One’s Own Kind: A Search for Identity

The Marge McDonald collection, as part of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, is a comprehensive account of working-class lesbian life in the Midwest during the 1950s. Along with numerous pulp novels and first-edition books by lesbian authors, the collection most notably contains Marge’s original writings and typed diary. These are unique contributions from a post-war and pre-Stonewall period that is less widely understood, yet critical to the gay liberation efforts that later emerged. Spanning from 1955 to 1957, Marge’s diary provides a firsthand record of her experiences in lesbian bars, as well as the dynamics between the butch and femme lesbians that frequented them. Butch-femme roles were a distinct aspect of working-class lesbian relationships, and they were an arguable source of evidence to the twentieth-century rise of sexuality being a central part of the self. As Marge boldly shared her struggles with isolation and identity, she also revealed a quiet perseverance on her path to an authentic life.

Marguerite “Marge” McDonald (1931 - 1986) was born in Columbus, Ohio and later relocated to Syracuse, New York where she was a writer and collector. Growing up in a religious household, she suffered from intense fear and shame about coming out to her family (Murray 26). Despite this, Marge followed her instincts to become an ardent amasser of books, albums, and lesbian ephemera. She was also a poet who discerned the need for self-archiving her own writing. Understanding the value of her collections, she bequeathed them to LHA in effort to preserve and protect that history.

Marge’s donation was a posthumous means for her to publicly identify as a lesbian, but her family’s shock and uncertainty in how to handle her materials posed a risk to their survival. Towards the end of her life, Marge sent her belongings back to her family in Ohio. This complicated the transfer to the archives, but thanks to one of Marge’s friends who notified LHA of her passing, an attempt was made to quickly retrieve the documents. Two local graduate students were able to assist in retrieving as much of Marge’s collections as possible in a single day. This included hundreds of books and albums, some photographs, various records, and a box of Marge’s writing that contained her diary (Lesbian Herstory Archives, 2). Not all of the donated items were found and recovered, but the materials that were saved comprise a substantial collection.

Fig. 1 is an excerpt from Marge’s diary. Having the foresight to identify the historical significance within her own words, she selected key passages from her hand-written diary to be typed and preserved for future readers. Her writing is succinct yet powerful in its ability to convey concurrent themes in navigating a lesbian lifestyle. This particular selection exposes the tension between loneliness and desire as Marge describes the challenge and thrill of finding other lesbians. She drives alone at night and searches the white pages for potential lesbian bars. After she finally makes lesbian acquaintances, she goes on to explain the difficulty in understanding the nuances between butches and femmes. From page six of the manuscript she writes, “She was so much wiser than I about such things tho and began to break away as she realized I was butch, I, of course, didn’t realize what was going on and felt very badly about it all.” This distinction between butch and femme was necessary, not as a reductive replication of heterosexual gender roles, but as a means to fulfill sexual desire within working-class lesbian communities (Kennedy and Davis 7). The act of making this desire more public, even within the underground lesbian bar scene, was rebellious in the way that it advanced lesbian visibility. As queer history often focuses on narratives of wealthy individuals, this kind of recognition is needed to better understand class as a catalyst in the gay liberation movement.

Finding one’s own kind was essential in developing a lesbian sexual identity. Marge documented her first moments in a lesbian bar and her overwhelming feelings of uncertainty, but she knew she was in the right place when she saw a group of women wearing men’s clothing. In another diary entry, Marge recounted the experience as “stealing glances at a boyish-looking girl behind the bar in slacks and a man’s shirt.” (Lesbian Herstory Archives 3). Clothing was integral to signaling butch and femme roles. Hair length and cut was also important. Butches wore their hair short over their ears, while femmes kept their hair in a longer, more traditionally feminine fashion. Because femmes could more easily blend into the dominant culture, butch style became a significant visual representation of lesbian identity (Geczy and Karaminas 42). The subversive element of these sartorial choices was another way in which lesbians took serious risks in seeking out love, sex, and community.

The second image is a photograph of Marge as a young woman (see Fig. 2). Her slight smile suggests a knowing expression, as if the ambivalence about her sexuality was caught on film. As noted in her diary, Marge was aware that she presented as femme, but she later realized that she more strongly identified as butch. Here she looks feminine. The front dip of her neckline reveals her delicate jewelry, and the thin band around her wrist accents the gentle pose of her hands clasped on top of her skirt. Even though it is difficult to tell if her hair is pulled back or cropped short, it still suggests femininity as it is paired with her cat eye frames and rouged lips.

The second portrait of the woman smoking, as seen in Fig. 3, can be identified as Marge based on her short silver hair, the square tortoiseshell glasses, and a cigarette hanging loosely on one side of her mouth. “I like to smoke, wear slacks, drink, and had my hair cut very short,” wrote Marge in another section of her diary (Nestle 126). These kinds of mannerisms, along with the clothes, were key in crafting a butch image. The way that she casually sits near her Gertrude Stein collection and lifts a single volume is effortlessly cool and decidedly not feminine. Her shirt has a light floral pattern, but it is offset by the wide lapels and buttons without decoration. In her diary, Marge explained how certain articles of clothing affirmed her butch identity, and she noted feeling “very butch” in one of her favorite corduroy jackets (Murray 39). This photo also exhibits how Marge’s style changed over time, moving away from the feminine to a more subtly masculine manner and dress.

Marge was an apt observer that was determined to live a lesbian life. In writing about her personal experiences, she documented crucial moments that illuminate a convergence of sexuality, identity, and class. These selected images offer visual representations of her valuable collection and the influence of working-class lesbians within queer history.

References:

Geczy, Adam, and Vicki Karaminas. Queer Style. London, England : Bloomsbury; London, England : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018.
Kennedy, Elizabeth L., and Madeline D. Davis. Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold : The History of a Lesbian Community. New York : Routledge, New York, 1993.
Lesbian Herstory Archives. “Friends in Ohio Assist in Rescue of Materials.” Lesbian Herstory Archives Newsletter #10 (Feb. 1988). 2.
Lesbian Herstory Archives. “The Way We Were: Marge McDonald’s Diary Entry Describes Her First Visit to a Lesbian Bar -- Columbus, Ohio -- 3/31/55.” Lesbian Herstory Archives Newsletters #10 (Feb. 1988) 3.
Murray, Heather. Not in this Family: Gays and the Family of Origin in North America, 1945–1990s, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2006.
Nestle, Joan. The Persistent Desire : A Femme-Butch Reader. Boston : Alyson Publications, Boston, 1992.