Digital Archive

Caroline Goldsmith

Entity type: Individual

Caroline Lerner Goldsmith (born Caroline Steinholz) was a promoter of the arts who founded influential New York arts organizations. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Jewelle Gomez

Entity type: Individual

Miki Gorman

Entity type: Individual

Lois Gould

Entity type: Individual

Katharine Graham

Entity type: Individual

Martha Graham

Entity type: Individual

Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer. Her style, the Graham technique, reshaped American dance and is still taught worldwide. Graham danced and taught for over seventy years. She was the first dancer to perform at the White House, travel abroad as a cultural ambassador, and receive the highest civilian award of the US: the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. In her lifetime she received honors ranging from the Key to the City of Paris to Japan's Imperial Order of the Precious Crown. She said, in the 1994 documentary The Dancer Revealed: "I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable." Founded in 1926 (the same year as Graham's professional dance company), the Martha Graham School is the oldest school of dance in the United States. First located in a small studio within Carnegie Hall, the school currently has two different studios in New York City. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Regina Granne

Entity type: Individual

Cassandra Grant

Entity type: Individual

Cassandra Grant is an educator, activist and a founding member of Salsa Soul Sisters, the oldest black lesbian organization in the United States. Cassandra has dedicated her life’s work to uplifting and empowering young people and community through her teaching in education reform. From her passionate and committed involvement with Salsa Soul to protesting systematic racism and racist practices of lesbians, Cassandra has fought to create and hold space for lesbian and queer women of color for decades. Her emphasis on community and respect above all else is a true inspiration and has led to younger generations of activist organizations stemming from Salsa including AALUSC [African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change].

Great Goddess Collective

Entity type: Organization

The Great Goddess Collective was made up of: Mary Albanese, Martha Alsup, Tracy Boyd, Janet Culbetson, Rosemary Dudley, Mary Beth Edelson, Gail Feinstein, Deborah Freedman, Gina Foglia, Donna Henes, Anne Healy, Buffie Johnson, Diane Levin, Grace Shinell, Merlin Stone, Carolee Thea, Susan Turner, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. The collective explored ideas surrounding the Goddess and produced creative works. 

Michela Griffo

Entity type: Individual

Michela Griffo is an artist and activist and came of age on the piers and streets of New York City in the 1950s and ‘60s. She was as an early member of the Redstockings and a founding member of Radicalesbians, Lavender Menace and the Gay Liberation Front. She was active in the Civil Rights, Women’s Rights and Gay Rights Movements, working closely with activists such as Yoruba Guzman and radical organizations such as The Young Lords. Michela risked her life with other queer and lesbian activists on the front lines of the Gay Rights Movement paving the way for younger generations to come out and live safe and productive lives. In her visual art practice Michela explores themes such as the queer and lesbian woman’s voice and desire as well as childhood trauma and addiction.

Mary Grigoriadis

Entity type: Individual

Suzanne Grossberg

Entity type: Individual

Janet Guthrie

Entity type: Individual

Dolores Hajosy

Entity type: Individual

Virginia Hamilton

Entity type: Individual

Patricia Hamilton

Entity type: Individual

Patricia Hamilton is the founder of the Hamilton Gallery of Contemporary Art in New York City, which supported mid-career women artists. She is currently an art dealer and writer based in Los Angeles.

Barbara Hammer

Entity type: Individual

Barbara Jean Hammer was an American feminist film director, producer, writer, and cinematographer. She is known for being one of the pioneers of the lesbian film genre, and her career spanned over 50 years. Hammer is known for having created experimental films dealing with women's issues such as gender roles, lesbian relationships, coping with aging, and family life. She resided in New York City and Kerhonkson, New York, and taught each summer at the European Graduate School. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Harmony Hammond

Entity type: Individual

Michelle Handelman

Entity type: Individual

Michelle Handelman is an American contemporary artist, filmmaker, and writer who works with live performance, multiscreen installation, photography and sound. Coming up through the years of the AIDS crisis and Culture Wars, Handelman has built a body of work that explores the dark and uncomfortable spaces of queer desire. She confronts the things that provoke collective fear and denial – sexuality, death, chaos. She directed the ground-breaking feature documentary on the 1990s San Francisco lesbian S/M scene BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes & Sadomasochism(1995), described by IndieWire as “a queer classic ahead of its time, a vital archive of queer history.” Her early work included 16mm black and white experimental films combined with performance. She is also known for her video installations Hustlers & Empires (2018), Irma Vep, The Last Breath (2013-2015), and Dorian, A Cinematic Perfume(2009-2011). In 2011, she was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for her film and video work. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Donna Harkavy

Entity type: Individual

Donna Harkavy is a New York-based independent curator. She received her M.A. in Art History from Hunter College and her B.A. in English from Tufts University. She began her curatorial career at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and later worked as Exhibitions Coordinator at ICI in New York. From 1990-1995 Ms. Harkavy was Curator of Contemporary Art at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts, where she founded the contemporary art program. She is currently on the Board of Trustees of the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Foster Pride, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Projects and the Raoul Hague Foundation. In addition, she serves on the Museum Advisory Board of the Munson-Williams-Procter Arts Institute Museum of Art and the Education Advisory Committee at The Jewish Museum.

Ruth Harlperin

Entity type: Individual

Ruth Levison Halperin was a significant arts patron and institutional leader whose decades of volunteer service helped shape the cultural landscape of Stanford University. As a member of the University Board of Trustees, she played a central role in the revitalization of the Stanford Museum following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, contributing to its transformation into the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts and strengthening its integration with academic life. Halperin was instrumental in advancing Stanford’s broader arts initiative, advocating for the centrality of the arts and humanities in a liberal arts education. A founding leader and longtime chair of the Cantor Arts Center’s contemporary collectors circle, she also supported the arts through major endowments in art history and curatorial practice, and through commissions such as Andy Goldsworthy’s Stone River, reflecting her lasting impact on institutional development, collections, and public engagement with the arts.

Lila Harnett

Entity type: Individual

 Lila Harnett is one of the founders of ArtTable, a national organization of professional women leaders in the visual arts. She was a former critic with CUE magazine and a member of the New York State Council on the Arts for eight years. She currently serves on the board of the Phoenix Art Museum.

Julie Harris

Entity type: Individual

Ronne Hartfield

Entity type: Individual

Ronne Hartfield is an American author, essayist, and museum-education consultant. Hartfield’s memoir, Another Way Home: The Tangled Roots of Race in One Chicago Family, examines race and identity through the story of her mother, Day Shepherd. Hartfield received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Women’s Caucus for the Arts and the Sor Juana Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts from the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. In 2001, she was the inaugural recipient of the Jessie Woods Arts Champion Award from Urban Gateways. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.