LGBTQ Life in Twentieth Century Rhode Island: An Oral History Project

An initiative of Equity Action and the Swearer Center at Brown University

While, in recent years, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trangender and Queer individuals have gained greater media visibility, such representation are often stereotypical and don¹t reflect people¹s real lives. These kinds of representations also can serve to reproduce existing bias and discrimination, compounding the isolation many LGBTQ people experience. They cast generalizations that obscure the particularities of place for example, over-representing LGBTQ people as urban, affluent and white. While scholars have done much to uncover the obscured history of LGBQ people in major urban settings and at particular moments of social and political change, much less has been done to understand the everyday lives of LGBTQ people in smaller cultural contexts. At this time, there is virtually no scholarship or popular literature that reflects what it has meant to be LGBTQ in Rhode Island in the twentieth century.

Building on the important research of Equity Action's Meet the Neighbors report, we are initiating a long-term LGBTQ oral history project, focused on the experience of living in Rhode Island in the 20th century. The initiative has several parts:

… Developing an inter-generational, multi-community oral history team. … Establishing an archive of LGBTQ histories: The recordings and transcripts of this project will be assembled into an archive to be housed at the John Hay Library at Brown University. … Facilitating community events to celebrate the lives and experience of LGBTQ people: With each stage of the project comes the opportunity to create cultural events to reflect back to the community the experiences of those interviewed.
… Developing useful historical, curricular, and cultural materials for schools. … Educate the community about the work of and funding opportunities provided by Equity Action.

The initiative is being launched in the summer of 2004 by an initial research team with the following goals:

… Developing an overview of events, cultural institutions and associations, and trends in RI LGBTQ life. … Establishing consistent oral history themes / questions and doing archival research into existing materials about LGBTQ Rhode Island. … Building a training curriculum for community member who would like to be part of the oral history interviewing team. … Doing outreach to existing LGBTQ cultural, social, and service organizations and other colleges and universities to build collaborative relationships. … Completing 36 interviews and planning a Fall event to gather the community to learn about the interviews. … Establishing a training date to include more interviewers in the program for the Fall. … Identifying sources of funding for the project.

This fall we will grow the project by:

… Training a core of 12- 24 interviewers.
… Establishing a regular meeting time for the project, including the opportunity for inter-generational social time. … Completing another 30- 50 interviews. … Presenting another cultural event to present RI LGBTQ voices.

Methodologically, we will employ standard oral history techniques by audio recording and transcribing interviews. In some cases, we may do follow-up interviews with video. All people who are interviewed (narrators) will be asked to sign an informed-consent document. This document will include several levels of use including, full access, time specific and after-death use. Additionally, narrators will have the choice to have their real name used or to employ a pseudonym. Narrators will be given a chance to reconsider their consent after the interview is concluded and make any adjustments they deem necessary. If, after an interview and some consideration, a narrator wishes to withdraw consent, we will return the materials to the narrator.

For more information about the oral history project, contact Peter Hocking, Associate Dean of the College and Director of the Swearer Center at 401/863-2338 or at Peter_Hocking@Brown.edu

Equity Action is a field of interest fund at the Rhode Island Foundation and was established to advance the equitable treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) residents of Rhode Island. Its fundraising goal is to build a permanent endowment and to develop an annual grant-making fund large enough to make a difference in communities concerned with sexual orientation and gender identity. In addition, Equity Action has conducted a landmark study on the quality of LGBTQ life in RI and is embarking on other community development programs. For more information: www.rifoundation.org/equity_action/

The Swearer Center considers active community participation central to a liberal education. We believe that students -- indeed all people -- can make valuable social contributions while learning. This approach reflects the University's public trust to both prepare students for meaningful engagement in the American democracy and to support scholarship that is of service to the world. Over the past decade the Center has evolved to reflect the powerful intersection of service, learning, vital community, and social change and currently has 45 partnership initiative in the Greater Providence community. For more information: www.brown.edu/Departments/Swearer_Center/