About LGBT History Project Resources
The LGBT Center of Central PA and the Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections have partnered to document the stories and history of LGBT life and activism in the greater Central Pennsylvania region. This site contains oral histories that have been recorded for the LGBT History Project, as well as fully accessible digital versions of documents, images, and artifacts that have been donated to the project.
This is a quickly growing collection, and not all items are available through this website. Please contact Malinda Triller-Doran at archives@dickinson.edu for information about how to access all of the resources of the LGBT History Project, as well as how to donate additional materials.
Generous support to make these unique resources accessible has been provided by the Schlegel Deibler Charitable Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
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Date: November 2000
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics:
Organizations:
Date: October 2000
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics:
Organizations:
Date: September 2000
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
On page 5, it is mentioned that the Lavender Letter has gotten new editors.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
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Organizations:
View Item: Lavender-Letter_2000-09.pdf
Date: July 2000
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics:
Organizations:
View Item: Lavender Letter (Harrisburg, PA) - July 2000
Date: June 2000
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics:
Organizations:
View Item: Lavender Letter (Harrisburg, PA) - June 2000
Date: May 2000
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
This issue features an advertisement for American Express Finical Advisors Seminars.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
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Organizations:
View Item: Lavender Letter (Harrisburg, PA) - May 2000
Date: March 2000
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics:
Organizations: The Pride Festival of Central PA
Date: February 2000
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics:
Organizations: Central PA Womyn's Chorus
Date: January 2000
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
This issue features a section “American Express Financial Advisors, Inc. Sponsor Seminars” where two financial planning seminars on Financial Strategies for Gay Men and Lesbians is advertised.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics:
Organizations:
Date: March 22, 2015
Peg Welch was born in December of 1951 near in Chester County, Pennsylvania to her father, a carpenter, and her mother, a candy maker. A young mother to two children, Peg did not graduate from high school, but received her GED and worked at various jobs, eventually joining Parents Without Partners where she met her second husband, Phil. With his help supporting their family, she was able to graduate from Millersville University with a degree in social work, afterwards working at Big Brothers Big Sisters, the United Way, the YWCA, and Planned Parenthood. At the YWCA, Peg met her future wife Delma, whom she lives with today in York, Pennsylvania. Peg was an active member in York Area Lambda and helped to establish the Lesbian Alliance. In this interview, Peg describes her experiences as a single mother, her involvement in activism to get LGBT ordinances passed with the York City Human Relations Commission, her three marital ceremonies with Delma, as well as her belief in the importance of women’s spaces. Today, Peg is optimistic about the evolving opinions of the younger generation towards LGBT-identified individuals.
Collection: LGBT Oral History
Topics:
Organizations: York Area LAMBDA, Lesbian Alliance
View Item: Transcription of LGBT Oral History 127: Peg Welch
Date: March 22, 2015
Delma Welch was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in Cardiff, Maryland as a Catholic with her three brothers and one sister. Delma began going to NOW [National Organization for Women] meetings in 1975 after becoming interested in feminism from an early age. After being in a relationship with a man for 23 years, she met her future wife at the YWCA and ended her marriage. Originally a stay at home mother, Delma has since held several jobs throughout her life, including her current position at the Margaret Moul Home. Today, she lives in York, Pennsylvania with her partner of 25 years, Peg Welch. In this interview, Delma discusses her involvement in many civil rights organizations and marches starting in the 70s, issues with coming out to her family, and marriage to Peg—once in Canada and once more in Pennsylvania, when gay marriage became legalized in the state. She also briefly expresses the importance of lesbian and woman-only spaces and her positive experiences dealing with the legal system as a lesbian woman in a same-sex relationship.
Collection: LGBT Oral History
Topics: Coming Out, Feminism
Organizations:
View Item: Transcription of LGBT Oral History 126: Delma Welch
Date: August 22, 2016
Jude Sharp was born in November of 1947 in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania and graduated from the Philadelphia High School for Girls. She then attended the Tyler College of Art and studied the art of making jewelry. When she was 21, Jude married her first husband and moved to Denver, Colorado, where she opened her first jewelry shop. Upon ending her relationship, Jude moved back to Lancaster where she met her first girlfriend. Jude has been working with jewelry for nearly 50 years since, and currently has her own business, J. A. Sharp Custom Jeweler. In this interview, Jude discusses the roles her relationships and artistic visions have played in her life. In her childhood, she and her family frequently moved from town to town as her father, a Methodist minister, was transferred to different churches. She speaks of a pervading feeling of ostracism that was assuaged when she came out as lesbian, finally being able to be true to herself. Jude marvels at the changes her community has seen, and laments at the continuing problems with drug and alcohol abuse that face many LGBT individuals today, relating to her own experience. She reflects upon her desire to put creativity to a good purpose and form relationships with others through the medium of crafting personalized jewelry. Additionally, Jude discusses how her own sexuality has played a role throughout the rise of her career.
Collection: LGBT Oral History
Topics:
Organizations:
View Item: Transcription of LGBT Oral History 106: Jude Sharp
Date: October 4, 2017
Barry Loveland interviews Alex Reber, now 32, who relates fascinating stories of what it was like growing up as an only child of an Evangelical Christian family raised on a farm in Bethel, a rural town between Harrisburg and Allentown and becoming an important political LGBT activist in Central PA. His accounts at camp and high school reveal the difficulty of being gay and the interesting paths towards his independence. In Lebanon Valley College he was outed and blackballed at church, being called evil and having parents refuse to help him pay tuition. A gay couple started a foundation to help gay students complete college and Alex, a gifted child who received a scholarship, graduated a semester early. His tales about finding and working with a thriving gay community in Harrisburg are enthralling. He got an internship and became friends with Dan Miller, a leader in the gay community, in Dan’s accounting firm, Miller, Dixon, Drake. He tells in detail his work over ten years with Planned Parenthood, beginning with his own experience of being treated and shamed by a physician. He discusses his romance and marriage to his husband during the exciting time when marriage became legal in Pennsylvania. It was a momentous time. He explains what it was like attending the Equality March, primaries for Obama and Clinton, and his experience at the 2016 Democratic Convention. He recounts the inside stories of the contradictions and fun of local state politics— and stories about running candidates for state office and working on committees for the Democratic Party of Pennsylvania. He is very involved at the Center, FAB, and getting LGBT people to run for office.
Collection: LGBT Oral History
Topics: Coming Out
Organizations: LGBT Center of Central PA
View Item: Transcription of LGBT Oral History 097: Alex Reber
Date: August 18, 2017
Heidi Notario was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1973, where she was attending college for biology before moving to the United States in 1995. Heidi discusses her disillusion with the ideals of communism as a factor contributing to her desire to go live with her aunt in the U.S. After arrival, she learned English while working at a daycare center before returning to college, eventually completing a Bachelors in Sociology at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA, and a graduate degree in Sociology from Lehigh University. Heidi discusses her relationship with her fifteen year old son, and what she has observed raising him as a lesbian and a single mother in Central Pennsylvania. She details her involvement as the vice-president at the LGBTQ Center of Central Pennsylvania, as well as her work on gender-based violence and Latinos at the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. Heidi touches on intimate partner violence against LGBTQ, and especially trans-identifying, people, as well as the differences in LGBTQ communities in Harrisburg, Allentown, and other larger cities.
Collection: LGBT Oral History
Topics:
Organizations:
View Item: Transcription of LGBT Oral History 087: Heidi Notario
Date: October 11, 2014
Emily Newberry was born in June of 1944 in St. Louis, Missouri, shortly thereafter moving to West Haven, Connecticut, and then Schenectady, New York, after her parents got divorced—a shameful and hidden family secret—and her dad remarried. Emily moved to the Central Pennsylvania area when she attended Dickinson College. Emily became involved in advocacy work while attending Dickinson. After graduation, she became a member of the Socialist Party and was involved with the organizations the Cleveland Draft Resistance Union and the American Communist Workers Movement, Marxist-Leninist. Working as a machinist and then as an organizational development consultant, Emily has been married three times herself, and today, lives in Portland, Oregon. In this interview, she discusses her experience repressing her transgender identity throughout her life until 2005. After coming out, Emily has faced discrimination from her workplace, insurance company, and therapists. She also discusses the importance of her women’s circles in fundraising enough money to have gender confirming surgery. Today, she continues her advocacy work as a performance poet and writer as well as attending panels regarding LGBT issues. She expresses how welcoming the Dickinson community has been during her visit back to campus.
Collection: LGBT Oral History
Topics: Transgender Experiences
Organizations:
View Item: Transcription of LGBT Oral History 086: Emily Newberry
Date: February 24, 2015
Mary Nancarrow grew up in a suburb of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in the 1950s and 1960s with divorced parents and two siblings. After graduating from Shippensburg University, she became prominent in the women’s movement and the LGBT movement in Central Pennsylvania, serving on the Governor’s Council for Sexual Minorities and the Rural Gay Caucus. Mary was also heavily involved in the National Organization for Women [NOW] and was elected NOW Pennsylvania President, working to pass marital rape legislation, funding and campaigning for political races, and fundraising money for the NOW PAC. After her presidency, she helped to plan the National March for LGBT Rights in Washington D.C. and volunteered for the Harrisburg Gay and Lesbian Switchboard. Today, Mary lives in Harrisburg and sings in the Women’s Chorus. In this interview, Mary discusses her childhood and early relationship to religion as well as her involvement with the anti-Vietnam War movement throughout high school and college. She also describes her contributions to Shippensburg Gays United, feminism within the gay rights movement, and the experience of coming out to her parents and friends. Mary concludes the interview by acknowledging the incredible extent to which the LGBT community has changed over her lifetime and expresses her hope to see ongoing growth in civil rights in the future.
Collection: LGBT Oral History
Topics: Feminism, Coming Out
Organizations: PA Governor's Council for Sexual Minorities, PA Rural Gay Caucus, National Organization for Women (N.O.W.)
View Item: Transcription of LGBT Oral History 084B: Mary Nancarrow
Date: December 1999
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics: HIV/AIDs
Organizations:
Date: November 1999
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics:
Organizations: Central PA Womyn's Chorus
Date: October 1999
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics:
Organizations: Central PA Womyn's Chorus
Date: September 1999
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics:
Organizations:
View Item: Lavender Letter (Harrisburg, PA) - September 1999
Date: August 1999
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics:
Organizations:
Date: July 1999
Created by Lorraine Kujawa, Cindy Mitzel, Mary Nancarrow, and several others in 1983, the Lavender Letter Newsletter was a calendar of events for, by, and about lesbian women to create community in the Central Pennsylvania area. The newsletter was distributed monthly until the mid-2000s.
Collection: LGBT-009 - Lavender Letter
Topics:
Organizations:
View Item: Lavender Letter (Harrisburg, PA) - July 1999
Date: March 15, 2014
Daniel (Dan) C. Miller’s colorful humor and personality were persistent throughout the interview. He shares his experiences growing up and coming out in his early 30s. His coming out experience was during his time working for Donald L. DeMuth. Specifically, homosexuality was listed as a fireable offense in his contract; the contract also contained one of the most overly broad non-compete clauses held up in a court of law. As Miller fought for the rights of the LGBT community he found himself thrust upon the public stage. Miller shares how he was fired from DeMuth and one year later faced a lawsuit on the basis of the non-compete clause; Miller countersued for wrongful termination. Miller contributes his lack of resources and knowledge of the legal system, as well as Judge Kevin Hess’s instruction to the jury, who did not want homosexuality to be a factor in the jury’s deliberation, as factors which caused him to lose the case. Despite the financial and incredible emotional cost of this case, he cites that gays around the area who had also been fired reached out to him. Dan Miller, who grew up without gay mentors or people to look to, became the hero he was looking for.
Collection: LGBT Oral History
Topics:
Organizations:
View Item: Transcription of LGBT Oral History 082: Dan Miller
Date: July 24, 2015
Daniel Maneval was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on October 3, 1947. In this interview, Daniel speaks frankly about his experiences growing up as an only child, about the homophobic violence he has experienced, and the gay organizations he has lead and participated in throughout his life. He specifically speaks on his experiences with his parent’s death and the independence he was forced to cultivate as a result. He first became involved with Susquehanna Valley Gays United and was a founding member of Homophiles of Williamsport. He also was a critical component to leading a protest against Anita Bryant, and participated in several Rural Gay Caucuses. He was forced to move out of his family home after homophobic gang-related attacks on his property, and experienced gay-bashing outside a bar in Williamsport. Daniel reflects on the differences he sees in the Williamsport LGBT community today. This interview provides an in-depth history of gay life in Williamsport from the 1950s to today.
Collection: LGBT Oral History
Topics:
Organizations: Susquehanna Valley Gays United (SVGU), Homophiles of Williamsport (HOW), PA Rural Gay Caucus
View Item: Transcription of LGBT Oral History 072B: Dan Maneval
Date: February 6, 2017
Dr. Rachel Levine was born in Wakefield, Massachusetts on October 28th, 1957. With a great sense of humor Dr. Levine discusses her interesting life. She attended Belmont Hill School, where she excelled and engaged in athletic and creative activities. She graduated from Harvard College. She then earned her medical degree from the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana. She trained from 1983-1988: three years of pediatrics, a year as chief resident, and a year doing an adolescent medicine fellowship, specializing in eating disorders and the medical care of young people with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. She was working at Mount Sinai and Lenox Hill while in practice for five more years, from 1988 to 1993. She moved from Manhattan to Central Pennsylvania in 1993, joining Penn State College of Medicine faculty at Hershey Medical Center where she was Director of Pediatrics and Adolescent medicine. She was married before getting her medical license and had a son and daughter in Hershey. She transitioned in her forties, while at Hershey, and she is grateful for their support throughout. Dr. Levine is currently the Acting Secretary of Health and Physician General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine.
Collection: LGBT Oral History
Topics: Transgender Experiences
Organizations:
View Item: Transcription of LGBT Oral History 064: Rachel Levine