This collection is primarily comprised of speaker training materials and audience evaluations of speakers. It also contains grant applications, financial information, committee meeting minutes, workshops, resource packets, project planning papers, and the SpeakOut newsletter The Speaker. SpeakOut visited a large number of schools and other institutions in the Boston area throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. These included Brookline High School, Emerson College, Merrimack College, General Electric, Camp Atwater, Berklee College of Music, Lexington High School, Randolph High School, Stonehill College, and dozens of others. The audience was asked to fill out anonymous evaluations each time, and they were painstakingly collected and saved to improve future presentations. Training and evaluation materials which fall under a more specific category are filed with that category; for example, training for the Youth Speak Out project is filed in Series II, Projects. Evaluations of training exercises are filed within Series VI, Training.]]> ]]> Contact info@queerhistoryboston.org for more information.]]> Boston Daughters of Bilitis
Daughters of Bilitis
Focus (Boston, Mass)
Laura McMurry
Lesbianism—United States
Lesbian Activists—United States
Gay Liberation Movement— Massachusetts— Boston
Gay Rights
The Ladder]]> Related digitized materials include:

The Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) was a lesbian organization founded in 1955 in San Francisco by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon for the purpose of self-knowledge and self-acceptance, public education, involvement in research, and lobbying to change the laws criminalizing homosexuality. Starting primarily as a private social group for lesbians focused on the integration of the lesbian into mainstream society, the aims of the group shifted during the 1960s due to the changing political, social and economic conditions of the decade. The DOB took up political activism to lobby for the rights of lesbians, promoting individualism with a decreased emphasis on societal conformity. During the 1960s many regional chapters were chartered around the country and globally, continuing the organization even after the closing of the San Francisco national office in 1978.

The Boston chapter was founded in 1969 during a period when many homophile organizations were forming in Boston. Early leaders of the Boston DOB included Lois Johnson, Shari Barden, and Laura Robin/McMurry, who were prominent promoters of the group and its activities. Early on in the history of the Boston DOB, debate occurred over the group’s overall purpose, with an outcome emphasizing the original DOB mission of personal and social support for lesbians, education of the public on lesbianism, and the lobbying for the reform of laws limiting the civil and human rights of lesbians. Many younger, politically active feminist lesbians thought of the organization as old-fashioned and left to create new groups or join other, more radically activist, homophile organizations. The Boston DOB became the longest running chapter of the DOB, maintaining an office in Cambridge until the early 2000s, with 30 years of documented history present in this archive.

The Daughters of Bilitis collection consists of three archival boxes (1.5 linear feet). Box 1 contains a series of folders centered on the activities, organizational structure, and publications of the Boston chapter with some national publications, including the DOB journal, The Ladder. This collection also contains limited information about other activities of non-DOB homophile or feminist groups in the Boston area. The majority of the materials present date between 1965 and 1999, and include original documents as well as photocopies of newspaper and journal articles, event flyers, calendars, and correspondence. Boxes 2 and 3 contain the Boston DOB newsletter, originally entitled Maiden Voyage until 1971, when it was renamed FOCUS. The publication collection is arranged chronologically, beginning December 1969 and ending October 1983, with multiple issues filed together.

]]> Laura McMurry was born in Troy, New York, and grew up in Oklahoma and Idaho, before receiving her undergraduate degree at Reed College in Oregon. She moved to Boston in the mid-sixties to join Harvard’s graduate program in biology, receiving her degree in 1971. In 1969, McMurry became involved with the newly-formed Boston chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis. McMurry was active in the Daughters of Bilitis from 1971-1975, at one time serving as secretary.

Through the Daughters of Bilitis, McMurry also became involved in political action, including protesting anti-sodomy legislation. In the 1970s McMurry became involved in many Boston gay and lesbian organizations such as the Gay Speakers Bureau and the Gay Community News.

In spring of 1970, she participated in Come Help Us Celebrate, and spoke at the first Boston Pride Celebration.

]]> Focus, originally titled Maiden Voyage, in front of them.]]> ]]>