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Inaugural
Collection Event Program
Project Mission
About the Edith Daly, Women's Energy Bank
Collection
Enhancing Our Collection of Florida's Women's History and Florida's LGBT
History
Edith Daly Biography
What is Women's Energy Bank?
Inaugural
Collection Event Program
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
4pm
Grace Allen Room
4th Floor, Tampa Library
Welcome: Dr. Mark Greenberg, Director,
Tampa Library Special Collections Department
Project Background: Sara Crawley,
Assistant Professor, Women's Studies Department
Special Presentation: Edith Daly
Discussion: Developing future collections
For more information, contact Kokita Dirton-Wilson at
813-974-1198. If a reasonable accomodation is needed for disability,
please contact Kokita within five working days of the event.
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Project Mission
Special Collections of the
University of South Florida Libraries seeks to preserve records relating to
the history of issues of gender and sexuality in Florida, especially the
history of women, gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered persons.
The records of these communities, often neglected by traditional historical
associations, threatens to disappear if an effort is not made to preserve
them.
Although the scholarly fields of women’s studies, feminist studies, queer
theory, and LGBT history have had a profound impact on disciplines
throughout academia, the future of such scholarship will depend upon the
collection and preservation of materials related to issues of gender and
sexuality. Once established, these collections will be of significant
research value to scholars in queer studies, women’s studies, LGBT history,
Florida studies, and feminist scholars of all disciplines.
These initiatives seek to collect and preserve a diverse array of materials
documenting the history of these communities, including personal papers,
dairies, organizational records, photographs, and memorabilia. Specialized
publications serving women or LGBT communities that are not generally
collected by libraries are of particular interest. Although potentially
encompassing materials from communities throughout the state of Florida, the
initiatives will focus their collection efforts on communities within the
seven county region surrounding Tampa Bay—Hillsborough, Pinellas, Citrus,
Hernando, Polk, and Sarasota counties.
To enhance the use and value of these collections, these initiatives plan to
support graduate research, co-sponsor public programs, and conduct oral
history interviews.
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Enhancing Our Collection of Florida's Women's History and Florida's LGBT
History
 One
of the objectives of Special Collections is to acquire and make accessible
materials of enduring research value. In a community as diverse as the
Tampa Bay area, the Special Collections Department understands that its
collections must mirror this diversity in order to meet the varied research
interests of USF faculty and students.
To this
end, Sara Crawley, an Assistant Professor for Women’s Studies, and several
of her colleagues, including historian David Johnson, assisted the Library
grow its women’s studies and LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender)
collections. The result of this initial effort is the receipt of the
inaugural collection, “The Edith Daly Women’s Energy Bank Collection. “I am
delighted that the USF Tampa Library Special Collections has accepted this
valuable set of Women’s Energy Bank’s publication of Womyn’s Words,”
writes Edith. “This is the first in what I hope will be a sizable
collection of historical Lesbian articles to be used by the students and
other researchers in the future. Lesbian voices have been silenced for too
long in the past and this University’s willingness to make these original
materials available marks a milestone in documenting our herstory and
recording our contributions to our communities.”
Daly
is one of the cofounders of Women's Energy Bank which publishes
Womyn's
Words, a publication for the St. Petersburg
and Tampa Bay Area that focuses on interests, issues, and concerns of women.
Discussions led us to believe that the donation of the Womyn’s Words
Collection offer USF the opportunity to explore rich research materials
pertaining to the interests of women.
The
roots of Daly’s collection began with the Women’s Energy Bank. Edith Daly
and her partner started the Women’s Energy Bank in 1982 as a place to make
friends, as well as promote feminism. At the time, there wasn’t much
feminist activity in the bay area, and Daly thought that it was time to
change that. Daly and her partner began holding monthly sessions labeled
“Salons” where they invited speakers, held concerts, and went bowling. They
made it a point to push for peace and equal rights. Soon, the number of
attendees rose to 100. They began drafting mission statements, formed a
bulletin board, and offered services to each other. This all led to the
beginning of a monthly newsletter. And so began “Womyn’s Words,” and
the mailing list quickly doubled in size.
The idea that this
collection could definitely result in being bigger than anticipated, led us
to create initiatives to prepare for these changes. Conversations began to
grow into something larger, and would eventually result in the collection of
LGBT and Women’s History in Florida and the Tampa Bay area.
To help prepare for this
collection and its vision for the future of our library’s Special Collection
department, two initiatives were developed. One is the Florida LGBT History
Initiative. The other is the Florida Women’s History Initiative. The goals
of these two initiatives are to work in the community to solicit and to
except collections of enduring research value pertaining to these two
topics. The collections could be in the form of newsletters, photographs,
correspondence, memoirs, journals, organizational records, and magazines
that illuminate history of women and the LGBT community.
The
Library will also be seeking additional support within the community. With
this, we hope to help preserve and provide access to our patrons. The
financial proceeds will go toward archival processing work, maintaining
supplies, digitization, and web site development. An event held on April 18th
will
publicly announced these initiatives and the donation of “The Edith Daly
Women’s Energy Bank Collection.”
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Edith Daly Biography
Edie
Daly is 69, an Old Lesbian Feminist. She arrived at her activism by way of
her coming out in 1974. In 1981 she moved back to Florida, her home state,
opened a women’s bookstore on Madeira Beach and within a year co-founded a
Lesbian Feminist Organization called Women’s Energy Bank (WEB), which for 24 years
has been holding monthly Salon’s for women. WEB also produces a monthly
Feminist publication, Womyn’s Words.
In addition to membership
in WEB, she is a member of OLOC (Old Lesbians
Organizing for Change), Women in Black, a world wide organization of women
standing for peaceful and non-violent conflict resolution, and SONG
(Southerners on New Ground) an organization whose purpose is to build a
progressive movement across the south by developing models of organizing
that connect the oppressions due to race, class, culture, gender, age and
sexual identity. Her activism
toward peace in the world has taken her to Bosnia, during the war and in
1995 on the Peace Train across Europe and Asia to Beijing for the 4th
International Women’s Conference.
Edie is
a senior waiver student at USF in the Women’s Studies Department, and
serves on the Women’s Studies Advisory Board. She has raised three sons and is
a retired intensive care nurse. She and her life partner, Jackie Mirkin,
had a civil union in Vermont in 2000. They live and work for peace and
justice in Gulfport and around the world.
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What is Women’s Energy Bank?
A
young woman struggles to check a book out of the public library. The title
is “Lesbian Nuns Breaking Silence.” The librarian looks at the title, looks
at the young woman, looks back and stamps the due date and mutters something
in disgust. The young woman is shy and withdrawn. It takes a lot of
courage for her to get through these few moments. But she has to know
something about lesbians and that need to know drives her beyond the shyness
and the librarian’s looks of disapproval. Many years later, she finds other
lesbians through Salon.
A
married woman, mother of a young son, wonders what it would be like to love
another woman. She is hesitant but pursues making friends with a masseuse
whom she knows to be a lesbian. They make appointments for massage. Every
time they come together the lesbian brings her another book from the growing
WEB library. After reading about lesbian issues for years, eventually she
gets up the courage to come to Salon.
Another woman, who is quiet and very shy, picks up a copy of Womyn’s Words
and reads about the lesbian weekly bowling. She goes to the bowling alley
to watch them from a distance. Soon, after four or five weeks, she gets up the
courage to join them and introduces herself and becomes an avid bowler.
A
woman in a wheel chair hears about the Salon and wants to come but is unsure
if Salon is accessible. She comes and finds out she cannot get into the
bathrooms. She is instrumental in helping us raise the money to remodel one
of the bathrooms and make it accessible to all.
A
young woman, 17, hears about a woman’s dance. She gets her father to bring
her as she does not drive. He brings her and sits outside in his truck
until the dance is over and drives her home. She is so shy that she will
not dance but is happy just to watch and talk with some of the women there.
Her dad brings her to Salon, every month for a year.
A
lesbian couple moves here from the north. One of them is a sign language
interpreter. The other is herself deaf. They teach us sign language and
raise our consciousness around accessibility to this part of our community
that wants to be included.
Two
women come to Salon to enjoy the evening’s friendship with other women.
They meet each other and strike up a conversation and say good night at the
end of the evening. One of the women can’t get the other out of her mind
and comes back the next month to see if her dream woman has returned. Not
finding her she asks around to see if someone knows her telephone number.
She obtains it and calls her inviting her to get together. They have now
celebrated almost three years as a happy couple.
Individual stories; connected lives! All are stories of women who have found
a place in our community through Salon gatherings over the last 22 years.
A
lesbian couple retires to FL from New York State. One is returning to her
hometown, the other wants to be where it is warm. There is no community
here in 1981, only a loose knit group of staunch NOW members. The couple
desperately wants to meet other lesbians for fun and camaraderie. They go
to the gay bar but who can hear over the loud music and TV? There is an
empty little storefront next door to the bar. They decide to open a women’s
book store. They are somewhat apprehensive as this is a radical act. They
name the bookstore “The Well of Happiness.” They know that this is
code for other lesbians to find them. They go to a Margi Adam Concert
sponsored by NOW and hand out announcement bookmarks to the women waiting in
line. The word gets around. Soon they know about 150 women.
The couple invites these customers to a gathering. Fifty women show up for the first night all of them
are eager to meet other lesbians. That first Salon was October 1, 1982. We
have been meeting monthly since that time. (In the late 80’s we met twice a
month.)
The
women formed a collective within that first year and began publishing
Womyn’s Words. This publication has never missed a month since that first
edition.
Over the years we have learned together about consensus decision making,
non-violent conflict resolution and feminist process.
We
have had program Salons on body image, fat oppression, ageism, sexism,
racism, classism, homophobia, tax tips, financial planning, carpentry, and
plumbing workshops, computer skills and technology, alcohol and other
addictions, relationship challenges, ballot measures, Tai Chi, martial arts,
self defense, yoga, psychic healing skills, women’s spirituality, kinship
with animals, veterinary acupuncture, women and AIDS, Women in Law, women in
art and theater, herstorical women, goddesses and BDSM.
We
have considered the subjects of lesbian health, breast cancer, safe sex, sex
toys, sexuality, menopause, artificial insemination and adoption,
osteopathy, neurolinguistic programming, acupuncture, posture, reiki, magic,
and lesbian passion.
We
have enjoyed pot luck dinners, ice cream socials, poetry readings, lesbian
erotica, guided meditations, women’s quilting, women’s performance night
with music and art, and various fashion shows.
We
have played games together such as bunco, Dyke-o (better than Bingo), and
have had Mix and Matchmaker discussion groups.
We
have had full moon and drumming circles in nature, under the stars, and a
coffee house at the Globe.
We
have discovered more about ourselves through journal writing, astrology,
handwriting analysis, numerology, tarot, feminist therapies, dream analysis,
exploring the inner landscape, past life regression and investigating
multiple personalities.
We
have traveled together to the Michigan Women’s Music Festival; camped out,
gone on swamp walks and canoe and kayak trips together.
We
have explored the feminist approach to co-dependence, domestic violence,
patriarchy, feminist books, issues of peace, talking across race, polyamory,
love, death, bisexuality, the butch femme dynamic and transgender women. We
have discussed editorial policies and censorship issues.
We
have told each other our coming out stories and listened to professional
storytellers and Chautauquans, Old Dykes and women veterans with rapt
attention.
We
have had study groups on metaphysical themes and Lesbian ethics, where we
talked about everything from money issues to how to talk to your girlfriend
about sex.
We
have had slideshow presentations of women around the world. Lesbians gave
us information about women from Mexico, Costa Rica, Kuwait, Bosnia, Holland,
and Australia.
We
have seen videos made by women videographers; seen intimate pictures by
photographers JEB, visual slide show presentations from the Lesbian Herstory
Archives, Cheryl Claassen, and Willow la Monte, and been read to by women
authors like Diane Bogus.
We
have acted in plays, sung and danced with and for each other and have been
entertained and challenged to think outside the box by nationally known
Lesbians like: Alix Dobkin, Kay Gardner, Neuru, and Musica Femina, June Millington, Carolyn Gage, our own local
women’s choruses Crescendo, and Phoenix, and singer/songwriters, Marion
Head, Leslie Killie, Lisa Cohen, and Women on the Edge.
We
have been activists and participated in marches and national actions such as
Gay Pride (both at home and in Washington DC), Grandmothers, Mothers, and
Daughters for Peace, Seneca Women’s Peace Entertainment, Take back Liberty,
Take back the night, and stood with Women in Black against war and violence.
We
have attended Women’s Retreats hosted by SONG (Southerners On New Ground)
exploring the connections of oppression between race, class, gender, age,
ethnicity, and sexual orientation.
We
have held auctions to raise funds to aid our sisters in need. We have
gathered gifts to give women in shelters and have helped individual women
through our women to women fund and assisted pets through our female to
feline fund.
Every year we celebrate our anniversary with a birthday party and have
honored over 67 women in our community who have done wonderful things to
help other women. Through those that we have met at Salon, many of us have
made lifelong friends, casual acquaintances, love affairs, and some have
created permanent partnerships.
We
have made Salon a special place for women. The topic for September 24, 2004,
Salon will be “Salon is what you make it”. Do you have a skill to share or a
talent to offer or a topic you would like to discuss for future salon
programs? Come and bring your ideas and the names and numbers of those whom
you think might like to facilitate a discussion.
Do
you have a story about your experience at Salon or with Womyn’s Words? Write
to Womyn’s Words or call 381-1766 if you would like to tell us. We would
love to hear it here.
Written: June 28, 2004 by Edie Daly
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