Oral History Interview with Ellen Rifkin: Video, Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project
- Title
- Oral History Interview with Ellen Rifkin: Video, Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project
- LC Subject
- Lesbianism Lesbian community
- Local Collection ID
- Coll 520
- Repository
- University of Oregon. Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
- Interviewee
- Rifkin, Ellen
- Interviewer
- Long, Linda, 1956- Raiskin, Judith L.
- Description
- The Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project collection consists of interviews of 83 people for the Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project, conducted by Professor Judith Raiskin and Curator Linda Long at the University of Oregon starting in the summer of 2018.
- Abstract
- Ellen was born in 1947 in Brooklyn, New York City. She grew up in Danbury, Connecticut. Being Jewish was a big part of her childhood. Ellen dated boys in high school but had crushes on girls, which she only recognized later in life. She enjoyed college. She married a man, and moved with him to Santa Cruz, California, where she became a graduate student studying literature. She fell in love with a woman and, in 1978, left her marriage. She came out in 1983. Before moving to Eugene, Ellen had lived on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. Ellen discusses the move to Oregon, and her courage in coming out as a lesbian in her mid-thirties. She discusses the lesbian Jewish group, Baleboostehs, and the leadership of that group. She discusses Mother Kali’s Books, the death of Izzie Harbaugh, and the decline of the store. She talks about foster-parenting a teenager. Ellen ends her interview by discussing retirement and her desire to help undocumented people.
- Subject
- Abortion; Coming out (sexual orientation); Feminist bookstores; Foster mothers; Ironplow, Lorraine; Judaism; Lefton, Enid; Lesbian mothers – United States; Parenting; Self disclosure; Sheklow, Sally.
- Location
- University of Oregon >> Lane County >> Oregon >> United States
- Date
- 2019-09-05
- Identifier
- Coll520_do070
- Rights
- In Copyright
- Dc Rights Holder
- University of Oregon Libraries
- Local Collection Name
- Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project
- Type
- Moving Image
- Format
- video/mp4
- Set
- Eugene Lesbian Oral History Project
- Institution
- University of Oregon
