in favor of supporting her that that's all I could really see.
MS: Right.
AO: And yeah, I'm sure there were a lot of women who just dropped out of the whole scene for awhile or went into some kind of cultural activism instead, just chose different avenues to focus their energies.
MS: What do you mean when you say cultural activism? I think that's really interesting.
AO: Well, there was the women's music scene, producing women's concerts, producing women's events. Different church groups. I mean there was all kinds of....
MS: Would you include Wicce in that, too?
AO: The newspaper?
MS: Yeah.
AO: That was Pat Hill's baby and her friend Joan Meyers. Yeah, yeah I guess so. It was certainly more of a lesbian cultural paper than a real newspaper. It was fun. It was like putting out a comic book or something. Yeah. And I respected that, too. I mean there was a lot of things going on. Yeah, Pat, yeah I guess that was about the same era, too, when Pat had the store.
MS: Now how did you end up with Giovanni's Room? How did that all come about? It was '76 right?
AO: Yeah. Ed and I were involved with the gay and lesbian community center. I was the co-facilitator of the community center and Ed was the treasurer. So we were all on the steering committee. And he knew I had been in business prior to being in school. And he was one of the founders of the Ecology Food Coop in Powelton. And so he had business experience, too. And Giovanni's Room was folding. Or Pat was trying to sell it, cause the Knave of Hearts was taking over the building that she was in. And so it was going to have to move, and Pat didn't want to move it. And it was prior to the whole publishing explosion that happened. And it was just a very small collection of books. And Ed and I felt that Philadelphia had a large enough gay, lesbian, and feminist community that could support a bookstore that was diverse, that included all three communities, that was a sexual forum for diversity.
MS: So where did you move to? Where did the store move to?
AO: We bought it in September of '76 or in August and opened it in September. And moved it to 1426 Spruce Street. And Solo Realty gave us real cheap rent and the whole first floor of that property. The property was for sale, and we asked for a ninety day clause in case there was a new owner. So that we had an opportunity to move it and reopen it, but we'd be given a lot of notice.
MS: Why'd they rent it to you?
AO: Solo had a lot of gay friends. Tom Wilson Weinberg was friends with Solo.
MS: O.K. Is that a person's name?
AO: Solo, Stanley Solo, is owner of a realty company. And he was a good guy.
MS: I see. Straight guy?
AO: Straight guy.
MS: Did you have trouble in the neighborhood at all when you moved in?
AO: No, not at all.
MS: And that was right before the Bicentennial?
AO: That was probably about the same year, '76.
MS: Right.
AO: Yeah, although that happened in May and June.
MS: Oh, O.K.
AO: I was a little bit involved with the Bicentennial Women's Center, down at 17th and the Parkway.
MS: What happened there?
AO: Carol Tracy was the director of it. She had been head of or part of Penn Women's Center. It was a good idea. It did get funding. I was on a committee that was planning a mural, doing something on women's achievements, as an artist. And it never panned out. I mean we never got the supplies. We never had a unified idea. And there were some activities there that were fun. But we were kind of bought out, I think. I mean it felt too academic. It didn't feel radical enough a place.
MS: Do you remember what you did at the big Bicentennial celebration or protest?
AO: I think what's her name from Ms. magazine came to town, Gloria Steinem. And I think we had a big march and parade that wound up at Independence Hall.
MS: A protest march?
AO: A participation. I think we were really accepted into the whole activity. It might have been protest, yeah. “We still haven't gotten there yet.”
MS: But you were more a part?
AO: We were really a part, we were really incorporated into the celebration. And I think that was done purposely so that it wouldn't get too radical. Like plan them in and then it won't be a problem. If we don't plan them in, it will really be a problem. That kind of thing. And so I think there was quite a turnout. But I was more involved with the gay and lesbian community center at that point.
MS: Yeah, tell me about that. When did you get involved with that?
AO: Like in '73, 74.
MS: Was this before it had a building?
AO: Yeah, well it was as we were getting the building.
MS: And that was the building on Kater Street.
AO: Right. I got involved in the early meetings in the building before the building had been opened and in some of the decision making on how the building would be designed and laid out, and what kinds of activities we would have there. And I was involved with the gallery. I was involved with the opening. I helped set up the whole opening actually. It was broadcast from WXPN on both Amazon Country and Gaydreams.
MS: Was this in '73 or was it a little later that it opened?
AO: I think it was in '73. And actually I do have a flyer. I have the original flyer from the opening of the gay community center.
MS: Uhhuh. And what about that neighborhood? How did you get the place itself? And you didn't buy it out, right? It was a rental?
AO: It was a rental with option to buy. And we had to make it fire safe. Tens of thousands of dollars was invested in that property. It was really a shame that we let it go. And I wasn't too happy when that happened.
MS: When did that happen?
AO: We raised tons of money and to see all that money just be pissed away for the next owner; renting with an option to buy is not a good option.
MS: When did it get moved or get sold?
AO: I don't remember. But by then I was really involved with Giovanni's Room.
MS: O.K.
AO: And Giovanni's was like a sixty-hour, eighty-hour-a-week job.
MS: So it stayed there for a few years.
AO: Yeah, maybe 'til 1978.
MS: And that neighborhood was fine? There was never any trouble?
AO: There were always gay people in that neighborhood. All the restaurants initially, I think, were owned and operated by gay people. We really set up a whole nightlife down on South Street that was restaurants, fun stores, stuff like that.
MS: What were some of the restaurants and stores? Do you remember?
AO: Well, Lickety Split, Backstage, are some that are still there. There were different art collaborations and stuff. I don't remember all of them.
MS: I've seen a bunch of ads in Wicce. I wonder if I've seen a lot of the stores that have those addresses are the ones you’re talking about.
AO: Yeah. I still have some of my Wicces, too. And some of my Heras.
MS: Now what about, if we could just shift gears for a second, the places where you lived. It seemed like you moved around a lot, but you were also saying that you were involved in some pretty stable relationships.
AO: Mmhmm.
MS: Did you tend to live with your partners?
AO: Yeah, yeah. During the early lesbian years, I was with a woman named Barbara, who was also a painter, Barbara Bjanes, and we're still good friends.
MS: How do you spell her last name?
AO: B-j-a-n-e-s.
MS: And that was in the '60s.
AO: Yeah. I can show you something that I just dug out for a twenty year reunion at Penn. This was us in our early days. She studied karate and all kinds of good stuff.
MS: Uhhuh. That's beautiful.
AO: Isn't that a beautiful picture?
MS: Uhhuh, it is. Is this at Penn?
AO: This is in Rittenhouse Square. There was a big women's march, demonstration. And I don't know what year it is. And Radicalesbians was part of it.
MS: O.K.
AO: Yeah.
MS: And so you lived together for how long, do you recall?
AO: Five years.
MS: Five years? And that was at the Powelton?
AO: Yeah, so that was like 1970 to '75, '76.
MS: And that was the group house that you were talking about?
AO: Yeah, yeah. Well we lived in the group house about four years, and then we moved up to Jennifer Fleming's house in the 3600 block of Hamilton. So we were still living in a lesbian household, but we had our own apartment.
MS: So tell me about these lesbian households, cause it seems like they sort of burst on the scene. They hadn't necessarily existed before.
AO: Yeah. Well, they were collectives, group living. Our rent was like $300 a month. We had six bedrooms, three stories. One of the women, Mary Ann, is now a minister in MCC in California somewhere.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: One of the women is a filmmaker. The first year was kind of a straight household with some lesbians. It was like lesbian and gay. And it was for economic reasons. The second year was kind of a fiasco.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: Cause it was two couples.
MS: Two lesbian couples?
AO: Two lesbian couples: Barbara and I and Joan and Cynthia. Joan didn't feel comfortable in the house. I said, “Go find somebody else to fill the house. We'll get you off the lease.” And she wouldn't do it. She was afraid we were going to sue her for a whole year's rent. And so that was kind of horrible. And then the third year was a wonderful year. And that was when Jenny, Mary Ann, Barbara, and I lived there. And then other women joined the house.
MS: Uhhuh.
AO: And it turned into at one point we had like fifteen people living there or something. I mean it was insane. Everyone was coming out in that house.
MS: Uhhuh. Were the women there mostly in relationships?
AO: Yeah, I mean they came in because they were having affairs with women who were living there.
MS: Uhhuh. Would you say most of them were sort of being serially monogamous or were having more than one partners?
AO: Serial monogamous, yeah. There were occasions when we'd veer out of the relationship and have an attraction for somebody else and try to work that out. And it didn't work very well. We were all kind of young and thought we were in love forever.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: With each lover.
MS: Right. And what do you think was really distinctive about these lesbians households? What made them different, you think, than, say, any other household?
AO: Well there was a lot of feminism; there was a lot of hope. There's a lot of trying to empower each other. Trying to form different kinds of family values with each other that had to do with our sexual realities. Where else could you get a family that accepted you as a sexual being?
MS: Uhhuh.
AO: And it was fun; it was just fun.
MS: Very collective and cooperative?
AO: Yeah, yeah. I mean food was good. Everything was good. And we joked about that one house where we really were like a family. And it got to a point where we knew who the mother, the father, the good child, the bad child; we knew who all fit into those roles.
MS: Is that right?
AO: Yeah, and we would joke about it. And we'd have to call each other out every now and then for not living up to the responsibilities.
MS: So were the roles you think in some ways as strict as butch/femme roles?
AO: Oh no, no. But it just happened; it just happened. We fell into those categories.
MS: What role were you?
AO: I was the mother.
MS: Uhhuh.
AO: I was the mother. And Mary Ann Van Fasson was the daddy. And Barbara was the good child and Jenny was the bad child. And we'd have to sit with her and say, “You didn't do your cleaning this week. It's really a drag when the bathroom isn't clean.” But we also tried to function. We tried to be a functional household where people were considerate of each other and caring. But we did do things like we expected people to cook when they said, when their cooking night was. And we expected people to clean the task that they were supposed to clean. And we held each other to task.
MS: Did you have the feeling that you were living in a way that people hadn't lived before?
AO: Yes. There was one event, too, that I wanted to tell you about. It was the first international lesbian festival in Rhode Island, where a whole gang of us, like five carloads of women, went up there and went to it. And Kate Millet was speaking there. And this Rhode Island dance band was going to be performing and something like 300 lesbians showed up. And it was before the women's festival, women's music festival circuit began.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: And that may have been like in 1970, and a whole group of us went from Philadelphia, and we were making a new world, at least for women. And for women who had children, in trying to support women who had children and wanted to raise them by themselves or with their lovers. And yeah, we were making a new world for ourselves. I don't know if we thought we were going to have a lasting impression or if the whole world was going to change overnight.
MS: Uhhuh. But for yourselves.
AO: Yeah.
MS: Did you have the sense that there were a lot of these houses in West Philly and Germantown?
AO: There still are. Yeah, there still are. I mean you look at the ads in Tell-a-Woman, lesbian collective seeking new members.
MS: Do you think it started in the early '70s?
AO: Yeah, yeah.
MS: Cause you don't remember much of those kinds of households in the '60s?
AO: Well, maybe in the hippie movement there was, but I don't think it was as formal. I think that it just kind of happened. I mean, yeah. I mean two of my best friends and I rented the house at 13th and Rodman when I first came back from California. And we had our boyfriends staying there, and other friends staying there, and getting high together, doing acid, and that whole era, too. And I think there was some of that. I mean, sure, kids would leave home, and try to make their way, and sharing expenses was the way to do it.
MS: Right.
AO: It was much harder to have your own place, and have everything, get all your needs met by yourself on very limited income.
MS: So I guess it's sounds like for at least part of the period that we're talking about, you were sleeping with men and women. Late '60s? You said before the tape went on….
AO: Maybe mid-60s, yeah, I stopped in the mid-60s.
MS: That's when you stopped sleeping with men.
AO: Yeah.
MS: What was that all about, you think?
AO: I didn't really approve of my lesbian feelings.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: I didn't think there was a safe place for me in the gay community.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: I saw more addictions, mental cases. I didn't see gay pride before there was a gay movement.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: And low self-esteem, although I didn't know the words, I didn't know the verbal, and I still see a hell of a lot of dysfunction today. I mean I think now I can kind of understand that a lot of people come from dysfunctional backgrounds, and learning how to conquer that on our own is the challenge. But back then, I didn't know how many people were really trying for a healthy life.
MS: Did your boyfriends ever know that you were also involved with women?
AO: Yeah, well the last man I was involved with was a very sweet man, and he knew I had had lesbian relationships and I had lesbian feelings. And he still proposed to me. And I said I gotta’ get out of this. It's like no; I gotta' get out of this completely!
MS: Did you tell him that right away?
AO: Yeah, he knew my last lover had been a woman.
MS: Uhhuh.
AO: And I just pictured myself--this guy lived in the country--like I'd be barefoot and pregnant by the stove and going out of my mind.
MS: So it was not what you wanted?
AO: No, I mean he respected me because I was an artist and a craftsperson. He had known me when I had had my leather business. I had a business in Wanamaker's King of Prussia. And he really respected that I was living by my hands. Well what would it be like if I was living off of him? I mean I'd be horrible if I wasn't self-actualizing. And I think that's part of it, too, that I saw heterosexuality as a jail, that it would encase me and I wouldn't be expressive and I wouldn't be myself. I mean I had had enough experience with women, and I was just waiting for the gay movement to come about.
MS: Uhhuh. And it obliged you.
AO: And it did; and it obliged me. I wouldn't want to be in any other era in the world in history.
MS: That's an interesting thing to say.
AO: Yeah, I would not want to ever have been born in any other century or any other time.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: I know that. I mean I wouldn't have half the freedoms that I have today, like owning a home.
MS: Right.
AO: Living alone, having my own money. I mean women were sold down the river a long time ago. I mean there must have been a time when women had power in other eras. And certainly there's allusion to that, like the matriarchal cultures in Native American tribal life and things like that, where women were the heads of the clans and things. But it's a real hard place, being born a woman in most cultures, even today. I mean I was at a women's music festival last weekend and there was an Iranian woman selling her jewelry next to me. And she said she had to run away from Iran.
MS: Really.
AO: Yeah. It was Persia when she was a child.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: And it was just really horrible there. And that's not so long ago; it might have been fifteen years ago, twenty years ago. And I did travel to Europe with my involvement with Giovanni's Room. I went to a lot of countries. England, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands. The Netherlands is wonderful, but England is still very repressive. Germany a little bit better, but not for working class people. The class structures there are so obvious and so controlling. It's a little scary that we do have class structures here, too, and they're more under wraps, but there's more opportunity to not stay in the caste that you're born in.
MS: Mmhmm.
AO: But for women it's still very difficult in those countries, or it was five years ago, ten years ago.
MS: Well is there anything else you think we should cover that might be a good note to end on?
AO: Yeah.
MS: Unless there's anything else.
AO: Is there any other questions that you have?
MS: I always have a million, but none come to mind.
AO: Is there anything I didn't cover?
MS: No, I think we covered a lot of ground.
AO: O.K.
MS: Thank you.
AO: Thank you.