Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves. Researchers must use reference copies of audio-visual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis, as resources allow.
Do not use original materials when available on reference video or audio tapes.
Series Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Series Citation:
Archives Center Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Joan E. Biren (JEB) is an internationally recognized photographer and documentary artist. She assembled this collection as her Queer Film Museum. It consists of a variety of materials about and associated with queer films, both foreign and domestic.
Scope and Contents:
The collection contains material relating to lesbian-oriented motion pictures. The bulk of the collection consists of ephemera and film posters from theatrical releases in the United States. The collection also contains catalogues from video houses, film festivals, posters, and other material collected by Biren from on-line auction sites. Some of the items have Biren's annotations written within them. The collection contains material associated with United States releases and foreign releases. Production dates are year of first release. An oral history about the collection was conducted by intern Erin Walsh in 2019.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into two series.
Series 1: Posters and Ephemera, 1931-2010, undated
Series 2, Film Festival Programs, Queer Film Museum Files, and Related Material, 1975-2019, undated
Biographical / Historical:
Joan E. Biren (1944-), also known professionally as JEB, is an internationally recognized lesbian photographer and documentary artist. She grew up in Washington, D.C. graduating from Mount Holyoke College in 1966. She later pursued graduate study at Oxford University and the American University. Biren was a vocal and out lesbian joining the women's liberation in the late 1960s and the lesbian movement in the early 1970s. A member of the Furies, she was an associate of authors Rita Mae Brown and Charlotte Bunch
Biren became known for her photographic documentation of late 20th century lesbian culture. Biren published two collections of her photography: Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians (1979) and Making a Way: Lesbians Out Front (1987). Biren pursued filmmaking in the 1990s through her company Moonforce Media, Inc. She produced and directed the documentaries, For Love and For Life (1990) about the 1987 March on Washington and A Simple Matter of Justice (1993), about the April 1993 March on Washington. She is the creator (writer, director, and producer) of the award-winning film, No Secret Anymore: The Times of Del Martin & Phyllis Lyon (2003) on two pioneers of the LGBT movement.
Over many years she assembled a collection of ephemera and materials relating to queer film. One of the accepted definitions of the word queer is, "Of or relating to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, or transgendered people". "Queer film" may be defined as any film or televised entertainment that has as a part of its subject matter or story line anything having to do with or pertinent to homosexuality (male or female), bisexuality, or transgendered people. Biren named her collection the Queer Film Museum and it was displayed in her home. The sign she created and hung on the basement door leading downstairs to the display of her collection (and coincidentally her laundry room) was meant to be ironic and read, "JEB's Queer Film Museum, Dirty Pictures & Clean Laundry". Biren amassed her collection, mostly by purchase, over the course of many years.
Some of the titles in the collection classified as "queer" were not specifically produced with the homosexual audience in mind but have come to be identified with homosexual culture, Greta Garbo's 1931 film Queen Christina for instance.
Related Materials:
Materials in the Archives Center
Archives Center Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Collection (NMAH.AC.1146) contains an addendum of material donated by Biren in 2011.
Materials at Other Organizations
Collections of Joan E. Biren's personal and professional papers are located at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.
Provenance:
Donated to the Archives Center in 2010 by Joan E. Biren.
Restrictions:
Collection open for research on site by appointment. Unprotected photographs must be handled with gloves.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; acquisition made possible through the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center
Text on yellow paper. Advertises SALGA benefit at the Cooler, with "star studded drag performances."
Local Numbers:
AC1146-0000073.tif (AC Scan No.)
Series Restrictions:
The collection is open for research use.
Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves. Researchers must use reference copies of audio-visual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis, as resources allow.
Do not use original materials when available on reference video or audio tapes.
Series Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Archives Center Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves. Researchers must use reference copies of audio-visual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis, as resources allow.
Do not use original materials when available on reference video or audio tapes.
Series Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Series Citation:
Archives Center Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves. Researchers must use reference copies of audio-visual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis, as resources allow.
Do not use original materials when available on reference video or audio tapes.
Series Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Series Citation:
Archives Center Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Researchers must handle unprotected photographs with gloves. Researchers must use reference copies of audio-visual materials. When no reference copy exists, the Archives Center staff will produce reference copies on an "as needed" basis, as resources allow.
Do not use original materials when available on reference video or audio tapes.
Series Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Series Citation:
Archives Center Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Gloria Katz and Willard M. Huyck Jr. collection Search this
Credit Line:
Purchase and partial gift from the Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck Collection — Acquisition fund in honor of Julian Raby, director emeritus of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
The collection documents a working class "gay" bar, the Shamrock Bar, Bluefield, West Virginia, 1997-2000, through photographs and oral history interviews.
Scope and Contents:
The collection consists of Carol Burch-Brown's photographs (200 photoprints, mostly silver gelatin on fiber-base paper, but including more than a dozen digital prints), copies of tape-recorded interviews (on 26 compact discs), and transcripts of interviews (3 volumes plus a compact disc containing Word files) made at the Shamrock Bar, Bluefield, West Virginia, 1997-2002, documenting a working-class gay bar. The photographs include "drag" performances, pageants, and other activities at the bar. Many show performers applying makeup and donning costumes, including the use of prosthetic breasts. Pictures taken in the bar are often in a soft-focus, slightly blurred, high-contrast, impressionistic style. There are a number of sharp-focus portraits, however, and exterior views of the building, its neighborhood, and the town are sharply focused, detailed documentary images.
Names (usually pseudonyms or stage names) which turn up in the interviews include: Natasha Michaels, Nikki Eaves, Shea West, Cortney Collins, Taylor Made, India Dream, Clinton, Tiffany Aver, Terba Devero, Roxie Morehead, and Dorothy. The performer "Bunny" is actually the photographer's friend and colleague, Ann Kilkelly. Many of these persons are also shown in the photographs, as is Helen Compton.
Note: The audio compact disks are not original recordings, and may be played by researchers directly.
Arrangement:
The collection is divided into three series.
Series 1: Photoprints
Series 2: Text (including transcripts of interviews)
Series 3: Compact discs
Biography:
Carol Burch-Brown is Professor of Art and Humanities at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, and is a photographer, painter, and musician. Photographer and co-author with David Rigsbee, Trailers, University Press of Virginia, 1996.
Historical:
During its heyday, the Shamrock Bar in Bluefield, West Virginia was a gathering place for gays and lesbians. The photographer reported in March 2003, before donating this collection, that Miss Helen Compton, proprietor of the Shamrock, had died and the establishment had been closed.
Other Title:
It's Reigning Queens in Appalachia
Provenance:
Colection donated by Carol Burch-Brown, December 2003.
Restrictions:
Collection open for research on site by appointment. Unprotected photographs must be handled with gloves.
Rights:
Reproduction restricted due to copyright. Requests will be referred to the photographer.
The Shamrock Bar: Photographs and Interviews by Carol Burch-Brown, 1997-2003, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. Gift of the artist.
