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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Buffalo Women's Oral History Project, 1978-1990
Description
An account of the resource
Part-ethnography and part-history, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy is an intimate history of a lesbian community in Buffalo, New York. It combines the ethnographic method of a rigorous study of a single community’s culture and identity, along with the historian’s urge to analyze the specific forces that shape these communities over time. In terms of primary sources, this historical analysis relied on the Buffalo Women’s Oral History Project. This extensive oral history project began in 1978 and extended through the next 13 years. Interview subjects were working-class lesbian women from Buffalo, New York who described their experiences during the period from the mid-1930s to the early 1960s.
These recordings of interviews with working-class lesbians are rich with wisdom, insight and emotion. Interviews discuss a wide range of topics including butch/femme roles, gendered sexuality, relationships, family dynamics, the bar scene, religion, realization of homosexuality, coming out, lesbian mothers, oppression, police brutality, race, gay rights movements, women in the military, youth, and identity. They offer dynamic first-person perspectives of the place and time before the emergence of the gay and lesbian liberation movements. From these stories surface the personal struggles and triumphs of the lesbian community during an intensely oppressive time.
These interviews were donated to the archives by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy and were subsequently digitized by students from the Pratt Institute, Projects in Digital Archives class, LIS-665.
Sound
A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Shane, undated (Tape 2)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Breaking the law, Lesbians--New York (State)--Buffalo--History--20th century, Lesbian teenagers, Butch and Femme, Jail
Description
An account of the resource
Shane talks about running away from home with two girls after her father forced her to leave home. She then lived as a man in New Orleans under an assumed identity. She was arrested and held for 72 hours on suspicion of robbery. She recalls the people she met during her stay in jail.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Shane (Interviewee)
Unknown (Interviewer)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
SPW527_SHANE_A
SPW527_SHANE_B
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1979, December 31
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
Digitized 2012, September
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="/omeka/rights-statement" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> See the LHA Copyright Statement </a>
Relation
A related resource
Tape 2 of a 3 tape series. Preceded by SPW526. Followed by SPW528.
Is Referenced By
A related resource that references, cites, or otherwise points to the described resource.
Kennedy, E. L. & Davis, M. D. (1993). Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York: Routledge
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Original= Cassette Tape
WAV
MP3
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
Side A = 17:08 minutes
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Digital reproduction of audio cassette.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Oral History Interview
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPW527
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Buffalo, NY, New Orleans, LA
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Lesbian Herstory Archives, Contact Designation: Maxine Wolfe, Contact Address: 484 14th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215, Phone Number: 718-768-3953
Butch and Femme
Drag
Identity
Oral History
Parents
Prison
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Buffalo Women's Oral History Project, 1978-1990
Description
An account of the resource
Part-ethnography and part-history, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy is an intimate history of a lesbian community in Buffalo, New York. It combines the ethnographic method of a rigorous study of a single community’s culture and identity, along with the historian’s urge to analyze the specific forces that shape these communities over time. In terms of primary sources, this historical analysis relied on the Buffalo Women’s Oral History Project. This extensive oral history project began in 1978 and extended through the next 13 years. Interview subjects were working-class lesbian women from Buffalo, New York who described their experiences during the period from the mid-1930s to the early 1960s.
These recordings of interviews with working-class lesbians are rich with wisdom, insight and emotion. Interviews discuss a wide range of topics including butch/femme roles, gendered sexuality, relationships, family dynamics, the bar scene, religion, realization of homosexuality, coming out, lesbian mothers, oppression, police brutality, race, gay rights movements, women in the military, youth, and identity. They offer dynamic first-person perspectives of the place and time before the emergence of the gay and lesbian liberation movements. From these stories surface the personal struggles and triumphs of the lesbian community during an intensely oppressive time.
These interviews were donated to the archives by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy and were subsequently digitized by students from the Pratt Institute, Projects in Digital Archives class, LIS-665.
Sound
A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Shane, undated (Tape 1)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Breaking the law, Family, Gay bars, Hustlers (Prostitutes), Lesbian bars, Lesbian high school students, Lesbian teenagers, Lesbians--Italian American, Lesbians--New York (State)--Buffalo--History--20th century, Pittsburgh (Pa.), Secrets--Family
Description
An account of the resource
Shane talks about getting into trouble during her teenage years and how her father kept sending her to all-girls schools thinking it would straighten her out. She speaks about gay bars in Buffalo and Pittsburgh. She tells a story about running away from home to pursue a relationship, ending up involved with hustlers and begging her father to help her stay out of jail. She talks about moving back to Buffalo, getting a job, and how things have changed.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Shane (Interviewee)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
SPW526_SHANE_A
SPW526_SHANE_B
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
Digitized 2012, September
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="/omeka/rights-statement" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> See the LHA Copyright Statement </a>
Relation
A related resource
Tape 1 of a 3 tape series. Followed by SPW527 and SPW528..
Is Referenced By
A related resource that references, cites, or otherwise points to the described resource.
Kennedy, E. L. & Davis, M. D. (1993). Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York: Routledge
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Original= Cassette Tape
WAV
MP3
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
Side A = 30:21 minutes
Side B = 20:31minutes
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Digital reproduction of audio cassette.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Oral History Interview
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPW526
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Buffalo, NY, Pittsburgh, PA, New Orleans, LA
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Lesbian Herstory Archives, Contact Designation: Maxine Wolfe, Contact Address: 484 14th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215, Phone Number: 718-768-3953
Atheism
Bars
Education
Families
Fathers
Friendship
Lesbians
Mothers
Oral History
Parents
Relationships
Religion
Sex Work & Sex Workers
Work
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Buffalo Women's Oral History Project, 1978-1990
Description
An account of the resource
Part-ethnography and part-history, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy is an intimate history of a lesbian community in Buffalo, New York. It combines the ethnographic method of a rigorous study of a single community’s culture and identity, along with the historian’s urge to analyze the specific forces that shape these communities over time. In terms of primary sources, this historical analysis relied on the Buffalo Women’s Oral History Project. This extensive oral history project began in 1978 and extended through the next 13 years. Interview subjects were working-class lesbian women from Buffalo, New York who described their experiences during the period from the mid-1930s to the early 1960s.
These recordings of interviews with working-class lesbians are rich with wisdom, insight and emotion. Interviews discuss a wide range of topics including butch/femme roles, gendered sexuality, relationships, family dynamics, the bar scene, religion, realization of homosexuality, coming out, lesbian mothers, oppression, police brutality, race, gay rights movements, women in the military, youth, and identity. They offer dynamic first-person perspectives of the place and time before the emergence of the gay and lesbian liberation movements. From these stories surface the personal struggles and triumphs of the lesbian community during an intensely oppressive time.
These interviews were donated to the archives by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy and were subsequently digitized by students from the Pratt Institute, Projects in Digital Archives class, LIS-665.
Sound
A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Marge, June 4, 1980
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lesbian bars, Gay bars, Lesbian community--New York (State)--New York, Lesbian bars, Lesbians--United States--Identity, Lesbians--United States--Interviews, Lesbian community--United States--History, Oral history interview, Bartenders--New York (State)--New York--Biography, Lesbian Herstory Archives
Description
An account of the resource
Marge speaks of the bars in Buffalo, NY in the 1950s, specifically Bingo's, Chesterfield, Dugan's, Mardi Gras, and Carousel, which had more of an established lesbian clientele. She tells how Carousel changed from a lesbian to gay crowd in the late 1950s and eventually closed because of allowing "careless" behavior. She felt patrons of gay bars in the 1950s were more respectful than at the time of the interview in 1980. Marge was arrested for serving a minor female, which she felt was an attempt to close the bar where she worked. The tape cuts off at the end of the second side.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Marge (Interviewee)
Aubra (Interviewer)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
SPW492_MARGE_A
SPW492_MARGE_B
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1980, June 4
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
Digitized 2012, September
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="/omeka/rights-statement" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> See the LHA Copyright Statement </a>
Is Referenced By
A related resource that references, cites, or otherwise points to the described resource.
Kennedy, E. L. & Davis, M. D. (1993). Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York: Routledge
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Original= Cassette Tape
WAV
MP3
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
Side A = 30:42 minutes
Side B = 30:44 minutes
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Digital reproduction of audio cassette.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Oral History Interview
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPW492
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Buffalo, NY
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1950-1980
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Lesbian Herstory Archives, Contact Designation: Maxine Wolfe, Contact Address: 484 14th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215, Phone Number: 718-768-3953
Bars
Oral History
Police
Prison
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mabel Hampton Oral History Collection, 1976-1989
Description
An account of the resource
Mabel Hampton (1902-1989) was an African-American lesbian, an activist, a domestic worker, and a dancer. Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she lost her mother when she was only two years old. For the next five years, Mabel was raised by her maternal grandmother, but she too passed away. In 1909, she moved to Greenwich Village in New York City at age seven. Less than a year after moving in with her aunt, Mabel was raped by her uncle, a minister. She ran away to New Jersey, buying a bus ticket purchased with a nickel given to her by a woman on the street. Luckily, Mabel was taken in by a family that cared for her for the next several years.
As a young woman, Mabel gravitated toward the lively scene in Harlem. In 1920, when she was seventeen, Mabel was wrongfully arrested during a prostitution sting and sentenced to time in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. Upon her release, she danced at clubs like "The Garden of Joy", sang as a member of the Lafayette Theater Chorus, and performed with Harlem Renaissance stars such as Gladys Bentley. Mabel engaged in several relationships with women and lived openly as a lesbian.
In 1932, Mabel met Lillian Foster, who would be her partner until Lillian's death in 1978. With the Harlem Renaissance waning, Mabel sought out employment in other areas, primarily working as a domestic worker and hospital attendant. As a domestic, she worked for the family of Joan Nestle. Mabel and Joan developed a friendship that lasted for decades. When Joan started the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1974, Mabel joined her as a founding member. Mabel donated her huge collection of lesbian pulp fiction novels and worked tirelessly with Joan and other volunteers to amass lesbian-related materials--literature, biographical information, academic publications, and ephemera--as a resource for the lesbian and gay community.
Mabel was also a vital, enduring element in the gay rights movement-she participated in every gay pride march that occurred during her lifespan, including the first, historic march and demonstration for gay rights in Washington, D.C., which took place in 1979. In 1985, Mabel was named the grand marshal of the New York City Gay Pride March. That same year, Mabel was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays.
After the Lesbian Herstory Archives were founded, Mabel carried the LHA banner in many marches. She also worked tirelessly for SAGE, an organization devoted to promoting advocacy and developing services for elderly members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities. Interviews with Mabel are featured in "Before Stonewall" and "Silent Pioneers"; both movies document the struggle for gay rights and the efforts made to obtain equality.
Joan Nestle started recording Mabel's oral histories in the late seventies, realizing the importance of documenting Mabel's life story as an example of racial and sexual freedom. In these histories--many of which are featured on this website--Mabel discusses her relationships with women, her struggles with racism, and her identity as an African-American lesbian in the twentieth century. Mabel died of pneumonia in 1989 at the age of eighty-seven. Her life as an advocate, activist, performer, and storyteller lives on in the images and oral histories collected by the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Many of the resources below, as well as additional subject files, biographical information, images, and media about Mabel, lesbian history, and gay pride are available by visiting the LHA in person.
Resources
City University of New York. (2003). Queer ideas: The David R. Kessler lectures in lesbian and gay studies. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York.
DuPlessis, R. B., & Snitow, A. B. (1998). The feminist memoir project: Voices from women's liberation. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Hampton, M. (1979) "I didn't go back there anymore: Mabel Hampton talks about the south." In Feminary 10, 7-16.
Hogan, S., & Hudson, L. (1998). Completely queer: The Gay and Lesbian encyclopedia. New York: Henry Holt.
Lesbian Herstory Archives. Mabel Hampton special collection, including transcripts of oral history. Lesbian Herstory Archives, Brooklyn, NY.
Nestle, J. (1993). Excerpts from the Oral History of Mabel Hampton. Signs, 18, 4, 925-935.
Nestle, J. (1998). "I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: the Life of Mabel Hampton as told by a White Woman." In A fragile union: New & selected writings. San Francisco: Cleis Press.
Nestle, J. (1991). "Surviving and More: Interview with Mabel Hampton". In Sinister Wisdom 43/44, Summer. Berkeley, CA.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPWC1
Sound
A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mabel's Parties / Mabel Hampton, 1981 (Tape 1)
Subject
The topic of the resource
African American lesbians, Lesbian community, Parties, Lesbian couples
Description
An account of the resource
Oral History interview dated . Side A: Mabel talks about the parties she attended, the atmosphere, the people she met and the music she listened to. She also speaks in detail about romantic relationships with specific women and her first love from Coney Island. Her love of classical music is also discussed, which began when she started her first job.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mabel Hampton
Joan Nestle [interviewer]
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Side A (mp3) http://herstory.prattsils.org/mp3_files/spw50_A.mp3 Side A (wav) http://herstory.prattsils.org/wav_files/spw50_A.wav
Side B (mp3) http://herstory.prattsils.org/mp3_files/spw50_B.mp3 Side B (wav) http://herstory.prattsils.org/wav_files/spw50_B.wav
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Lesbian Herstory Archive
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1981, January 18
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
Digitized: November 2011
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="/omeka/rights-statement" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> See the LHA Copyright Statement </a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Original = Cassette Tape
WAV
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Lesbian Herstory Archives, Contact Designation: Maxine Wolfe, Contact Address: 484 14th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215, Phone Number: 718-768-3953
Autobiography
Joan Nestle
Mabel Hampton
Music
New York
Oral History
Parties
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mabel Hampton Oral History Collection, 1976-1989
Description
An account of the resource
Mabel Hampton (1902-1989) was an African-American lesbian, an activist, a domestic worker, and a dancer. Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she lost her mother when she was only two years old. For the next five years, Mabel was raised by her maternal grandmother, but she too passed away. In 1909, she moved to Greenwich Village in New York City at age seven. Less than a year after moving in with her aunt, Mabel was raped by her uncle, a minister. She ran away to New Jersey, buying a bus ticket purchased with a nickel given to her by a woman on the street. Luckily, Mabel was taken in by a family that cared for her for the next several years.
As a young woman, Mabel gravitated toward the lively scene in Harlem. In 1920, when she was seventeen, Mabel was wrongfully arrested during a prostitution sting and sentenced to time in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. Upon her release, she danced at clubs like "The Garden of Joy", sang as a member of the Lafayette Theater Chorus, and performed with Harlem Renaissance stars such as Gladys Bentley. Mabel engaged in several relationships with women and lived openly as a lesbian.
In 1932, Mabel met Lillian Foster, who would be her partner until Lillian's death in 1978. With the Harlem Renaissance waning, Mabel sought out employment in other areas, primarily working as a domestic worker and hospital attendant. As a domestic, she worked for the family of Joan Nestle. Mabel and Joan developed a friendship that lasted for decades. When Joan started the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1974, Mabel joined her as a founding member. Mabel donated her huge collection of lesbian pulp fiction novels and worked tirelessly with Joan and other volunteers to amass lesbian-related materials--literature, biographical information, academic publications, and ephemera--as a resource for the lesbian and gay community.
Mabel was also a vital, enduring element in the gay rights movement-she participated in every gay pride march that occurred during her lifespan, including the first, historic march and demonstration for gay rights in Washington, D.C., which took place in 1979. In 1985, Mabel was named the grand marshal of the New York City Gay Pride March. That same year, Mabel was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays.
After the Lesbian Herstory Archives were founded, Mabel carried the LHA banner in many marches. She also worked tirelessly for SAGE, an organization devoted to promoting advocacy and developing services for elderly members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities. Interviews with Mabel are featured in "Before Stonewall" and "Silent Pioneers"; both movies document the struggle for gay rights and the efforts made to obtain equality.
Joan Nestle started recording Mabel's oral histories in the late seventies, realizing the importance of documenting Mabel's life story as an example of racial and sexual freedom. In these histories--many of which are featured on this website--Mabel discusses her relationships with women, her struggles with racism, and her identity as an African-American lesbian in the twentieth century. Mabel died of pneumonia in 1989 at the age of eighty-seven. Her life as an advocate, activist, performer, and storyteller lives on in the images and oral histories collected by the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Many of the resources below, as well as additional subject files, biographical information, images, and media about Mabel, lesbian history, and gay pride are available by visiting the LHA in person.
Resources
City University of New York. (2003). Queer ideas: The David R. Kessler lectures in lesbian and gay studies. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York.
DuPlessis, R. B., & Snitow, A. B. (1998). The feminist memoir project: Voices from women's liberation. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Hampton, M. (1979) "I didn't go back there anymore: Mabel Hampton talks about the south." In Feminary 10, 7-16.
Hogan, S., & Hudson, L. (1998). Completely queer: The Gay and Lesbian encyclopedia. New York: Henry Holt.
Lesbian Herstory Archives. Mabel Hampton special collection, including transcripts of oral history. Lesbian Herstory Archives, Brooklyn, NY.
Nestle, J. (1993). Excerpts from the Oral History of Mabel Hampton. Signs, 18, 4, 925-935.
Nestle, J. (1998). "I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: the Life of Mabel Hampton as told by a White Woman." In A fragile union: New & selected writings. San Francisco: Cleis Press.
Nestle, J. (1991). "Surviving and More: Interview with Mabel Hampton". In Sinister Wisdom 43/44, Summer. Berkeley, CA.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPWC1
Sound
A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mabel Hampton, Lillian Foster, 1976 (Tape 1)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lesbian couples, Rape, Dance
Description
An account of the resource
Audio cassette. Oral History Interview of Mabel Hampton. Mabel discusses her first girlfriend, a white woman she met while working at a girl's school. She also discusses her three year relationship with a married woman she worked for as a domestic worker, whom she considers her first love. In addition, she discusses her life as a dancer and her trips to a private lesbian club, frequented by notable women. She then relates how she was briefly abducted, attacked and robbed, and how she escaped and how her friends sought revenge on her attackers.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mabel Hampton
Joan Nestle [interviewer]
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Side A (mp3) http://herstory.prattsils.org/mp3_files/spw1132_A.mp3 Side A (wav) http://herstory.prattsils.org/wav_files/spw1132_A.wav
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Lesbian Herstory Archive
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1976
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
Digitized: June 2011
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
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SPW1132
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Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY, United States
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A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Lesbian Herstory Archives, Contact Designation: Maxine Wolfe, Contact Address: 484 14th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215, Phone Number: 718-768-3953
Autobiography
Interracial Couples
Joan Nestle
Lesbians of Color
Mabel Hampton
New York
Oral History
Rape
Relationships
Sexual Assault
Violence
-
http://herstories.prattinfoschool.nyc/omeka/files/original/1eaf9dcd670e1fe23a19b2bad6ad8e28.pdf
9d341af8dc7b7e937f4e8c067785ba71
PDF Text
Text
•
The Mabel Hampton Tapes
February 25, 1999
These tapes were made in the years 1976-1988 approxiinately. For the majority of the t.apes,
the setting was the home of Jo,an Nestle, Deborah Edel and the Lesbian Herstory Archives which
was also the home ofMabel Hrunpton from 1986-1989, the time o,f her death. After Lillian
Foster's death in 1978, Ms. Hampton frequently stayed at th.e archives, having her own key and
using it as a b,ase for her work in the community and her many trips to Atlantic City. In 1987, Ms.
Hampton moved in with Lee Hudson and Joan Nestle and the archives, having grown too ill to
keep her apartment in the Bronx. The tape with Lillian Foster was made in 1976 at the Bronx
home of Ms. Hampton and Ms. Foster.
Several mor,e tapes exist and are housed at the archives that have not been transcribed and
several other tapes have been made by other people and are in their possession. 'There are also
several video tapes ofMs. Hampton and many snapshots. The Lesbian Herstory Archives is the
10116, ph 718home of the Mabel Hampton Special Collection. (LHEF, Inc., POB 1258, . • .
768-3953, fax 718-768--4663. Joan Nestle can be reached directly at 212-873-3765 or e-mail
Joannestle@aol.com) A complete bibliography of the archives' holdings of the life of Mabel
Hampton is in process.)
The tapes were transcribed by Sara Atatimur, a blind woman who was an activist in both the
lesbian co,mrnunity and the disabled cormnunity. She was a stu,dent at Rutgers when she was killed
in a traffic accident in 1989. The Open Meadows Foundation made the ·transcriptions possible
with a grant of 1200.00 in 1986.
•
I started making these tapes in the mid 70s when I knew very little abo·ut oral history fonnal
procedures. Thus at times I ask stupid que.stions, am t.oo intrusive and too abrupt in beginnings
, and endings. But these tapes are also the story of our relationship with all its complexities.
Please give credit to this resource in the following way: The Mabel Ha1npton .Special
Collection/Lesbian Herstory Archives/Le.sbian Herstory Educational Foundation, Inc.
Joan Nestle
�
http://herstories.prattinfoschool.nyc/omeka/files/original/f6281b897eee12e547c87fb0dc37a823.pdf
27bf8debf05066172e4c91025a5c02dc
PDF Text
Text
•
The Mabel Hampton Tapes
February 25, 1999
These tapes were made in the years 1976-1988 approxi1nately.For the majority of the tapes,
the setting was the home of Joan Nestle, Deborah Edel and the Lesbian Herstory Archives which
was also the home ofMabel Hampton from 1986-1989', the time o,fher death. After Lillian
F'oster's death in 1978, Ms. Hampton frequently stayed at the archives, having her own key and
using it as a base for her work in t.he conununity and her many trips to Atlantic City. In 1987, Ms.
Hampton moved in with Lee Hurl.sonand Joan Nestle and the archives, having grown too ill to
keep her apartment in the Bronx. The tape with Lillian Foster was made in 1976 at the Bronx
h,omeof Ms. Hampton and Ms. Fost•er.
Several more tapes exist and are housed at the archives that have not been transcribed and
several other tapes have been made by other people and are in their possession. There are also
several video tapes of Ms. Hampton and many snapshots. The Lesbian Herstory Archives is the
home of the Mabel Hampton Special Collection. (LHEF, Inc., POB 1258, _ .·, 10116, ph 718768-3953, fax 718-768-4663. Joan Nestle ·canbe reached directly at 212-873-3765 or e-mail
Joannestle@aol.com} A complete bibliography of the archives' holdings of the life of Mabel
Hampton is in process.)
1
The tapes were transcribed by Sara Atatimur, a blind woman who was an activist in both the
lesbian community and the disabled community. She was ,a stu,dentat Rutgers when she was killed
in a traffic accident in 1989. The Open Meadows Foundation mad.ethe transcriptions possible
with a gr.antof 1200.00 in 1986.
I started making these tapes in the mid 70s when I knew very little about oral history f01·mal
procedures. Thus at times I ask stupid questions, am too intrusive and too abrupt in beginnings
, and endings. But these tapes are also the story of our relationship with all its complexities.
Please give credit to this resource in the following way: The Mabel Hampton Special
Collection/LesbianHerstory Archives/Lesbian Herstory Educational Foundation, Inc.
Joan Nestle
•
•
�(!)
INTERVIEW WITH MABEL HAMPTON (M)
Joan Nestle
(J)
Deb £1:iel
(D)
Interviewer:
Interviewer:
J:
You were
seven?
D:
No, you
remember
J:
You remember
back
M:
Sure,
I was around
grandmother.
tell
you,
mother
My mother
the
reason
Carolina.
chickens,
to
turkeys--all
five
to--gramma
kinds
five
and
with
over
another
to
all
had
white
my
here
old.
Now, I
was:
my
younger
in Winston-Salem,
and colored
in
vegetables,
of things--(dog
1
six.
mother's
school
pigs,
six.
story.
me and--my
had
and
I was a month
is
I went
The school
And I used
to
switch
raised
me.
to
when
Now that
my grandmother
sister--they--raised
there.
died
I have
was poisoned.
So,
North
I do.
back
barks).
Libby,
L
�Mabel
ain't
it
Page
Hampton
nobody
after
(Dog continues
you!
to
2
bark).
Oh,
no,
came back.
where
J:
Chickens?
M:
Chickens,
there
it's
all
turkeys.
And we lived
was--something--"What
on one
call
a house
a house
where
floor?"
J:
Like
M:
No,
a railroad
No,
houses--something
like
was a very,
very
school,
I went
and
do you
in
nice
No,
flat?
No,
that--the
all
to
the
colonial
around.*
go to
And it
church,
Sunday
school.
One time,
they
vaccinated
it.
So gramma
whipped
call
it--suet
from
like
rooms
I used
house.
to
It's
No.
me,
me and
the
put
chimney
and
gramma
some of
didn't
like
that--what
on my arm and
do you
made me stay
in.
Most
I liked
about
and on each
side
fun
around,
last
dozen
runnin'
one--and
or more
Everybody
*
was--across--in
was people
that
with
you know.
birthday
she
for
means
the
children.
I had
went
us,
huntin'
and
a ranch
We had
must
for
of
us
so much
once--the
have
we was out
house.
2
back
a birthday
I took--it
children--and
was lookin'
Perhaps
it
been
a
grapes.
in
(SA)
somebody's
�Mabel
Hampton
orchard
lookin'
for
I see
apples.
some apples,
So,
I didn't
There
died
remember
found
it
and
I heard
she
So,
gave
was my boyfriend.
school
every
Let
field
big
Sunday
and
out
whipped,
And he grew
He had--I
can't
and
in
I was
he was adopted
lessons.
come,
I got
I got
thing.
it,
boy,
stealin'
us girls.
whole
about
him violin
He'd
me see,
is
night,
of
the
this
And,
and he'd
take
New York
by a white
I would
me to
say
he
Sunday
mornin'
what
else
from us--we
were
(or haul or hole)
hall.
now it
in
those--
(Laughs).
me.
when he was twenty-one.
happened.
woman,
boy
all
3
and--what's
up on a fence,
us that
because
one
what--but
when it
clamb
woman caught
they
mind
And grapes
now,
the
was only
up--he
grapes.
myself
and
of there.
but
Page
happened
near
there?
a railroad
I went
known as a teachers'
in
to
Across
the
This
big,
station.
school,
and the
college.
Then,
school
it
is--
was very
pretty.
We'd
was kind
had
of
an aunt
clothes
school.
long.
from
Grarnrna would
And she'd
in New York,
up there
graduated
years
go to
to
one
me.
small--I
put
nice
and this
But
she
fix
dresses
aunt
wouldn't
guess
my hair--my
would
old.
3
on me 'cause
send
six
I
fine
come up.
I was about
hair
After
or
seven
I
�Habel
Page
Hampton
One day--I
he chicken
th
re
got
coop
an<l steal
today.
And she
w nt
in
in
h
chickens
n
nd out
silv
chair
y,_
I
i
n'
know.
I
w s
so
I
y
w
h
ro
l
om n
n'
to
into
go in
and
I love
eggs
would
give
me some,
and
gramrna
said,
'Who
got
mad at
one
and
the
chickens
dropped
the--it
out
of--and
I was
was
was
small
born--my
could
put
me in
ramrna
once,
she
was
and
shook
me out
me
hough.
I'd
imagine,
She
was
something,
small.
h
chair
on
he
.
r rnrna was
ro
ha
busy
makin'
that
enough
to
get
was
big
s
and
coffee
the
working
pilla
very
a pint
'til
a door
head
you
bother
OU
dern
they
and
or
n
day,
because--!
pot.
bed
in
or
yard.
th
I don't
and
forgo
covers.
And
harmin'
nic
h
lookin'
oo.
0
0
And I used
me go
her,
and
h
n
eggs.
made
for
there
small.
the
aunt
eggs
go in
r dollar
other
those
there
of
up--rny
steal
So,
I w s so
0
and
there?"
m_ bin'
hooked
4
pro
SC
0
s
0
0
r
C
s
00
0
0
0
s--
. d,
m
h
C
0
I
�Mabel
*
death.
Page
Hampton
I hollered--I
stage.
That
on me like
growlin'
that.
she
live
It
a little
she
take
at--there
take
and
good
meat.
bacon
store--all
a mile
nothin'
like
So,
tellin'
now.
love
to
chicken
M:
But=they
school--Teachers'
across
is
eggs
cook
pretty
College,
Cf. with the story
she says that
Santa Claus
line.
(SA)
to
top
store--or
like
her,
where
floor.
that
those
eggs
bacon.
They
get
my plate--and
gramma's
we
she'd
Girl,
smell
to
things
some chicken.
was
and
wasn't
I never
chicken.
good.
good
It's
door
See?
and
like
street
in
was
help
on the
could
I used
were
the
would
and
you
cook
Chicken
take
you,
eat.
the
rushin'
and
next
up there.
could
they
between--up
were
things
hogs
stuff
meat
gramma
J:
I lived
*
the
we got
to
the
and
and
in
me off
my gramma--it
kill
and we'd
They
I just
be able
meat
away.
chicken!--oooh,
would
her
and
took
it.
come around
house
I'm
Claus
later,
would
was a yard
was a private
gramma
take
while
men would
would
Santa
couldn't
time--and
the
and
old
that--I
I guess,
Christmas
hollered--and
5
chickens
[from
known
on the
came in
5
where]
[as]
there,
you know.
I went
now.
to
And I had--
LHA video
of Mabel wherein
before
she got to say her
�Mabel
the
children
Miss
Page
Hampton
van
I played
She had
Owen.
So,
was married.
lot
she
was--the
a house,
schoolteacher's
not
was very
far
nice
to
from
name was
ours,
and
She taught
me.
she
me a
of things.
One day--one
day
with
6
I didn't
cold
Monday~-I
get
up so early--I
or what--and
So,
I spring
she
had
the
people
the
doctor,
phone
much for
in the
I kept
she
this
never
at
at
said
her.
me and
my hair,
So,
went
see
I didn't
never
that
was up and
too
much;
gramma.
know what
at
I kept
to
they
she
watching
Gramma had
6
gramma,
called
So then
we had
Never
cared
she
And
And my
stroke.
in
combin'
the
bed.
talk,
was wrong
my
It
And,
couldn't
to
too
came.
everything.
her.
do then.
kitchen.
came,
it--was
layin'
a
So I called
anyhow,
forget
gramma
I looked
combin'
to
had
I had
the
floor.
come up.
So,
she
in
a stroke.
to
if
kitchen:
and
I knew something
through
she
had
nice.
at
the
walk,
aunt
aunt--I'll
looking
She looked
she
The sun
to
on the
down the
over
remember
crash
went
one week after
I looked
don't
layin'
She wasn't
morning.
a sudden,
was
get
on something--one
a terrific
bed,
said
to
younger
and
she
doctor
lived
the
door,
her.
mamma's
hair,
of
a stroke,
New York
gramma
I heard
out
next
be skippin'
was
all
of
see.
with
her.
And when my aunt
got
gramma
gone
in
the
bed.
away.
I was a big
girl,
goin'
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
on eight
York,
years
so she
of
called
of that
ended
and got
everything.
the
funeral
Now, you
tell
the
end of
So,
I couldn't
come back
to
here.
got
So,
came back--I
to
I called
younger
sister,
never
I hadn't
been
was fresh;
with
knew.
then
all
used
mamma grew
the
chickens
Of course,
besides,
you know.
So,
to
So,
across
They
just
her
my sister,
doctor
they
had
why,
cannot
read
tell.
you tell.
it
had
eatin'
out
they
and
You
that's
street,
but
train
spoiled,
food
like
I guess
she
took
So,
took
with
See,
'cause
our
what
I
me a
food
they
did
I never
boys--the
everythin'.
was my little
7
So,
everything,
the
tale
was my
gave
that
to
the
All
that,
she
around
had
sister.
that.
garden.
there
she
you know.
like
in the
she
Now, there's
the
all
said
younger
it--on
was runnin'
the
the
That's
what
and
husband.
and things
I guess
all
go back.
they
a dern
her
my aunt,
she
to
give
together
forget
it
got
in here.
my mother's
sandwich--liver--and
So,
New
do it.
things
New York
come from
passed.
and
something
don't
had
came and
had
something
you want.
my aunt
aunt
she
there's
people
come in
other
She said
aunt
mamma had
my aunt
there's
anything
other
her
And the
see,
it.
the
told
So,
all.
now,
can
aunt's
and
who writes,
Of course,
over
So,
that.
and
everybody
age.
7
friends,
and
men,
�®
Mabel
Hampton
Dollbaby
and
then
Page
Pattie
Anna Mae Thomas,.
was sweet,
always
she
had
runnin'
Still
M:
What do you mean?
J:
Where
did
M:
They
lived
Still
in
until
after
my aunt
gets
I wouldn't
eat
we came
that
too
street
from
I was
liver
liver
on the
me because
eat
remember
He looked
was an East
Indian.
He's
out
of
train
comin'
I wouldn't
it.
eat
So,
how we came
Station?
train.
it.
when we
in.
I don't
know.
I
well.
Mabel.
wavy hair.
get
on the
I know when a man came up to
is
me in
I don't
the
I wouldn't
can't
He was tall,
George.
the
in Pennsylvania
anyhow,
"This
the
eating
mad at
it,
New York--!
remember
Uncle
and
she
grarnma--
So,
niece."
Boy,
girl.
And her
Winston-Salem.
I was eatin'
said,
And
live?
across
Yeah,
But
she
they
M:
Whether
was a sweet
a girl.
down south?
When you were
to
and
way down here.
J:
Okay,
can't
braids
she
J:
Winston-Salem
gets
Oh,
was a boy
around.
Winston-Salem.
in.
It
Harris.
8
Mabel
dark,
like
Hampton.
and had
he was
And she
says,
a minister."
the
Indian
8
This
most
or
is
and
my
beautifullest
something.
"Now Mabel,
Because
my aunt
they
He
this
is
knew
I
your
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
wanted
names
those
and
people
was quite
all
that
there--they
taught
a few colored
the
white
that.
So,
I knew right
So,
girls.
he says,
May,
from
she'll
didn't
wrong
is
old."
I didn't
like
him.
when they're
good
And
me--there
taught
divide
she?"
years
school.
taught
and
be eight
foreigners,
in
They
there.
"How old
was a minister.
Those
in
I was
us--they
They
taught
"In
because
9
us
the
like
work
a little
bit
And I think
I didn't
they
like
of
she
like
everything.
says,
him.
He was a handsome
lookin',
they're
He
man.
good
lookin'.
So,
he says,
when he gets
do I say
piano
to
it
the
now--I
was.
house,
So,
and that's
where
sing,
she
side.
go into
door,
the
But he fixed
on Sunday.
What's
one
was at
his
at.
So,
church
You come in,
and there
in
to
do."
me sleep
in
room where
52 West
Eight
to
he found
the
was something
up like
a church
when it
And,
after
he preached,
mind?
Go ahead.
9
the
basement,
out
that
I
The kitchen
steps,
you
a livingroom.
come time
he would--
the--how
Street--
the
front.
like
Now,
I think
you go down four
it
on your
J:
the
let
a lot
go down a few steps
lived
so he had
was one one
in
place
and you
we got
my aunt
slept
Now, this
downtown.
could
"Come on now,
to
preach
�Mabel
Hampton
M:
what's
(Evidently
on her
After
Page
J:
No,
M:
She wants
J:
Well,
M:
it
out
all
about
a pet),
You know
mind?
go ahead.
he preached
take
speaking
10
to
she's
get
up on my lap.
going
to
have
to
not.
Go ahead.
the--
After
down.
he would
I had
preach,
to
wash
then
I would
dishes,
and
have
I never
to
went
anywhere.
So,
until
then,
five
alive.
very
they
years
See,
I can't
some of those
forget
that
papers
one word
rape
that's
name her
was all
part
yet.
the
word.
got
to
as
me is
still
name but
part.
it's
Up
She was
written
So then,
I live.
I could
teach
me to
And that
word
to
tell
shoe
off
swollen
So,
school.
another
school.
to
his
me in
in
home.
he was trying
mad and took
to
liked
long
it.
My mouth
never
as
grasp
face.
the
going
tried
one night,
and he got
My aunt
woman who taught
I got
And she
I couldn't
And,
the
quite
I started
word.
but
ago,
up.
and you know--oh,
nice.
So,
fixed
like
I think
10
I'll
not
remember
remember
was
that
word,
"went"--w-e-n-t.
me about
and beat
that.
never
this
me all
We didn't
I remembered
it,
"went",
in
the
come
but
I
�Mabel
So,
said
he--my
to
myself,
me sleep
where
lay
in
aunt
went
"I've
got
bed.
In there
coal
down there.
out,
it
nothing
somebody
life,
gave
that
looked
and
right
out
me,
to
Eighth
at,
I went
in
another
and
I walked,
ground,
That
in
and
the
woman put
something
down,
wasn't
I'm
early--about
So,
it
was a dress--
call--a
dress
on.
And I walked
may come to
was a turnin'
to
walk
around
Don't
I come to
I call
point
in
a ring
it--a
I goes
down there,
and
of the
to
me.
three
story.
It
o'clock.
11
come
I was
I didn't
in
the
down there.
and
I went
was early
it
And I walked
thing
was gain'
my
and
where
fret.
me--
in
some more,
a thing--now,
and people
ahead
I
jumper
I see
in there.
and a woman said
too
that.
When I recognized
this--as
made me
of
happened--it
direction.
So,
you
let
place
down and
tired
I
I walked.
right
Street.
subway.
Now, wait,
a blanket
I started
sidewalk,
a coal--a
jumper
That
finally
about
was the
and
me.
He wouldn't
had
in--what
this
I walked
back
know nothing
with
me a nickel.
to
here."
I got
11
And he raped
a skirt--no,
arms
So,
day.
they
know how that
nickel.
like
leave
on but
I walked
I don't
to
day,
your
And I went
So,
one
he put
this
you put
I walked
out
at--and
So,
with
had,
dress.
and
the
you put
went
and
Page
Hampton
and
enough--it
And she
says,
sat
this
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
"aren't
you Miss
somebody,
she
"little
girl?
you doin'
down here?"
evidently,
She
to
What are
this
says,
"Here's
Harlem."
the
and,
when the
where
in
know what
a park.
had
go back
to
things
to
That
City.
not
do.
Sounds
always
her.
to
to
like
Were you
M:
No,
Now, to
I seen
the
"
scared?
angel
that
and have
place
And he would
was my aunt.
with
ta
and
of
direct
it's
you
feelin'?
anything,
Joan.
I wasn't
on me and
his
was as
crazy
*
I come to
so--
mad with
And she
didn't
finally
me.
him pull
get
get
New York,
children--I
'cause
scared
in
all
I come upstairs
What were
a guardian
I'm
me,
people
was not
Street.
tale
was
on in
*
and walked,
I never
I went
down.
out,
a fairy
down stairs,
I sat
playin'
I walked
Come back
and
Grove
use
J:
me.
I goes
Now, we was not--we
Jersey
I seen--I
"All
"Yes."
uptown.
there,
Street.
man says,
name,
So,
in
nickels
Eighth
come out.
So,
her
I said,
You go back
come up,
train
When the
we were
the
So,
a lot.
know this.
put
people
away
a nickel.
away from
up and
ran
I don't
seen
gettin'
girl
called
12
wife
I
goin'
try
to
to
do
and beat
as he was.
According
to her stories
on the video,
the
pricipitating
event
for Mabel leaving
her aunt's
house was
an incident
at school
after
which she was threatened
with a
whipping,
not the rape by her uncle.
(SA)
12
�Mabel
So,
walked
all
Page
Hampton
I goes
into
and walked,
these
playin'
on in
looks
"Corne on.
Get
at
I says,
at
for
"Mabel."
knew.
I could
swing."
makes
So it
swingin'.
your
So,
So,
been
schooled
English
swing,
So,
it
to
she
went
get
girl
says,
"Okay."
to
had
I says,
"Yes."
to
I goes
me,
at?"
is
I
your
name?"
enough,
I
says,
"Come on,
like
it.
It
We went
on
alright.
comes
you cold?"
she
"Don't
and
or
So,
I. says,
dark,
or brother
I'm
out
me and
she
tall
girl
another
something.
So,
She says,
you a sandwich
still
says,
"Where
with
she
"Wait
and bring
there
her
says,
and
"Aren't
I'll
a minute.
you
is
something
to
on.
So while
sandwich,
where
must
good.
says
live
I'd
seen
So,
girl
do you
I
of the
swingin'.
an Italian
Where
all
Naturally,
some uncle
put
swings
Street.
I gets--I
and black,
"What
And she
go home and get
So,
says,
the
people."
park.
She
and
began
was Grove
a second.
swim."
else
this
swing.
on the
my head
something
them.
speak
I got
I seen
This
time--the
on the
her
park.
playin'--white
a good
and
looked
and
children
havin'
this
13
and
you're
have
she
was gone--she
I started
goin'
been
eatin'
because
in her
teens.
comes
it.
my brother
I says,
13
back
with
the
She says,
"Now, tell
will
you.
"Well,
take
my aunt
me
She
told
me
�Mabel
to
Hampton
stay
Page
here
"Where're
"Well,
until
you
I'll
go after
to
see
I'll
and
I sit
"Gee,
on me.
Now,
So,
woman--whoever
to
she
name was Bessy
her
twenties,
from?
shopping."
Well,
like
"we"--and
seen
this
boy
seen
them
before--seen
Bessy
says,
other
girl--she
she
put
down the
from
and
the
said--"if
around
cop
me a sandwich
me.
and
the
cop
was mo'
would
I
put
lucky
that.
a
to
with
So she
there
me than
her.
says,
her
until
I says,
Her
in
"Where
the
same
she
went
looked
down the
about
four
I knew that
was
a cop
because
the
walk
around,
you home."
woman comes,
14
story.
some
of
take
you
"New York."
street--!
cops
the
woman--somethin',
I told
sit
come or
distance
them
I'll
the
She had
it
a woman back
you from?"
comin'
"Come,
give
"Tony,
aunt."
sandwich.
and
be here?"
me to
we looked
street-no
the
She was a young
told
"Where
find
because
brings
somethin'
"Hy aunt
says,
You go after
the
She
So,
she
White.
She
says,
there.
got.
How you come to
I said,
ate
says,
So she
way.
Hood cape
worry
boy was because
She
brother.
I can
and
I sat
I began
her
nice.
me.
"New York."
if
there
she's
get
go this
me a Red Riding
thought,
cape
She calls
and
and
brought
I says,
way,
go that
So,
come and
from?"
alright."
you
the
she
14.
you
And she
bring
blocks
I'd
know.
said
her
I
So,
to
to
the
my
�Mabel
I live
house.
says,
"All
So,
if
Page
Hampton
the
on Seedler
cop
got
get
that
beat
very
me in back
throw
out
So,
badly
of the
words,
and
a girl
go up the
with,
silent.
she
steps.
says,
"Are
must
have
been
So,
sing,
and
eat
alright.
New York.
and the
that
got
"My aunt
from
was peckin'
And he used
he took
the
ends
her
people
on
to
used
to
money.
her
house,
right
there.
and
she
her
out."
lost.
Help
left
me there."
says,
Now,
In other
my age
right
in,
was a private
On the
it
one
And the
you hungry?"
side
kids
straight
on down,
could
because
eat.
so much.
and
"Yes,
almost
Now, it's
doing
we
on the
all--marvelous.
ma'am."
eggs--rolls--you
I ate
house,
was Italians;
I says,
eggs--three
hungry
I always
I can't
to
I knew that,
he always
me to
was Italians.
me eggs--scrambled
that
to
When we walked
gave
bread.
She
City.
See.
front
side
me back
me around.
that's
I knew everything
Alright.
So,
court
and dimes,
continue
I kept
other
Jersey
me, because
because
woman carried
"Mamma, here's
to
take
we disappeared.Now
And this
I got
got
slappin'
nickels
Alright?
she
me, he would
my backside--knockin',
take
That's
right."
I was so glad
And I'd
Street."
15
a whole
me very
She
know,
loaf
of
bad
See.
She says--and
I have
15
this
little
red
cape
I
�Mabel
on and this
and,
Page
Hampton
as
blue
I went
in,
where
I come in
lookin'
woman.
she
was.
I guess
me.
You stay
with
said,
"We'll
glad
of that.
So,
name.
quiet
to
for
and
went
up your
They don't
of
"That
of
the
left
is
of
a good
Oh,
some woman.
and
she
looked
just
chair--she's
eight--and
she
says,
with
her,
find
you clothes."
and
"You'll
and
like
kind
of
"You come with
she
bathed
me,
Always
sleep
with
and
talked
me."
I was
yeah!
stayed
I went
with
them.
for
my aunt.
to
school,
The other
I knew
sister
she'd
went
never
you know I knew my
about
me.
I kept
was a very
nice
woman.
a husband,
dress.
were
give
come on in,
I kept
quiet.
years.
White
girls
myself,
hair,
lookin'
as
twenty
"Well,
woman sitting
was admiring
says,
I knew everything
was the
feel
have
See,
says,
me."
Oh,
So, Miss
(sounds
like)
bitchy
hand
five
And she
on about--she
to
up out
upstairs
I went
her.
get
about
I went
softly.
I say
beautiful
she
So,
very
a young
I always
So,
tall,
find
at."
She
dress.
I seen
She had
an angel.
she
jumper
16
And,
all
in
fresh.
a damn what
he wanted
those
days,,
Old men have
you are
you one time.
16
She had
to
the
always
a
do was put
his
women swear
been
or who you are.
fresh.
They
it
�Mabel
Hampton
So,
about
Page
I made
lots
a month,
City.
of
they
Now, that
put
ends
friends.
And,
me in
school--Number
that
after
17
I was there
32,
in
Jersey
part.
D:
Was that
family
white
or black?
M:
Hah?
D:
The Smiths--the
M:
What do you mean?
J:
The family
you were
with.
D:
The family
you were
living
Whites,
were
they
white
or
black
black
people
Blacks
or
They were
D:
So,
M:
Their
D:
It
around
there,
yeah.
See,
always
So,
all
like
White.
it
black
was an integrated
neighborhood
then.
together.
so.
and they'd
I never
There
bring
treated
to
that.
Then,
from
32 School
Ellen--she
oh,
were
in
knew about
I went
I told
neighborhood--
name was White.
I guess
been
they
people.
was an integrated
and whites
were
people?
M:
M:
I've
white
with,
food
what
a child
and
I told
Italians
and
people
nice
I met a lot
Ellen--her
was a light,
17
and
all
everything.
Oh,
holler
now.
about
by anybody.
of
girls
and
name was Ellen
brown-skin
woman.
Very
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
She was quiet.
strikin'.
piano?--yeah.
her."
"I
go to
"I
like
Mabel.
bed,
used
hand
put
that.
I told
lied,"
was going
to
and carried
stayed,
me off
to
short,
else
and her
happened.
Right,
M:
Her girlfriend
where
name was Miner--the
I told
on him,
believed
him.
So,
in eighth
the
of weeks
see.
next
kill
Well,
was her
You were
name.
day,
took
he
me away
I
make a long
see,
got
of blocks
And I stayed
over
his
him.
I graduated
a long
18
one
And there
to
a couple
happened.
there
he says,
see.
grade.
D:
[and]
girlfriend?
lives
pappa
his
And after--let's
And mamma believed
thing
I
puttin'
she
house.
on out,
last
until
I would
me tight.
So,
me, but
storm.
Now comin'
J:
a couple
see.
come up there.
that
keep
She says,
when
father,
girlfriend's
I weathered
time,
the
"We'll
her."
always
after
and
play
Oh, boy!
he drinks,
her
says,
me and hold
[was]
gets
stick
so he didn't
story
what
the
At night
father
she
she
We' 11 keep
was grand.
because
get
she
arm around
her
So,
mother,
her."
her
Helen
I think--did
Mabel.
That
up my dress.
"So-and-so
told
I' 11 keep
she'd
to
So,
her
she
She says,
like
got
And,
And,
18
time.
down,
there
anger--'cause
Yeah,
from
his
wife
school
with
�Mabel
Hampton
Page
M:
What?
D:
You stayed
M:
Yes.
there
And after
They was--this
woman took
Ellen--whenever
pop would
[I]
was scared
barks)
Ford
is
off
shut
she
after
So Ellen
Jersey
not
City.
had white
her
So,
Ellen
to
the
Whites
months.
took
white
sure.
baby
children,
She had
went
away
So after
brother.
(It
this
back
to
again.
I--
(dog
appears
with
the
on.
pregnant
Benny
it.
tape
about
I stayed
and me to
colored
a boy there
They
this
were
me,
always
you rnarry?"--her
Harris,
So,
after
I think
all
this
woman's
were--you
his
was
in
house.
And she
know--I
helped
there.
But
children.
Not too
Ellen
Pop got
Why don't
and they
the
no.
married.
me to
there,
and
Oh,
girl
I forgot
went
And after
the
me.
you marry?
married
house
became
hit
woman.
And he took
time
I run
this
children
in the
do anything,
a family.
a bit).
"Why don't
name--I'm
and--I
Oh,
took--she--and
people.
I met
children,
he would
I met this
her,
time.
I graduated,
in
God sakes.
I--then
and
that
for
a long
19
much happened
two years
there
passed
this
for
about
away from
woman's
children,
by--I
later,
and
can't
19
and
I went
a couple
of
childbirth,
house.
Benny
And she
she
was very
think
of his
back
had
nice.
name now--
�Mabel
I got
Page
Hampton
it
wrote
down somewhere.
the
children
and
and
I became
very
guy.
I guess
like
I took--helped
fond
of
each
he was about
She--you
know--she
her
that.
like
other.
nineteen
20
take
So,
And he was
or
in
the
boy
a nice
twenty--something
that.
So,
something
forgotten
don't
about
you
your
find
out
think
you
now I'm
of her
is
stopped).
She got
to
holler
find
It's
something
to
M:
Uhmmm.
I was too
well
what
happened,
says,
"All
"You can
right."
I went
take
to
me,
"Why
and who['re]
out.So,
I said
down.
to
(Dog
everybody?
(Offers
says,
said
wrote
J:
Benny
know about--I'd
come from
gonna
name.
at
I didn't
Something
where
Tape
So,
me--and
I was.
just
Okay,
this--can't
to
how old
parents."
Barks.
said
to
care
eat).
raised
live
of the
to
with
baby
refuse.
this
woman.
and help
her."
So--
J:
You were
going
to
find
out
M:
Find
out
where
I come from.
find
out
who this
who you were,
you
said.
But
I want
bad--my
to
uncle
D:
and
all
'cause
man was that
I know all
that.
treated
me so
of that.
you hadn't
forgotten,
20
really.
You just
I
�•
'•
Mabel
were
Pa.ge 2,1
Hampton
keeping
it
silent.
M: I hadn't
forget
'til
this
don't
forget.
day.
forgot
noting!
'cause,
when
There's
you're
nothing
treated
I
bad,
you
t
So,
Okay.
Benny
this
woman's
very
nice.
took
me after
house,
Ellen
and
we both
after
I was
passed,
stayed
and
he
took
me to
The woman was
there.
·•
So,
months,
meantime,
the
baby
passed
there
for
away.
D:
The baby
M:
Yeah.
D:
The order
quite
a number
of
-
also.
So that
that
ended
must
have
right
been
there.
very
upsetting,
•
because
you
M:
were
very
Yeah.
close
So,
to
the
woman,
I stayed
Ellen.
on with
lady.
the
So I
•
said
to
her
like
my mind
one
had
day,
I says,
slipped.
11
I wanna
I wanted
find
out.
Seems
11
to
find
out
everything
So,
the
boy
and
goes
to--
(dog
we went
to?
Orange,
she's
a bad
could.
•
So,
she
told
me,
'"Yeah.···
us money--we
gets
on the
What was the
name of
train
this
place
and
I--she
give.s
barks)
New
Jersey.
(About
after--they
the
don't
dog)
I tell
allow
dogs
you,
in
this
21
house,
girl.
do they?
So,
I
�Mabel
Hampton
D
Page
& J:
M:
Yes,
they
I ought
to
22
do.
find
you
a second
home.
l.yt.,
let's
So,
boy
see,
J went
and
to
people
on Eight
or
people,
ten
Jersey.
There,
New York.
So,
Street.
it
come out
that
comes
this
back
home.
minister
Sure
knew George
aunt
was
still
So,
I left
my name
and
later--can't
think
of
who had
the
aunt
here."
is
you
was dead,
my aunt
had
about
moved
to
he was
nine
New
a
enough,
children--she
have
see.
There
But,
I'd
heard
So,
him.
He told
he
and
I
said
he would
me that
my
to
for
And then
woman's
in,
she
name
said,
So !--when
her
for
he stood.
He had
lookin'
the
"Hey."
bought
you.
Winston-Salem.
disappeared
a church,
Mills.
address.
came
I said,
could
killing
start
he find
to
alive.
You see,
they
question
I questioned
And I went
him.
like
to
him by--'cause
find
door,
this
in?
minister.
So,
weeks
this
I began
after
I trailed
Alright.
reverend,
think
now how do I bring
about
to
save
"Mabel,
I walked
a dime.
two
my life
your
in
the
She thought
And I said,
I
"Mister,
I feel
he was wanted
in
no.
from
killed
you.
my aunt
a white
Okay.
New York.
22
that
man.
In them
And he and
her
days,
had
�c9
Mabel
Hampton
first
J:
Oh, that's
M:
That's
because
But
l,i ttle.
M:
before
Wait
you didn't
and take
my aunt
And she
in
New York.
could
the
But
I kept
me,
but
I'm
says,
didn't
I don't
she
the
first
,,,,A> ..{I
she
Nobody
Because,
her
money
want
gave
it
to
she
didn't
could
give
to
they
him from
to
mornin',
but
so she
take
one night
house--came
I was asle~p,
could
of bed next
of this.
So,
in
when you were
I knew it.
My gramma didn't
out
knew all
f •
demanded
so much hell,
get
new York
that
came to
and
him away--so
raised
come to
realize
.J..
a minute.
in Winston-Salem,
up talkin'.
she
why they
gramma died,
house
to
New York
we--
D:
to
came to
23
place.
place
to
why they
Page
woke me
come back
Winston-Salem
it
to
them,
to
them,
but
and before
was gone.
have
our
tell
I
Now, I
me,
I knew it.
silent.
my aunt
was sitting
"I thought
you were
very
much alive."
"Why should
want
me."
know what
do 'cause
I'm
I stay?
there
dead."
"Well,
a woman now."
it."
want
I don't
23
you
me.
leave?"
"I'm
I
Your husband
know what
I says,
I says,
She says
"I know you did,
"Why did
You didn't
do about
chair.
I says,
She says,
She says,
to
in the
"There's
to
do.
nothin'
twenty-one."
�(3
Mabel
So,
Page
Hampton
she
Well,
says,
"No,
you could
over
have
she
"Yeah,
Orange,
New Jersey.
says,
I won't
with
nobody.
people,
I'll
"
I got
and they're
white
and
have
wanted."
"Yes,
end of the
father?
it.
forget
on the
on the
visits.
She says,
*
"yes.
She says,
"I' 11 come to
live
with
see
my own self
right
here
to
"My mother
and here's
Carolina.
he had.
You may want to check
or Greenville,
NC.
(SA)
to
24
would
anything."
who is
my
father
is
from
brothers,"
and
"And he used
he used
those
to
she
to
come in
brothers?"
I think
if
the
I knew a little
eight
one?"
see
mother
here,
One of
"Which
"With
to
"Okay,
he my father?
live
comin'
She says,
I says,
to
these
want
your
He had
need
your
name?"
in
So,
thing,"
"Now listen
you see,
me?"
you.
I said,
wouldn't
another
"Well,
I says,
"But
see
I says,
with
I grow,"
me.
She said,
visits."
went
"We' re
us?"
I don't
was my mother's
Is
come to
you.
live
how many sisters
come in
you
you.
come and
fine."
North
I done
with
She says,
Greensville*,
eighteen."
a quarter.
"Will
see
I said,
story.
And what
of
says,
lovely
did
only
I was thirty.
I says,
I says,
I says,
me for
come to
come and
Miss
bit
She
"You wouldn't
no,
You're
I thought
talked.
I says,
not.
bought
so much ground,
So,
she
you're
24
meant
she
said
his
Breensboro
I
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
name was Joseph.
name is
it
She says,
"Well,
was killed."
I don't
know."
"How?"
woman's
It
must
father."
too."
I says,
"Well,
11
say in'
house,
says,
"Your
she
have
been
you poisoned
says,
11
I didn't
"She
couldn't
the
questions
that
your
that."
your
mother
I
do nothin'
"~ don't
you?"
say
little."
was poisoned."
somebody
"Then
I was
say,
She said,
"Was it
when
"Who
"But
I fired
I said,
She said,
She says,
I knew she
so
know."
that
She
her?"
"I don't
poison.
your
she
so young?"
"I heard
"Who poisoned
She says,
died
I said,
I say,
me in that
at
know,
was in
She says,
sister
"I
for
I says,
her.
it
love
to
was
with
loved
him
him."
"Well,
I'm
it."
So,
and
my mother
you that."
said,
So,
or Joseph.
Rogers."
"How is
told
George
25
see
she
says,
you."
"You comin'
That
Well,
the
her.
"Why' d you talk
something."
people
ended
were
to
that
right
so mad at
so nice
us?"
there.
me and they
to
I knew my name.
(End of Side
see
1).
25
her?"
"Yes,
I' 11 come
She walked
were
I said,
out.
so mad at
"I'm
after
�INTERVIEW WITH MABEL HAMPTON (M)
Interviewer:
Interviewer:
Lillian
Foster
is
the
(L)-
See,
J:
This
Joan Nestle
(J)
Deb Adel
(D) E~\
it's
all
microphone.
in here.
Okay,
now,
The tape
here
is
in here.
Is
we go.
it
wound
up?
M: You mean to tell
the
table
talking
J:
No, no.
came in early.
want
you to
and this
me that
thing
sittin'
at
was on!
When you were
You were
we were
cleaning
just
the
now inside.
table,
okay?
And we
Now we
talk.
M:
What am I gonna
D:
You have
M:
But
J:
Yes,
lots
I don't
you do.
of
have
say.
stories
to
tell,
Mabel.
nothing!
Remember
1
the
story
you told
�Mabel
about
the
girls'
M:
here
Page
Hampton
and
shoot
M:
experiences
just
talk
a woman about
that
a minute.
Come down
(inaudible).
Now, this
D:
Wait
my
being
tell
a minute.
Now, really,
experiences
could
school?
Now, wait
J:
a2
is
I don't
Well,
bit
some of your
town.
tough.
I've
had
so many
know them.
before
a little
about
you could
about
what
talk
Joan
about
that,
was like
M:
(Laughs).
She gonna
knock
me out
J:
I'd
hear
Mabel--I
as
you
a kid.
now for
fair.
Mabel's
rather
what
want
to
hear
stories.
D:
It'll
get
M:
You didn't
J:
That's
M:
I've
J:
Remember
her
started.
even
prepare
me at
all
for
anything.
I
at
a girls'
school
M:
I'm
not
telling
J:
good,
got
so it
some stories
the
story
and they
You know too
it.
Tell
you told
much.
I'm
the
come spontaneously.
but
thought
That,
about
will
theater.
2
us about--it
you had
I ain't
not
I--
telling.
was
magic?
gonna
tell
it.
�Mabel
Hampton
Page
M:
What theater.
J:
Your
. When you were
in the
M:
show,
Oh.
I meets
and
twenty-five.
I seen
she
she
days
Oh,
yeah,
this
take
J:
What year
M:
Oh, that
After
lots
·But
one morning,
get
woman come to
know,
night,
the
sang .
in,
I was
in
this
twenty-four
liked
her
me how to
or
the
minute/
dance,
and
and--
was this?
was around
door
see,
door.
nineteen-eighteen.
And,
we used
take
happened.
the
I
She taught
me to
We'd
we came back,
locked
we couldn't
Well,
when you
She was about
show she'd
of things
one--they
uhmhum.
sweetheart.
the
and
theater
I don't
me home at
was my first
the
woman.
She was nice!
would
in
Village.
And then,
her.
night.·
early
a3
So,
girls
ringing
we couldn't
morning.
pulled
the
the
a fast
door
bell
want
at
places,
next
The locked
without
go out
different
come back
and the
on us.
to
And,
to
on us;
and the
ring
the
I
I
I
bell.
So I decide
go.
So,
I
I was
packed
up the
goin'
home.
next
She didn't
morning,
went
want
back
to
me to
Jersey
I
City
where
:lays
after.
around
there
I
come from,
And she
know'd
and
I
got
came over
to
that
she
a Job there
get
was white
3
me.
and
a couple
And everybody
I was colored.
of
J
�Mabel
Hampton
She drove
get
a grey
me, and
she
She took
Island
Page
in
car.
She drove
was the
me to
sweetest
at
night,
thing
Cony Island.
a show there.
come back
a grey
me,
to
that
in the
and bring
come up to
ever
And I danced
You know,
get
car
walked.
over
show.
me back
a4
in
Cony
And she'd
to
Jersey
City.
Now, you don't
for
me.
outfox
want
You so foxy,
you,
see.
it
to
know anymore.
isn't
I know what
L:
Well,
you heard
N:
Okay,
you're
funny,
you after.
me,
listening.
too.
(Tape
cuts).
4
but
You're
I'm
going
too
foxy
to
-
so I heard
you.
But you was in there
�Lillian
Foster
wonderful
bit
Page
pair.
I'll
never
regret
it.
But
she's
2
a little
tough.
D:
Where
L:
did
I met her
twenty-second.
whole
life.
don't
want
friends
· little
Death
it
to
will
be the
L:
New York
City.
J:
Remember,
And I had
friends
but
I'm
a ol'
Did you go to
L:
I went
will
end
J:
to
And,
and asked,
than
in
our
that,
I
all
the
in?
stories
was like
all
of
being
over
the
kid.
spoiled
that
clubs
night
lovers
city.
And,
lady,
And,
I'm
and at
then?
still
I
a
that
time
in night
clubs
and things?
clubs.
I really
of me--my
Tell
since
the
kid.
J:
City.
Other
tell
was a spoiled
spoiled
in Atlantic
us.
you would
What it
spoiled
separated
you meet
then?
I always
be the
never
September
end.
did
know.
thirty-two,
separate
What city
you had
in
nineteen
D:
I was a young,
~alked
her?
And we haven't
L:
don't
you meet
life.
story
you know,
enjoyed
my life.
This
my life.
you told
about
2
I lived
is
about
your
the
husband.
And that
woman who
�Lillian
Page
Foster
L:
A lady
(inaudible)'s
:5irl.
wife--and
You have
1usband?
~ith
the
And,
key,
at
and
re'll
the
says,
"You is
little
home,
same time,
I said,
if
in
she
a beautiful
'Now, you know,
;aid
walked
[sounds
once--Joe
that
like
Louistro]
a pretty
neat
but
my friend
"There
is
was your
where
come in
my husband."
husband,
3
is
the
She
you wouldn't
it."
do--.
J:
But
L:
I said
J:
You want
Turn
you
it
said
it.
it.
off
to
hear
now.
it
now.
(Tape
3
is
All
shut
right,
off).
then
your
door
said,
have
�Lillian
Foster
Page
L:
A lady
(inaudible)'s
girl.
wife--and
You have
husband?
with
the
And,
key,
at
and
we'll
the
says,
"You is
little
home,
same time,
I said,
if
in
she
a beautiful
"Now, you know,
said
walked
[sounds
once--Joe
that
like
Louistro]
a pretty
neat
but
my friend
"There
is
was your
where
is
come in the
my husband."
husband,
3
do--.
But
L:
I said
J:
You want
Turn
you
it
said
you wouldn't
it.
it.
off
to
hear
now.
it
now.
(Tape
3
is
All
shut
right,
off).
door
She said,
it."
J:
your
then
have
�INTERVIEWWITHMABELHAMPTON
(M)
Interviewer:
Lillian
Foster
J:
in
the
Nestle
Just
tell
(J)
how it
was different
being
a lesbian
twenties.
M:
. man and his
I went
wife.
woman I ever
fell
I didn't
was gettin'
all
Joan
(L)
night
with
the
stay.
in
to
so big.
If
known.
that
a family--two
with.
it
That
and
about,
she
I phones
when she
When she
a
She was the
first
got
kissed
the
lasted
three
thing--.
so one night,
asked
ready
me,
for
me too.
me would
to
I stay
leave,
I fainted
first
solid
You hear
1
I
back,
Now that's
come on that
children,
She loved
was all
go home,
So,
the
had--ever
love
kids.
me.
was
in
The man was a doctor.
in and kissed
shock
work
know what
ready
(inaudible)
to
real
she
dead
away,
love
I ever
years.
me,
came
if
that
�Mabel
comes
Hampton
on that
thing,
in
a theater
[Mc'Gaillion].
is
going
to
Tell
group
Ooooh,
still
with
J:
wait
the
Around
break
about
with
You knew--what
M:
This
I'm
Go ahead.
J:
You were
Page
it.
what
you were
saying.
Baker
and Eva
Josephine
it
was like
a minute.
b2
then.
Thaaaaat
was the
day.
dancing.
nineteen-eighteen?
Still
the
same
time?
M:
the
child's
that
Not only
name?
What's
J:
[Marlene
M:
No,
straightened
Josephine
but
woman's
there
was--what's
name?
Deitrik]?
she-the
that
Baker
-
Lillian,
hair?
J:
Lena
M:
What was her
what's
that
woman's
name
Walker?
Horn.
name?
Walker.
Wasn't
her
last
name Walker?
started
L:
Hundred
M:
No,
and twenty-fifth
she--the
straightening
L:
Who's
M:
Colored
L:
Yeah,
first--the
Street?
woman that
first
hair.
hair?
people's
hair,
up on a hundred
she was.
2
dear.
and twenty-fifth
street
�Mabel
Hampton
M:
or
fingers).
used
to,
an hour
then,
Page
Oh, that's
right.
Nelia
[Lilia]
Walker.
L:
Marion
M:
Yeah,
1:
I'm
all
M:
Her
daughter
from
the
show,
L:
Girl
that
Well,
anyhow.
[Lilia]
b3
(Snaps
Walker.
Walker.*
her
M:
She fell
L:
daughter--
right.
was named
[Lilia]
Walker.
We all
go up to-fell
out
out
in the
school
-
of
there
like
And couldn't
get
up.
J:
What was the
name of the
M:
Layin'
J:
What was the
M:
It
one
day--
gangbusters.
Their
neighbor
come home
later.
there
But
on the
floor.
Hugh?
name of the
was a musical--
show?
show?
"Come Along
was,
oh God,
other
different
anyhow,
we went
up to
Lilia
*
[ 'manda]."
And
ones.
Walker--.
All
of them
Checking
a tape I have of Jewelle
Gomez lecturing
on
lesbians
in the Harlem Renaissance,
I find a reference
to a
"Madam C.J. Walker",
the first
black woman millionaire,
who
made her fortune
out of designing
a way to straighten
black
women's hair.
It's
possible
that
the C stands
for Celia,
although
Mabel seems to be referring
to Madam C.J. 's
daughter.
In any event,
Marion does not seem to be correct.
(SA)
3
�Mabel
Hampton
now--they're
big
And we goes
Oh,
girl,
nothin'
stars
up to
it
but
pillows.
but
Page
this
pillows.
in.
lights--something
but
it
wall
M:
The base
of the
walls,
M:
Deh,
deh,
what
you know,
see.
in.
deh,
deh.
that
we stayed
it's
food,
there
they'd
in
light,
And you sit
to
do.
See,
who you know.
gray
car
a couple
on
You did
but
And I was known,
The woman in the
They had
you set
(inaudible)
get
club--
a key
was
the--
you not
to
Like
ain't
floor
like
bid
order
J:
And there
food.
they
wasn't.
Beautiful!
and you hug anQ you kissed.
that
in
hill.
in chairs;
'round
of the
in by who I know.
See.
set
was
and others
And on the
The base
be known
It
there.
L:
you want
had to
up on the
had
and you drink,
anything
dead
You didn't
was circle,
floors
house
was beautiful
And they
it
then--some's
b4
so I got
And I got
carried
of days.
you
me in.
We had
bring--
I
It's
J:
I
like
a hotel.
I
M: Yup.
she
had
them
wasn't
servants
went
big,
there.
big
It
was a house
there.
All
But they
people
like
the
were
up on the
stars--Ethel
little
there
are
later-I
,,
set
4
folks
now.
hill.
And
Waters--all
then.
See,
of
They
fifty
years
�Mabel
Hampton
J:
It
was
just
beginning.
M:
It
was
just
beginning.
friends.
And I danced
recall
the
name of
because,
M:
No.
nine.
in
the
key
trying
night,
they
all
of them
that
were
morning.
So she
running
nobody
bothered
for
me.
starts
and
I goes
forty-second
Avenue,
them
was
a moment,
I'll
think
going.
of the
_There
it
get
club
man's
up there.
dancin',
that
the
name
Aw, there
was about
was about
I was friendly
leave
was
the
eight
2 o'clock
with,
she
landlady
the
in."
you."
want
you to
go,"
around,
all
around.
and thirty-fifth,
'cause
I'm
used
Boom, boom,
twenty-fifth
street,
me.
on and
I locks
on back
Lennox
I
around--going
Down hundred
to
I' 11 go with
I don't
boom.
So,
I
"No,
of
The name of
go home and
even
"Oh,
Joy.
girl
to
can't
says,
I says,
to
the
"I have
she
the--jupt
was going
through
So,
says,
because
of
I'm
And we got
, says--I
the--at
Garden
of Joy.
one
And all
b5
it.
(Inaudible)
a bunch
or
at
L:
The Garden
was
Page
the
to
let
the
woman in.
door,
put
the
the
club
Street,
between--that
of the
keys
She was waitin'
in my pocket
Garden
up on a hill.
of Joy.
And just
was a hundred
5
and
hundred
as
I got
and thirty-third
on
�Mabel
Hampton
Street
one
in
Page
and
Lennox
the
back
I says,
Avenue--this
of
me.
"Wait
for
man walks
He says,
what?"
"Wait
in
b6
front
of me,
and
a minute."
Now, he don't
know where
I'm
going.
So he says,
I says,
grabbed
"You're
"I'm
not
Now that's
opened
the
room
in
you,
these
Makes
door
for
things
He took
house.
Makes
He took
that.
a woman came in--tall,
lookin'
woman.
And she
asks
I told
her,
So she
says,
We'll
take
Now, she
I told
me,
"Have
me up to
This
the
girl
that
door--he
"Well,
you ever
her
says,
okay.
this
I tell
Year
One.
had
time,
she'll
been
me a
the
opened
very
given
the
door,
attractive
do."
with
a man?"
"No."
"Well,
I
him I was nineteen.
brown-skinned,
And he says,
the
where
me.
So he says--at
at
from
'cause,
on since
my ring.
knocked
them
and thirty-first
a block
me strip.
you?"
and took
doorbell--somebody
do.
are
a hundred
of
And carries
going
he punched
"How old
Both
a half
landlady.
been
us.
you.
to
the
and
my watch
with
me back
has
me strip,
with
practically
a private
He says,
and
coming
me and brought
Street.
ring.
coming
She'll
along."
"Dress."
6
be alright.
She'll
�Mabel
Hampton
I put
meetin'
gets
the
or
down into
the
school
was the
I
Street,
I had
front
of me,
don't
know where
like
would
time.
In comes
no money.
what,
I went
the
slammed
that
but
it
right
you know,
the
out
"She's
that
gone
train
at
like
that,
I don't
struck
the
down to
platform
didn't
side
and
where
thirty-
there
was a
go downtown.
a hundred
subway,
and forty-
the
man's
woman,
'cause
I was
down those
Two, three
he seen
that
and tenth
and the
I went
So,
side
a hundred
window.
and we
downtown
care
in
I
stairs
steps
me gone.
same thing.
thing,
ran
I don't
right
and he threw
know whether
door.
a hundred
there,
the
of me,
around,
the
that
door.
on the
I'm
at
The
downstairs."
under
to
the
figure.
man turned
I ducks
The door
through
leap
to
up_to
to
back
and
always
And the
man says,
that
come back
went
down,
a hundred
go down to
man in
she
I could
to
over
b7
'bout
I comes
subway
Isn't
when we get
and the
figurin'.
other
and
So,
nothin'
you know then,
down the
'cause
over,
and
And,
side.
Street.
the
Avenue
downtown
fifth
Libby
So when
school.
cross
say
we crosses
You went
on.
I don't
nothin'.
on Lennox
there.
I live
I
is
on.
street,
Street--the
subway
I
my clothes
friends
fifth
it
Page
it
and got
7
the
went
for
in the
car.
knife
right
inside
or
as
I could
be.
Street,
cross
over,
train
and
I was scared
and tenth
the
wait
uptown
�Mabel
Hampton
Page
come right
on up to
that
four
time,
standin'
told
outside
them
life,
I never
'cause
more.
walked
they
were
right
thirty-fifth
they
have.
the
or
the
ain't
bell,
way--they
that
corner
a hundred
there,
nobody
copy
of
were
And I
the
Avenue
knew that
I had
seen
He says,
been
to
the
"Well,
a
they
woman--
a hundred
and
there--or
there
place
and they
where
Street.
there.
So,
everything
in
to
rang
"Booh."
We goes
room and
ride--
that
the
house
went
woman who owned the
the
some
went
them
man tell
and
my
Street,
they
I told
a red-stoned
and thirty-fifth
made the
didn't
where
And they
knew nothin'
walked--they
first
all
switchblade
and told
Street
say,
had
in
in
See,
It's
knives
went
house.
seventh
nobody
described
me.
At
and thirty-fifth
I heard
something.
me at
a hundred
me 'cause
We came back.
the
girls
so long?"
always
And they
down to
Street.
apartment
and
was you
me women ain't
up to
take
on the
Street.
so many switchblade
and thirty-fifth
gonna
forty-fifth
fellows
tell
back
went
hundred
the
"Where
seen
The come all
they
of
and
happened.
so don't
knives,
five
sayin',
what
Well,
and
or
a hundred
b8
there.
the
When they
they
house
I'd
been
'cause
she
girl
8
just
they
left
got
the
carried
get
cop,
come out,
and
in.
So the
said
she
there."
and
cop
hadn't
I
�Mabel
Hampton
But
found
we all
the
people
you,
for
looked
man nor
white
for
those
people
nothin'.
slavery
So,
has
daddy
My mother
to
work.
one
let
I'm
nobody
ever
every
hour.
Ain't
never
girl
year.
I kept
tryin'
out
died
and ain't
this
thing
of
been
goin'
on since
to
when
about,
but
God--thank
bothered
me.
Well,
L:
From nineteen,
bothered
me.
didn't
J:
Well,
L:
I don't
M:
That
one
was a very
bad
see.
that.
9
this
New York at
right
in the
bed with
didn't
bother
that
ever
experience.
Never
ain't
nor
I had.
But nobody
Well,
me--man
want
How could
work.
right.
And they
what
go to
somethin'?
husband.
know.
that,
slept
to
I begged
story,
walked
bothered
I have
I bet.
like
all
I have
ever
and a man or her
another
that
of
me to
me go to
make a short
I was kiddin',
And nobody
they
to
Then
want
let
Now, isn't
M:
So maybe
him to
to,
age
I went
I went.
He didn~t
beggin'
the
I was twelve.
all
work.
get
talk
on my own at
That's
me go to
Well,
what
I always
I started
high-school
have
the
You know,
Jesus--.
nineteen.
me.
long
b9
began.
L:
the
night
woman nor
snatchin'
time
Page
had
woman.
be?
bothered
me.
I would
another
one
never
like
�Mabel
Hampton
Page
L:
I've
been
a lucky
M:
And nobody
L:
But
girl
in
New York
blO
all
these
years.
times
is
sick,
I'm
'cause
you
gettin'
out
stayin'
older
me after
know now,
so bad
nervous
I'm
bothered
and
on the
in
I'm
I don't
the
half
that.
know why,
street
house
sick,
and
maybe
that
I'm
by myself.
I'm
very
that
half
Maybe
nervous
being
Lillian
Foster.
alone.
after
me,
J:
You can't
take
L:
But
ain't
nobody
M:
Me,
I don't
that,
I'd
really
were
but
J:
It
sounded
fought--took
care
of
of
each
protective
around
something
in
You've
heard
and
to
with
will
believe
them,
No,
that.
they
of
the
taught
It
as you
me it
never
were
each
bothered
me,
Anybody
walkin'
talking,
that
other.
even
about
I mean that
that
guides
that
the
women
you
other.
means
I once--I
it?
bothered
street.
me and
happen
ever
precautions.
out
very
in
of _yourself.
know.
step
M:
walks
I took
care
me.
rightens
joined
I still
me a lot
I have
Even
itself.
the
correspond
to
10
think.
a spirit
if
I'm
See,
[Rose
of
a little
that
wrong,
I really
Crucian].
bit
with
�Mabel
Hampton
If
'
I lose
don't
worry
going
to
find
something,
about
find
it.
it.
want
you'll
worry--she
it,
I. lose
And ten
bother,,
''Oh,
I don't
If
when I don't
it
says,
Page
to
can tell
I lose
it.,
one chances
it.
If
get
she
you--I
I know i'm
I finds
loses
it.
I
something,
sur'e
and
it,•'
bll
I
later,
enough
'
she'll
L:
mother,
she
it.
go and get
be
nothin'
had
fight.
seen
I was
ain't
in
never
It
(The recording
J had said softly
second
is
'cause
nothing
side
is
Mabel
do you
school,
bothered
know,
I see
all
being
is
the
luckiest
Yes
sir,
she's
I've
never
the
children
there.
women with
very
been
lucky.
in
a
fightin',
time.
ends on this
side of the tape.
to herself,
I'm going
to turn
it
completely
And
me
was a different
anywhere
know her
I don't
by her
mother
my life.
in
Mabel.
over
be her
nobody--and,
J:
.here
watches
to
an angel
I ever
But
nobody
it
but
must
Somebody
on the
blank).
other
side
of the
Although
over,
tape.
The
�INTERVIEW WITH MABEL HAMPTON (M)
Interviewer:
Joan
J:
Joan
Nestle
[This
Nestle
just
is
(J)
the
story]
of Mabel
Hampton,
in Bedford
hills.
There
with
helping.
M:
We arrived
J:
Did you go by bus?
M:
We were
How were
was--
you taken
there,
Mabel?
by bus
taken
or
car?
by car,
me questions--how
Wait
taken
buy--let
a minute,
and there
old
me see,
were
we taken
[I was]
I was the
only
one.
was a woman with
me.
She was asking
was
I?
J:
How old
were
M:
I think
I told
J:
Was that
M:
Yeah.
the
you?
them
I was eighteen.
truth?
And the
woman said,
1
"Well,
how did
you
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
d2
i
I
come to
get
mixed
I said,
going
and
to
"I
take
I--but
cops
up with
didn't
us to
get
So I told
lik~
that
know who he was."
the
he didn't
come to
somebody
cabaret
do it.
or
man?"
He promised
something--my
So she
l
asked
he was
girlfriend
me to
tell
how the
me.
her,
"Well,
the
fellow
knocked
on the
door,
I
II
II
I!
1I
answered
Bedford
the
door--"
J:
We've
done
that.
We've
done
that.
Go on to
Hills.
M:
hungry;
Alright.
I told
She
her
So,
she
says--they
me was
I
"No."
"Do you know how long
says,
asked
you're
going
to
be
Ii
here?"
I says,
"Well,
I says,
years.
it
"But
seems
like
I don't
I'll
think
be here
I'll
for
be here
three
for
three
years.
She
said,
"Why?"
I says,
done?"
like
I says,
that.
She
you
"Because
"I don't
Why should
says,
do anything
I haven't
"Well,
or not.
done
anything.
know nothing
they
that
keep
judge
about
What have
a man or nothing
me in
here
three
don't
give
a dern
She gets
paid
there."
2
to
send
years?"
whether
you up
I
�I
Mabel
Hampton
I said,
Page
"Well,
that's
a terrible
d3
way of makin'
a
livin'."
She
says,
"I know it
J:
Who was the
M:
This
investigator.
and
So,
she
had
mixed
wife
in,
big,
gray
and
She
that?"
We'll
in
big,
get
"Now,"
So,
here
she
So,
didn't
have
through
says,
his
trouble
she
you to
these
you to
a very
They
says,
have
"Well,
no trouble.
me food.
All
take
like
"You hungry?"
or white?
eatin'
in
and
black
"I'll
no clothes.
bein'
take
She was white.
I got
man there
young."
"I'll
M:
at . "
a private
He called
and we won't
give
Was she
says,
doin'
she
J:
she
look
in
And the
charmin'.
same thing,
They
says,
was my
eighteen."
alright,
"Yes."
be she
I went
house.
"My, you
the
you out."
I says,
private
"What was you
along
you?
was my investigator,
Hills.
was very
So I repeated
she
to
to
nice.
big
I'm
out
out
Bedford
says,
"Yes,
said,
get
turned
hair--he
-- .
woman who was talking
was very
she
I says,
you'll
It
we arrived
house--big,
She says,
woman was--turned
See.
I thought
is.
nice
didn't
3
the
dormitory--"
are
white
where
the
dinner.
give
people.
girls
Then,
you a chance
sleep
I
to
�I
I
Mabel
get
Hampton
nothing.
Page
See.
She remind
J:
Anita
Bryant.
M:
Yeah.
Could
me of that
hussie
d4
right
over
there.
have
been
her
sister.
I
J:
The
judge
M:
The
judge.
J:
So,
did
M:
Oh yes,
J:
What
did
she
M:
Well
she
brought
I
[reminded
-
you
of Anita
Bryant].
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
;!
they
give
you
clothes?
I got-give
you?
in
the--let's
see,
what
did
I'
she
bring
in?
then--what
shoes,
do you
stockins.
And she
says,
the
She brought
call
me in
them
She asked
says,
"Now I'll
"Now remember,
there're
a shirt--a
things?--peticoat,
me what
take
What kind
of
M:
The dress
was a gray
The shoes
size
shoe,
some more
dress
shirt--and
drawers,
you to
J:
front.
gold
your
girls
I told
her.
room.
She
in
room.
your
was it?
was Oxfords,
dress.
It
buttoned
and the
stockins
down
was
black.
hair
So,
she
for
you.
I said,
She
says,
says
"I
now,
can
"All
"One of these
girls
will
comb your
comb it."
right."
So,
I had
4
pretty,
shoulder-
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
length
hair,
so
I didn't
So we comes
that
door--I
the
but
I heard
She
it
says,
"Miss
now.
I can't
right
heard
So,
that.
a door.
should,
door.
tell
to
mind
remember
the
now I don't.
a voice
saying,
-----what
she
d5
is
says,
"I
on
She knocked
on
"What
that
got
number
do you want?"
woman's
name?
a new girl
Can't
that's
comin'
in."
( Pause
takes
So,
M:
The house,
me to
the
So,
tall,
thirty
they
yard
or
three
was with
She was
tape)
J:
houses--two
that
in
me.
like
.
take
you
yes,
where
says,
after
good-lookin',
years
is
gone.
Now,
row of
little
a whole
Now,
it
wasn't
her,
it
was this
girl
opened
the
brown-skin
So,
old.
she
you're
a kid.
shoulder
to some more,
got
And one
pressure."
"Well,
house
there's
doors.
It wasn't
house--?
the
she
supervisor
man's
wife.
an overseer.
she
we've
this
the
put
calling
the
woman--1
guess
her
out.
hand
And she
Come on in.
what
to
them
hollered
by name,
door--I
faced
he was about
She says,
"Oh,
over
she
her
says,
''Look
here."
of
if
the
she
girls
can't,
says,
I'll
"I hope
take
5
care
she
a
can
of her.''
stand
the
�Mabel
Hampton
I said
Page
[to
What am I going
pay
for
handed
this
to
over.
to
You see
do?"
woman gave
her
from
Here's
"What
I'm
now,
in
for
it
somebody's
now.
going
to
outside,
your
time
me the
cot."
is
bundle
and the
It's
a cot
girl
you
of
clothes
says,
slept
that
was
"Come on
I
on.
And she
*
it?"
~
(.,
I
ain't
take
"Oh my god,
this.
So,
asks,
myself],
d6
says,
goin'
care
"What
to
of
bed
the
now."
your
I says,
"Mabel.
I looked
for?
to
'cause
it
know the
time
for?
You
make no difference,
I
kid.**
"What's
"Mabel
do you want
name?"
"
what?"
at
her,
[It's]
Mabel."
"Alright,
if
she
"What
did
don't
want
you want
to
tell
to
me,
know my name
don't
tell
me.
*
Although
Mabel did use the pronouns
"I" and "She" as
indicated
in order
to outline
the dialogue
between
her and
her cell
mate,
it's
not absolutely
clear
who's saying
what.
Is Mabel really
getting
tough with this
woman right
off in
order
to make a point?
Or is it actually
the other
woman
who's getting
bossy?
(SA)
** The confusion
continues
as above.
I left
this
out
of quotes
because
it's
not clear
whether
it's
Mabel's
musings
on her own ability
to care for herself,
or whether
it's
part
of what could possibly
be her cell
mate's
refusal
to tell
her the time.
(SA)
6
�Mabel
Hampton
She
says,
nightgown
you'll
for
you.
"Now, there's
went in
[sounds
there
like
She
funny
bathroom.
with
"Here
lookin'
bed
"Now,
so,
d7
"Here's
a
nightgown.
Go in
there
She says,
and undress."
on--she
throwed
So,
I put
I
me a pair
them
on [and]
my clothes.
is
like
don't
your
bed."
that.
Well,
So,
I sat
cry,
because
the
back
of
the
"Oh,
what
is
goin'
The woman in
you're
on the
and undressed.
Put
'used'
(used what?)]
(inaudible)--
say,
She says,
me later."
I put
the
come on out
tell
Page
I never
seen
down on the
nobody's
gonna
room says,
a
bed.
hurt
"No,
not
you."
while
here."
So,
course,
I said,
I said
"Oh,"
to
happen?"
So,
of
my prayers.
one
of the
hollered,
"She's
holy
and
sanctimonious."
told
called
I said,
"Well,
what
did
that
So,
the
one that
you
she
was an innocent"--what
mean?"
was taking
care
of me said,
did
something.
7
I said
she
call
to
myself.
"Sure,
me?
she
I
�Mabel
Hampton
She
said,
"No,
So,
"Hmmm, you must
I didn't
she
accustomed
else
Page
said,
to
to
know her
"All
saying
do but
say
knowed
me,
right.
Go to
my prayers,
and nobody
and when
I woke up,
said
the
011tside."*
outside."*
my prayers.
bothered
her
d8
bed."
I was
so I didn't
So,
know nothin'
I fell
a word to
?sleep.
me.
sun was shining
Nobody
I fell
asleep,
beautifully
in
there--beautifully.
She say,
and get
"It's
dressed
early.
now.
and pulled
off
bathroom.
We dressed
beautiful
There
["said
huge
this
out
We go for
cotton
there.
There
And then
I heard
something.
The girl
diningroom
and eat."
So,
diningroom.
*
she
took
said,
me by the
The diningroom
Again,
have been that
sanctimonious"
or it could be
to
get
up and wash up
breakfast."
nightgown
and we come out
was--it
was just
nice.
it can't
be squared,"
log.
You have
and washed
in the
was chairs
I
or
So,
I got
up in the
yard.
sitting
up
It
was
around.
saw a canopy spread"]
(inaudible)--the
something
like
"Now, we have
hand,
a bell
to
go down in the
and we went
was about
as
long
or
on down to
as from
the
here
confusion
as to who is talking.
It could
women who said Mabel was "holy and
talking
with the woman taking
care of Mabel,
Mabel's
guardian
talking
with Mabel.
(SA)
8
�fl,.
Mabel
to
I
Hampton
that
were
wasn't
I didn't
up there--bookstore.
together.
There
They
I
store
women were
all.
Page
they
M:
White
set
So,
They were
have
White
kind
"We have
"Boy,
Always
had
first
of
women.
been
young
girls.
and black
they
were.
place
is
this?"
and--I'll
sausages-,
good
never
eggs,
forget
it--
and potatoes.
coffee,
rolls
I don't
food.
beds
to
see
they
you
she
says,
sit
around
smile."
had.
know where
So,
and
day was the
Did you see
Not then,
So later
talk.
good
it
Oh,
had
come from,
"And then
and talk."
they
not
on--about
The would
same thing
any
then,
signs
all
we go back
So that
of
over
ended
agiin.
lesbians?
no.
two or three
whisper.
days
So I said
9
of--everybody
to
that
good
but
day.
J:
M:
it's
did.
The second
would
them
they?
me down by her,
we ate:
make up our
the
count
"Sure!"
She says,
they
and
that?"
I says,
food.
were
what
says,
couldn't
could
and black.
"Well,
girls
attention.
What color
had--she
You like
any
been--I
the
or twenty.
They
J:
she
have
fifteen
girls.
them
So I thought,
So,
about
young
pay
J
Must
And all
d9
girl,
and
�Mabel
Hampton
"Who are
they
She
dykes
Page
talkin'
laughed.
don't
I said,
wouldn't
So,
She
say
nothin'.
she
says,
girls'
but
club
they
at
and
you
Well,
Yeah,
of
girls--in
a girls'
thinking
said,
'dykes'?"
I
club?"
what
when
said,
"Yes,"
thought
belonged
to
they
wasn't--I
but
or
not.
But
Jersey
City.
you
you
did
said
"Do you
what
were
that
it
'Yes'?
belong
you
was
there."
to
a
thinking?
an ordinary
by myself
for
fifth
three
day,
"Hello,
a club?
don't
I had
I says,
I was wonderin'.
says,
Those
time.
M:
And he
to
mean by
me lateF
you
I just
You had
the
she
When she
J:
during
mind.
do there?"
tell
thinking?
lesbians
So,
here
You'll
were
couple
any
talk."
you
that
does
you
What were
M:
creeps
Uhrnmm. "
J:
club?"
those
"You belong
right.
What were
hell
"What'd
"Nothing,
"All
the
"Yeah.
said,
pay
anything."
"What
I says,
about?"
"Don't
mean
d10
"Here
years.
So,
he come up,
this
little
girl."
10
messed
I'm
the
know whether
around
going
with
to
a
be up
man come up--
same white
He says,
fellow.
"You want
to
�Mabel
,
Hampton
write
any
Page
letters
dll
home?"
1
I says,
"No."
"You ain't
"No."
about
bed
got
I said,
[Maud] .
and
had
Sunday.
nobody
[Maud]
and
I had
time.
says,
I says,
write
"I' 11 think
a nice
She
to
about
it."
been
friends.
So the
"You want
to?"
wife,
to
go to
So I thought
she
We went
to
come up on a
church?"
"Uhugh."
"What
are
I got
to
you:
Methodist,
Catholic,
Presbyterian
or
what?"
says,
say
around
the
room.
I
"Methodist."
She
says,
"Are
I says,
"I
So,
she
says,
She
says,
everything.
go to
"Are
says,
So then
in
"You want
the
to
go for
your
go with
yes.
did.
yard
them
I think
clothes
about
it."
to
I'll
nice
pressed
and
me."
take
take
And there
and
when
right."
I have
and he was very
out
of
you going
"Oh,
she
sure.
all
"All
You can
She
there,
you
"Now,
I says,
set
I looked
something.
you."
was a Methodist
too.
looked
me?"
minister
Then we come on back.
at
a walk?"
11
the
flowers.
She says,
We
�Mabel
Hampton
I says,
She
Page
"No,
says,
I says,
She
"Why?
says,
me.?
"
in
the
"All
says,
I looked
and
I says,
"No,
says,
nice--and
you
say.
and
She took
"Any of
the
I said,
"What
outside
walk."
you talk?"
to
right,
"Well,
also
her
another--I
was--but
I will
my hand
girls
of
start
an9
up here
is
she
you
we sat
She
she
all
the
and
walkin'
guided
you
trying
the
women 1-ikes
husband."
don't
I says,
So,
to
."
me
like?"
to
white
dig
out
of
woman down
office."
She
or
nothing
walkin'.
She
want
Why don't
"I have
So we started
along.
I don't
d12
We went
know whether
on this
it
thing.
her
'cause
on down.
was a pool
She
says,
she
Some place
or
"Can you
what
it
swim?"
"No."
says,
"Neither
says,
I.
can
"You know,
We'll
you don't
sit
here
know me.
and talk."
My name is
Ruth."
I says,
She
haven't
says,
got
Well,
didn't
they
"Yeah."
want
would
"I know you.
your
I'm
last
not
anybody
I still
Your
name is
Mabel.
her
my last
name because
name."
gonna
to
do or what
tell
know I was there.
they
would
say.
12
I didn't
I
know what
�I 11 e you
1
c
be
IDF bed
d
eep
you
oo
o
ahe
e
O
ah, ..
1DF bed
If
nt
il
�Mabel
Hampton
So she
says,
I says,
She
have
"Well,
"You play
says,
we'll
play
Black
"We have
Jack
money?
I says,
"No,
I don't
time
pick
up any money
to
was away.
The children
myself.
Only
She
all
Page
the
three
days,
says,
"So that's
children
and
"Someday
somebody's
I said,
"I wish
She
says,
"No,
So,
we had
because
in
camp,
all
what
send
I could
that's
got
the
that
I didn't
people
I work
I was there
for
by
happened.
Norris
up here."
her
money?"
I said
and
Judge
them
gonna
money."
any money."
and
sends
for
Jack."
Have you
have
was
Black
d14
do.
She
She takes
said,
somewhere."
right
now.
alright.
God will
take
care
of
her."
cream
for
dessert.
there
and
sat
"Yeah,
She
like
to
have
It
down.
I like
says,
"I
a supper--a
was
So,
lovely
summertime,
she
says,
supper
with
and we went
"I like
ice
back
out
you.
you too."
don't
know whether
you
like
me the
way I
you.
I
says,
She
bed
and
she
kissed
"No,
said
she
I guess
no more
took
me.
me in
I wasn't
not."
[until]
her
And I sat
time
bed
to
and held
go to
there.
bed.
me in her
I was much smaller
so big.
14
We went
arms
to
and
than
I
�rr
I
Mabel
Hampton
am now.
Four
Page
I wore
shoe.
So,
a Twelve
dress.
she
me in her
held
Very
smallAr.
arms,
dl5
I wore
and
I went
a
to
sleep.
J:
Say the
M:
I told
many people
It's
M:
Okay,
She put
know.
Well,
next
up your
take
notice.
off.
This
says,
"That's
stinkin'
it
was goin'
"Yeah,
to
from
just
up to
me.
Okay.
me like
go this
to
way,
do,
you
in half.
Ellen
the
used
and
to
that
she'd
kisses"--to
one to
the
me questions,
This
like
I like
kiss
Then,
this
a month
myself,
I
I have
or two.
would
or pump her--ask
way.
a
one."
nobody
they
to
one was paired
girls.
me goodbye.
other,
I began
two go this
they
for
same thing.
girls.
those
girls.
on like
the
off.
I b'lieve
like
we come to
so
that--
was about
one was paired
her
want
sleep.
room and talk
went
it
It's
day--everyday
they
I don't
you.
arm around
"None of your
So,
Break
funny.
I like
ask
my business.
somewhere,
And,
says,
one
Listen,
it's
This
idea
So,
and
her
Mabel.
truth.
up to
And I went
Clean
the
knowin'
J:
truth,
her
So,
If
she
I said,
else.
try
to
pump me
questions.
She
damn business."
the
point
where
15
the
girls
come and make
�Mabel
Hampton
wine.
1
let
And,
them
give
say
act.
were
she
by the
pool."
you
things
love
out
to
I know,
It's
got
it
says,
It
on.
me and
was a big,
she
In about
big,
says,
three
says,
one will
with
oldtimers.
so-and-so
down
name?
more
back
to
papers
you,
and
months.
made dresses
out
comin'
but
are
her.
We made
in
the
One day,
for
yard,
in my ear
me,
and
I sittin'
you know--go
she
had
something.
her
I
."
you,
I feel
huge
I kiss
was nice!
Eighteen
girl
"What
"No,
she
little
I may have
me and was whispering
is
the
brings
and
kiss
I was sittin'
I says,
So,
goin'
was his
then
she
yard--this
"Somebody
"No,"
out.
but
up,
went
church.
wouldn't
name on them.
So,
She
It
his
time.
dl6
it."
"I'm
so long,
of times.
time
of
girl
They was really
me,
find
been
we wound
arm around
out
see.
to
this
know what
And Mr.--what
M:
So,
a long
don't
her
say
We'll
the
for
oldtimers,
a couple
in
says,
leave
would
that
So,
you
J:
know.
a ball.
wine
and
So,
And so,
I had
me any
up here,
They
I!
oh boy,
"We're
or
Page
a spiritualist?"
there's
a man comin'
up here."
place.
"Alright,"
seconds,
and
the
she
removed
man appeared.
16
her
arm.
And he says,
�Mabel
"Is
Hampton
a girl
Page
here
I said,
named
"Are
and
name?
he's
"Well
"The
been
down there.
take
as
*
of his
I says,
J:
wants
comin'
up here
stayed
there
house.
you
from
here
to
And t~ere
his
she
quite
Living
in their
M:
In the
house.
of course,
get
house,
and take
you
Eighty-Sixth
he wanted
"You think
me to
you can
do it?"
do it."
J:
And,
to
the
that
house?
clean
said
What's
you down in
He says,
I can
not
as
house.
his
j..t?
right."
walk
house.
Clean
for
to
The big
"Yeah,
wife
all
far
M: Yeah,
And his
do you call
supervisor
Now, it's
maybe.
care
the"--what
after
So we had
Street
you Mabel?"
"Uhugh. "
He says,
man's
Hampton?"
"Yes."
He says,
I says,
Mabel
d17
I'd
house.
was very
six
glad.
So there--I
months.
house.
They took
go up and
me to
see
the
live
girls,
in their
and the
girls-J:
angry?
What was the
Did they
*
About
six
feel
reaction
you were
blocks?
with
(SA)
17
of the
them?
girls?
Were they
�I
Mabel
Hampton
Page
M:
They
didn't
I was different
figured
seasoned
women.
And this
house
cops
and
everything
then
they
would
there.
run
of
or
that's
anything
found
out
me in.
the
money.
city,
she
see]
and
anything.
girls
give
that?
J:
Did anybody
M:
No.
Wait
told
us.
have
her
men
And
money.
mammy up
was a QT.
into
up
old,
prostitutes.
Everything
divided
they
things.
And they
Oh, you made money's
said
like
They were
different
[to
her
Because
and
come in there
No.
butches
and
Studs?
(inaudible)-a minute.
I come back
to
Not that
New York
time.
and went
See,
back.
Then
I
everything.
J:
I didn't
M:
I went back.
know you went
I told
back.
you.
This
woman turned
I was too-J:
you were
M:
investigator
in
visit
See.
in a way.
woman.
M:
after
me.
by another
Were the
J:
them
a house
come up to
But nobody
fems
from
had
is
She made lots
mad at
They was prostitutes
One woman up there
So,
get
d18
Alright.
in that
Yeah,
came up.
Tell
house
okay.
the
for
story
six
After
that's
to
18
along.
months.
I was there
She talked
going
this
for
woman.
awhile,
And then
the
1
�Mabel
she
Hampton
says,
"Mabel,
New York.
was
Page
"You can't
picked
t o.?
you
want
go to
Morningside
Is
anybody
there.
there
to
go back
New York
up at--in
I
back
would
'cause
Jersey?"--not
that's
See,
Avenue.
else
to
d19
you
you know you
where
you
can't
go
could
go
"
I says,
name.
I says,
"I
And she
three
can
you
can
said,
out--"--you
So,
yes."
"Oh,
So,
go and
"Well,
know what
sure
days
write
out
J:
Like
her."
with
investigate
went
can
you
knows
and
She
find
say
says,
them
call
do you
woman's
you."
..and I would
again.
What
II
this
her
she
away,
was back
out--
so that
stay
I'll
she
she
write
go--I'll
I called
I mean--"That
enough,
later,
I forget,
about
"Well,
you
things
that
go somewhere?
a pass.
M: Yeah.
She
tomorrow.
But
you're
So,
her
says,
I'll
and
lesbian.
And she
not
in
"Now,
you
can
take
you
and
to
the
go to
meantime,
friendly.
And she had her
I was free
me that,
to
come to
take
you to
this
leave
woman's
house.
New York."
I had
met
Just
I became
told
go tomorrow.
You can
a white
ordinarily.
girlfriend
anytime
woman there,
that
I wanted
That's
New York.
19
But
lived
to
she
and
was a
in New York.
come to
New York,
how I met Gladys
�Mabel
Hampton
Bently
and
you her
the
nothing
"I
So,
this
"Oh,
She
women.
address."
She
I can."
other
out
in
says,
"You give
"I'll
remember
take
come
says,
"I'll
weeks
too."
give
no papers
it?"
or
Okay .
in.
see
you when
I
address,
and
a whLte
friend
I'll
give
it
else."
two
friends:
I was so happy.
one
and
six
year
Okay,
or
so this
tongue--she
seven
says,
I says,
So,
and
got
"Well,
been
"Well,
of the
three.
on the
end
come down to
out,"
see
there
of my
and
"come to
you."
come that
the
mornin'
colored
at
eight
girl
and
the
white
I was gone.
people.
says,
out
a colored
made me stay
gettin'
I kissed
me.
and
I've
had
and
"
I know the
white
She
I'll
investigator
"goodbye,"
Now,
months
"Now, you're
"Alright.
this
They
woman says--right
me some time.
those
six
says,
"Can you
you
me your
Oh,
girl
what
girl
friend.
o'clock
says,
she
d20
I says.
So now I had
see
So,
You don't
with
colored
comin'
yeah,"
someone
the
think
I'm
come out.
of
You go out
out.
II
to
rest
name and
I says,
•
Page
colored
girl
Be very
careful
around
your
said
them
life
to
"Be careful
of them."
mostly
isn't
20
me,
all
over
of my life."
with
yet."
of
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
Okay,
so we were
York--come
on to
(shrilling)
that
you
bitch
get
We come on to
And this
seen
in
New
woman says,
you
trouble?"
in
such
a long
She reminded
time.
me of
there.
Anita
Bryant.
pointing
Say her
pointing
name because
you're
a car.
I haven't
know who you're
bitch's
in
City.
yourself
over
J:
won't
Jersey
"Mabel,
Why did
going
d21
to.
name because
You have
women who hear
this
people
to
won't
say
that
know what
to.
M: Okay.
J:
Anita
M:
Just
So she
ashamed
Bryant.
reminds
me of Anita
when I got
says,
there,
Bryant.
"You should
have
been
of yourself."
So,
I says,
"I want
She says,
"Yeah,
Now there
was
a job. "
I got
a job
for
you..
Up on the
hill."
once
before,
took
me up to
you very
and
a colored
she
the
woman up there
was gay.
woman's
much.
She talks
She says,
"You want
That's
house.
all
She says,
nice.
to
live
there?"
I says , "No . "
21
that
I had met
I wanted.
"Yeah,
They
I like
�GJ
Mabel
Page
Hampton
(End
'
I
Side
M [in
had
all
says,
to
there.
them
"I'm
see
So,
so glad
to
"Thank
he had
she
see
And your
I says,
I will
And I had
girls.
you.
So,
1).
mid-sentence]:
some furniture
d22
been
things
are
van.
I had
with
her.
I
"Oh,
Mabel,"
she
I know my husband
would
love
well
She used
a movin'
friendly
come in there,
you.
you."
stand."
taken
to
care
save
of."
my life.
The name was Brown--Maud
Brown.
So she--"Come
over
and had
Miss
for
over
something
to
"Yes,
and
whatever
work
I did.
this
I says,
something
say,
I'll
woman say,
to
eat."
I went
eat.
Wathchamacallit
I says,
So,
and have
"You're
workin'
I always
pay you.
"You don't
"No."
I think
she
J:
This
was the
M:
Hugh?
J:
The gay woman?
M:
No, no,
now.
want
had--was
got
to
stay."
it
one child
good pay
or two
children?
I'm
gay woman.
Who--?
talkin'
about
22
this
woman I went
to
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
work
for.
Now,
was very
I don't
nice.
other--(bangs)
her.
her--on
Pitts
Well,
together,
nationality
She was a good-lookin',
And down from
see
know what
and
another
was her
her
I,
and
we talked
she
blonde
together,
together,
She
this
And I went
name.
we slept
was.
woman.
street--lived
last
d23
down to
and we ate
and we laughed
together.
-
So,
she
says,
"Now, what
I ain't
11
gonna
Now there's
uncle.
have
says,
I says,
She
I says,
"Well,
"No,
And I told
it
with
white
to
"That's
tell
She says,
I says,
Pitts,
break
it
off
put
and
me,
and my
it
together.
it
to
alright."
money?"
money
in the
bank."
it?"
"This
white
"You're
woman gave
alright.
You've
me,
been
and
I
messin'
people."
I says,
started
··
things."
get
in the bank."
"oh,"
she says.
do?"
do with
I'm
her
to
to
I got
you
going
lot
"You need
"Where'd
put
to
"How's
says,
you
do nothing.
a whole
You'll
She
are
her
nothing
"Yes,
new.
something
"You still
and
is
I'll
I
and
I said,
a fresh
always
23
said,
"Skip
"Skip
woman."
be that."
it."
it."
I
�Mabel
Hampton
She
it,
says,
"Well,
all
right."
She says,
"I
d24
love
you for
II
So time
white
that
went
on.
woman appeared
she
girl--a
to
Page
in
a gray
the
car--open
The woman that
J:
That
you met
M:
That
I met in Bedford--contacted
went
with.
And that
woman--another
girl.
And they
[palled]
J:
had
in
The
car.
M:
palled
woman?
I left.
date,
Which
they
white
to
J:
white
it--but
Two weeks
The woman from-the
whore
house.
Bedford.
the
girl
woman
had
around--wasn't
a
nothing
around.
So they
were
lesbians
and they
was lesbians
now.
were
prostitutes?
M: Everything
J:
And also
prostitutes?
M: And prostitutes
J:
who were
Lesbian
lesbians,
see.
I mean,
prostitutes.
lesbian
women
prostitutes.
M: Lesbian
And this
knew what
and
white
women who were
woman that
I was because
J:
Was she
M:
Yes.
had
prostitutes.
this
whore
house--she
she-a lesbian?
She had
talked
24
to
me and questioned
me
�Mabel
Hampton
about
half
what
of
Page
I did,
where
New York,
So she
M:
So,
to
she
came to
her
police
see
pull
And she
knew
force.
you up--.
me.
up at
like
So,
the
the
when Miss-door,
she
idea.
didn't
Was a good-
So,
woman.
the
She didn't
say.
who I knew.
came and picked
her--seen
know what
lookin'
includint
J:
whatchacall
I went,
d25
she
asked
was Mabel
almost),
"yes.
Hampton--Miss
Hampton--there.
She
says
(whining
"May I see
her."
"You certainly
Someone
want
to
may.
see
I come on down.
I threw
one.
'cause
them
welcomin'
So,
she
says,
"Oh,
around
her
asses
"You want
"uhmhum."
down.
Called
my life.
stupid
Mabel-1-1-1.
my God.
neck
didn't
So you're
the
and welcomed
know nothin'
her-about
anybody.
I says,
Flew
you."
I said,
my arms
other
Babel-1-1-1,
the
to
I went
go for
upstairs
woman by name--can't
And she--"Well,
a drive?"
and
think
got
of
you know,
you don't
is
the
my jacket.
it
now to
go to
New
York."
I said,
"If
New York
around
25
corner,
then
I'm
save
�Mabel
goin'
Page
Hampton
d26
."
So we gets
York.
Went to
and those
this
in
the
car
and
a cabaret,
people,
goes
straight
and that's
on over
to
how I met Ethel
New
Waters
you know.
J:
We'll
M:
I met so many people
woman that
talk
about
was the
them.
head
that
of this
this
girl
house
knew,
knew.
and
They was
friends.
J:
So she
cabaret?--the
name of
M:
Wait
of
think
can't
later
come back
I
Okay,
so she
M:
Yeah,
because
was friends,
one's
come in
until
New Jersey,
about
took
she
twelve
Jersey,
and
or one
Oh,
white
o"clock,
26
meeting
Gladys
Bently?
a year
good.
for
this
knew the
that.
about
I met her
you to
and the
like
her?
then.
you see--both
from
end
it.
New York
J:
them
Newark,
to
Small's
of my tongue
Talk
meet
her
to
though.
to
to
meet
I didn't
M:
when
come back
the
it was?
I know I went
on the
I will
now.
it
now.
it's
to--oh,
you remember
where
Did you get
Bently.
Gladys
it?--or
We'll
J:
you--do
a minute
I went
Paradise.
I
took
cabaret--?
friends.
All
and black.
black
ones
And they'd
and then
of
White
come in from
stay
they'd
there
go home.
�Mabel
Hampton
And,
naturally,
just
as
Page
I knew them
this
new little
So,
J:
you to
all.
But
they
d27
didn't
know m
girl.
what
happened
that
t?
nig
So,
she
too
New York--.
M: Hugh?
J:
York,
and
Continue
you went
M:
drank
to
"Miss
was
Mabel,
Miss
M bel,
"Down to
"To th
erry'?"
I says,
0
ook
h
mn
on
nd
y
0
the
on
I
on back.
oop w itin
hes
I think
tha
that's
te
tr
Wher~ did
you
o?"
rible.
ible-
you
ferry.•·
0
Bu
N w York.
w
erry
cross.
e
ne d no
idn'
d.
r
y
C
i
r brou
y
h
r.
was a
h r
s,
mma
s
l
m
brought
very
worn n
0
she
's
no--y
r n
fo
it
his
0
N w
"Y s. •·
w sn'
n
e
T
e girls.
I s ys,
he
I think
Mabel,
whi
you to
me some wine.
sitting
Puss
with
She took
She gave
o'clock,
Pickle
Miss
Now,
story.
Did nothing.
By twelve
You know,
ing ou
your
a cabaret--.
Yeah.
some wine.
for me.
Miss Mabel,
with
H
r
y
�Mabel
Hampton
she
didn't
idea
of
mind
them
Now,
cut
Page
that
them
takin'
J:
me away with
have
to
work.
coming
good
hear
and
the
this
turned
want
to
in
asked
like
the
You've
got
I finds
her
from
me,
the
miss
me.
anything.
So,
Now
-
didn't
treat
me
And this
mornings
the
writes
daughter--her
could
some times
and
mornings
when
I didn't
for,
didn't
mind
I had
a thing.
and
in
So,
she
with
she
a very,
her
stay
a letter
and
with
Bedford.
in two weeks
stayed
up there
and
very,
very
Salem,
she
asks
North
was so glad
me could
she
name Margaret--send
me,
like
Winston
aunt--and
daughter's
to
for
I had been
myself
my aunt--young
she
to
on).
me for.
woman I worked
see
back
microphone.
her--especially
to
that.
woman--she
she
come
contact
possibly
there,
she'd
come--I
up there
not
off
into
And the
Margaret
that
didn't
time.
Carolina.
send
she
off.
now I don't
up there
Then
to
but
in between
whatever
I,
take
her
turned
anyhow,
her
and
it
talk
So,
I paid
girl
is
to
M:
white
Cut
Okay,
just--remember
right.
happened
now.
(Tape
Maud,
me.
something
off
takin'
d28
and
I did
that.
I said
time,
with
28
I could
nothing
the
me,
do what
I
tell
her
not
about
girl
and
Bedford--
arrived
I got
up
a room
�Mabel
Hampton
right
with
now--but
"Now,
Page
Miss--I
I got
listen,
night."
can't
think
a room with
Margaret,
staying
out
stay
out
all
all
trouble.
woman's
And I told
cannot
Margaret
I says,
"Margaret,
night.
because
not
supposed
I will
to
name right
her,
go and
me that
night
I'm
her.
you
The woman told
of the
d29
stay
I said,
out
all
was going
and
you cannot
go and
go nowhere
get
myself
but
stay
go and
in
right
here."
the
So,
she
says,
So,
I took
girls--I
and
to
So,
very
like
Coney
one night,
to--let's
see,
up to--I
or
house,
and we stayed
come on back.
I says,
early."
all
dressed--she
So,
white
girl
been
out
go around--go
don't
in
day until
six
back,
in
We went
New York
it
or
her
and we
was Gladys
We went
seven
to
and we
wasn't
to
her
o'Clock.
dressed
Margaret
around
29
day.
got
I told
'til
me home early--
know if
made love--we
come in
New York.
the
was an actress.
funny.
They would
brought
half
with
who had
out.
is
We were
when I gets
"Now that's
She didn't
Island
was--I
It
went
Coney
we go.
it
she'd
of my friends
and they
the
someplace.
Then we got
So,
that,
where'd
Bently
So,
up a couple
we'd
think
"
then.
Island.
early--because
went
easy
called
daughters
sneak
it
"Alright.
be home
one o'clock.
home.
up
�Mabel
Hampton
I said,
"Oh,
the
Page
"Margaret,
I called
where
some of
were
the
you?
girls,
Where
and
d30
were
we just
you?"
went
to
movies."
I said,
She
"You goes
to
"Yeah,
they
says,
"Alright,
have
to
send
So,
the
movies
on Sundays?"
wanted
to
it
happen
let
go to
the
movie."
again
'cause
and,
while
I'll
home."
morning,
I went
called
me on the
girl
your
don't
you back
next
white
seen
but
the
onto
work
phone
and
says,
working,
"Mabel,
I
niece.
"Seen
who?"
"Yes,"
she
I said,
She
said,
"Are
says,
"I
you
seen
your
niece
in
a cabaret."
sure?"
"Yes,
and
"Alright.
"
some more
women was there
with
her."
I says,
So,
"Where
when
were
She
you
says,
I said,
"Oh,
get
they
time,
a'hold
of her
next
morning,
I says,
yesterday?"
"Mabel,
"Where
I said,
one more
I did
do the
live
went
friends
downtown
"Alright."
you
I just
visit
some friends."
live?"
here."
I said,
go home to
to
"If
your
30
you go to
mother
'cause
Coney
Island
I can't
be
�Mabel
Hampton
worryin'
Page
over
think--was
that.]
your
her
and
troubles
and mine
name Mitchell?
she'll
No.
be telling
too.
It
somebody
d31
And Miss----
was something
~hat
I'm
[I
like
steering
you
wrong."
"No,
I won't
Alright,
and
get
says,
I'm
go."
she
me in
didn't
the
car
"Alright."
gonna
that
So,
when the
-
afternoon,
She says,
white
I told
"Now, Aunt,
girl
her.
I don't
come
So,
she
know what
do."
I says,
over
go.
"You see,
I can't
make love
to
her
and watch
you too."
"So,"
she
says,
So,
I asked
her
when
where
"I' 11 see
she
she
got
what
dressed
happens."
to
go,
about
six
o'clock,
goin'.
"Downtown."
So,
gray
into
into
New York.
because
So,
there
she
Coney
was in
of that,
She followed
car.
tunnel
her
instead
Island.
Coney
I said,
her
See,
wasn't
didn't
the
call
So,
white
right
girl
straight
she
could
as many cars
me then.
then
followed
she
Island.
"Okay."
31
on through
easily
keep
as there
She waited
called
her
in her
the
up with
are
today.
until
they
got
me that
she
and told
�,
Mabel
Hampton
So,
she
Page
says,
I said,
because
"What
shall
"No because
I'm
I do?
she
packin'
her
says,
"Alright.
gonna
grip
and
Keep tabs
keep
tabs
send1n'
d32
on her?"
on herself
her
home in the
mornin'."
So she
"
She
says,
"When am I gonna
see
you."
I said,
So,
for
her
says,
"Tomorrow
sho'
to
'nough,
stayin'
out
Margaret's
She came
in
grip
'round
and waited
I
two o'clock.
show good?"
said,
"Yeah,
I says,
"
I packed
come in.
"Was the
She
night.
"Don't
there
it
was alright.
tell
with
I missed
me you missed
the
boys
the
and with
the
bus.
the
bus."
You were
girls
in
Coney
Island."
"Who you had
me watched
I says,
I didn't
yourself
your
"No,
watched."
mother.
I have
go home tomorrow
So,
couldn't
that
called
I packed
take
it
I had her,
the
So,
white
have
I says,
money.
mornin'
the
I could
you watched.
"Alright,
I '11
send
You had
you can
go home to
you back
home.
You
."
rest
because,
girl
[by]?"
of her
you
get
and
see,
things.
if these
in trouble.
she
come over
32
She cried,
So,
people
that
and got
I
but
found
night
me and
out
I
...
�Mabel
Hampton
Margaret
to
Page
take
and
Margaret's
them
down to
Winston-Salem,
So,
then
So,
the
just
I says,
"Well,
girl
you
"The
do you
"Let
think
doing."
So,
door,
and
we pulls
away.
myself
through,
Mabel,
your
"Now,
you
house--she
on it,
I gets
and
in
the
I didn't
get
sleepin'
So,
we made
love,
we talked,
we drank,
dressed,
in
the
w iting
up for
"That
investigator
morning
me.
says.
woman,
I know it.
says,
"You got
She
runnin'
says,
you what
front
of
back
until
two
the
white
we had
to
girl.
to
City.
a nerve."
·•And I'm
the
It
My friend
was
She
says,
Bum, bum,
a·ound
with
going
ps
out
the
door
and went
33
o Maud.
bum,
a white
to
t 11
er.
, I st
I
something
Jersey
you was doin'.
"You are
"
you what
in
with
come back
knew what
she
tell
when we come back.
She
b m, bum,"
I'll
car
I was
and
I' 11 tell
doing?"
'cause
n
to
through."
woman in
says,
of
me sleep
I'm
w s three
on back
we went
make."
She
think
Okay.
her
"You ain't
you
"Uhugh."
I says,
eat,
sent
and
"Yeah?"
What
o'clock
everything,
now I'm
says,
move that
says,
do.
and
says,
She
I says,
and
train
Carolina.
white
every
She
the
North
beginning."
watches
clothes
d33
I says,
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
"Maud,
I've
room.
Can your
She
hand
got
a few
husband
says,
"Yes,
of
take
furniture
and
stuff
will
anything
in
that
it?"
my husband
take
that
you
out."
"I'm
"Fine."
So,
leaving
here
She
says,
I says,
getting
goin'
up the
white
girl,
tomorrow
mornin'
for
Bedford
"Well,
girl!
you
and
What
realize,
I don't
intend
I says,
''Tomorrow
mornin'
at
"Oh,
right,
I'll
comin',
and
"She
"You've
b
"No.
I'm old
h
o,
o'cloc
nd
pu
1
i
I
m i
who she's
ain't
up
got
I
loves
got
nobody
six
Hills."
talkin'
about?"
I'm
not
there."
you
goin'?"
o'clock."
be there--'cause
~
don't
I'm
know I'm
up there."
u
there."
months.
You say
she
you."
bre
alk up
d
r g --o
z .
So Maud's
"Al 1 righ
nd pick
his
eight
I says,
there."
I can
s y
stay
and
old,
When are
almost
Sh
now,
right.
my sweetie.
n goin'
nobody
I sys,
see
see
I says,
got
all
and
I'll
"All
you
getting
to
she
says,
says,
are
I'm
"Well,"
up there
ain't
I called
"My God,
young,
She
C
pieces
d34
h t
stor
3
husb
nd
ew
hin
., I had
g
ous
wh
m
C
n
V
r
Y
ov r
�Mabel
Hampton
So,
Page
she
come down,
"Where
"I'm
goin'
to
do you
think
Miss--"
I says,
"What
name,
but
I can't
Well,
think.
to
get
anyhow,
She can
You knew me for
runnin'
She
I didn't
tell
her
in them
on that
nothin'
but
part
And at
get
it.
the
a cord
end
After
tassels
act
woman's
what
she
I don't
belong
turn
and
the
care
please.
I don't
folks
that
belong
to
nobody.
me in?"
like
what
cabaretin'
you do,
."
cabaretin'?"
type."
I'd
met
all
the
big
shots
[sic]
in
few months.
me.
sleeves,
around
of the
rope,
you pull
so
it,
It
and
the
material.
and
I had that
I was dressing.
short
of the
the
she
you would
was made for
with
goin'?"
Okay."
I dressed--then
it,
I don't
you're
right.
hem in
pull
"'cause
"All
dress
"Yes.
When you
white
I says,
So,
my life!
"How do you know I'm
says,
New York
from
with
what's
save
you.
and
I would.
around
I says,
to
years,
"Certainly
to
glory,
anything
belong
you're
New York."
I says,
think
I don't
her.
it
do you think
d35
was grey;
it
had
it
string--it
waist,
and the
You pulled
it
it
had
then
'em on.
[hennah]
you get
And around
35
had
cord
same
a deep
had
was pulled
and made a rope.
tassels.
the
You
tassels.
a part
of the
You
�Mabel
Hampton
sleeve
had
there
Page
was--everything
a round
neck,
few back--and
like
I could
But
cap
then
[hennah],
that.
little
and
make
I put
that
on.
says,
"Yes,
ma'am.
So,
says,
"Take
"Thank
Meantime,
and
there
talkin'
to
this
home I was
payed
more
white
women.
So,
looked
than
at
I had
this
of hell.
all
I said,
we took
I put
that
to
New York?"
on the
white
woman
woman--she
around
up--packed
done
with
up--together,
guy.
up with
this
"Bye,
bye."
Then
stoop
And this
be a fall
car,
I see
car.
Maud.
When I
I gave
Maud
gone.
we come right
And,
A
came up on the
with.
danced
grey
says.
on a cap.
I was runnin'
pulled
she
she
this
do was to
And we were
Well,
I lived
girl
this
good.
New York."
woman sittin'
white
"Be careful,"
a kiss.
to
to
me that
attention--that
it
goin'
too
of yourself."
in was tellin'
She had
you're
it
I will."
told
woman that
tassel.
a
a thread
describe
I put
It
that--turn
and
down--a
off
care
was a white
whose
all
I'm
you.
Maud had
stoop,
"So,
like
[hennah],
can't
comin'
(Demonstrates).
a sleeve
but
I says,
So I says,
had
it
a thing
And she
she
it
[hennah],
anyhow,
with
on my head.
so that
was grey.
d36
the
on through
New York
like
a bat
highway.
We took
the
highway,
36
out
we
�T
Mabel
took
Hampton
the
time.
low way--oh,
She
there
was
went
right
Didn't
Page
had
brought
some
for
me to
nothin'
on in
even
need
boy--and
'cause
I sung.
We just
sandwiches
do but
she
and
to
no passport.
They
had
a lovely
things.
settle
knew how to
d37
And
back.
go into
didn't
And we
Bedford.
ask
her
no
questions.
She
one
of
went
your
on and
lost
He says,
We told
this
out
here.
him the
story.
You can
stay
I said
are
treat
as
to
long
I had
met
we won't
as
myself,
you
"Here's
here?"
tell
nothin'
about
I just
nothin'.
me right,
a couple
say
says,
man.
doing
home or
want,
"That
She
this
I didn't
woman didn't
"Well,
to
you
back
which
front.
says
Margaret
lady,
He says,
up in
she
what
him this
and
sheeps,"
"Mabel,
Margaret--sendin'
told
pulled
and
I got
lonely,
times,
brought
anything
at
about
and
a good
of
take
man knows
all
me
it.
"
rest.
I need
something.
a
:
rest."
myself.
left.
to
see
at
all.
called
So,
I changed,
I had a cot
in
boy,
what
I was doin'--hear
this
Sunday,
woman called
investigator
they
gave
there.
But,
This
next
and
And some of
they
were
my story.
in--the
and
me a little
told
37
comin'
what
by
women had
up there
Nobody
woman I'd
her
the
cottage
said
lived
just
nothin'
with--
I had done and
�Mabel
that
Hampton
Page
I was runnin'
blah,
blah,
blah.
supervisor
So,
up there,
laughed.
They
word.
around
I went
and havin'
and kiss
each
So,
tired.
But
stayed.
with
a girl
and we'd
take
the
said
at
all.
They
wife
didn't
cookin'
girls
showed
me how to
as the
about
say
their
see.
the
girl
all
go walkin'
other
woman,
have
as
long
I hadn't
up there,
other
just
as
her
in the
and they'd
of got
just
as soon
I wanted,
ready
And this
hug
a ball.
I kind
got
with
make wine.
'cause
white
I was
girl
and see
woods,
and
see.
all
go back
know--I
just
would
her
And then
to
New
York.
So,
or
one
something,
said,
"Pooh,
New York."
back
to
day,
something--!
although
pooh,
So,
New York
a
meals,
and we would
to me--I'd
stay
So,
lord,
a month,
anything
ready.
come up and bring
this
house,
me I could
goin'
to
blah,
Him and his
and we would
nobody
I got
back
their
I was there
went
it
nothin'
of the
other,
leave
she'd
say
We was drunk
He told
friend,
reported
blah,
time.
one
after
men and blah,
and he laughed.
on cleanin'
And then,
wine.
she
didn't
a good
We drank
with
d38
I was lovin'
pooh,
I told
don't
pooh,
the
pooh.
supervisor
soon.
38
a girl
I want
that
up there,
to
I'd
got
lonely
but
go back
to
like
go
to
I
�Mabel
Hampton
Page
He said,
fifteen
"All
minutes,
I said,
right.
you
"Oh,
When you
can
I can
get
get
ready,
d39
teJ.l
me.
In
ready."
get
ready
in
about
two or three
minutes."
He laughed.
So,
little
we was
short
sudden,
pants.
somebody
investigator.
head
back
This
is
you've
been
and
the
<loin'
"I
jail.
time,
and
all
of a
recognize
of me.
down.
on
I say,
this
I throwed
my
"Oh, my God.
of
a long
me you was here?
time
and
lookin'
for
didn't
And
tell
I see
you.
me.
you've
places."
a bad
girl
even
knew you wasn't."
He's
almost
when
I started
She says,
dead.
They'll
"But
kill
out."
that
him soon.
"yeah."
the
his
so hot
many people
front
you tell
New York
"I wasn't
I says,
up--send
over
right
says,
She's
I had
I didn't
in
up and
nothin'.
a good
wall.
right
her
a hell
all
I said,
in
stood
"Why didn't
here
runnin'
guy's
doin'
investigator."
been
She
come up the
looked
says,
<loin'
up there
We was havin'
She
the
She
I'm
sittin'
one who told
wife
up--for
herself
'cause
up she
shouldn't
me he'd
money,
even
you
she's
have
39
send
see.
his
mother
And Judgie
done
told
sent
up--and
wasn't
on too--sent
they
were
too
on
�Mabel
her
Hampton
Page
tail.
So,
after
that
she
'(inaudible)"--called
down there.
to
d40
We had
And so,
I'll
she
been
tell
there's
"Come on down to
him by his
He laughed,
drink.
You've
said,
for
girl,
you what
I'm
That's
all
I wanted
more.
I'd
be
in
ice
to
you.
New York.
something
in my debt.
is
you'll
So,
and
She
This
I did
And he went
of hours.
do.
morning,
hear.
cream
no longer
I like
going
to
us
"You're
and
Tuesday
name too.
a couple
now,
a good
Monday.
he gave
a ball
says
first
be
not
"Now,
Sunday.
Then
in New York."
want
that's
says,
to
hear
any
why I waited
to
leave.
So,
Monday morning,
"goodbye,"
and
And they
went
[Muriel]
says,
in here
they
I says,
"I
guess
So,
the
says,
"Now,
young
woman.
toast
"I never
the
all
me.
on down there
and turn
women likes
they
got
I was high
and waved
knew a girl
place
up and they
upside
bid
me
as a Georgia
and waved
who--a
down."
at
pine.
me.
woman--could
She says,
come
"These
you.
"I
like
'em all.
you're
car
to
me.
right."
pulls
I hope
They belong
up.
the
you all
have
She said,
"Treat
investigator
learned
everybody
40
got
a lesson
right,
out.
from
She
this
and you'll
�Mabel
get
Page
Hampton
treated
yourself."
So we get
Oh boy,
all
in
didn't
them
the
car
We had
something
to
And,
where
wanna
you
eat.
three
take
the
me,
'cause
find
a job.
she
So,
anything--!
that
it
on back.
bridge
a w--and
she
and
We raced.
the
stopped
was Tuesday.
white
girl
had
to
a week
went
tunnel
and
So,
very
good,
I had
nice
lookin'
there
and
a couple
end
care
of
had
a job
she
and
gave
me
says,
at
me where
that
"Now,
of
So,
other
off
that's
to
I had
to
keep
me to
do
I wasn't
End of
41
I couldn't
bad
happened
places--
here.
woman and
and
[Alhambra].
what
was
with
white
business,
nothing
the
she
apartment
of the
I made believe.
hair.
cuts
at
was the
later--1
but
told
See,
take
a got
dance
(Tape
had
you know.
And that
rooms
See,
we went
live?"
Of course,
to
and
we go through
things.
going
d41
transcript).
lookin'.
I went
I.
�.,.
INTERVIEW WITH MABEL HAMPTON
(M)*
Interviewer:
Joan
J:
taping.
Nestle
--Story.
This
Now remember,
you
is
the
second
your
last
words
were:
left
your
uncle,
and
Greenwich
Village,
went
the
subway
M:
A new world.
into
(J)
and
came out
Later
in
day
of
the
you
left
a new world--you
a new world.
I learned
it
was Grove
Street.
*
The second
side of this
tape ends with the beginning
of Mabel's
story
of Bedford
Hills.
Hence,
it precedes
the
transcript
whose page numbers
are preceded
by the letter
e.
Also,
Joan indicates
that
it is the second
in a series
of
tapes--the
first
of which evidently
ended with Mabel's
escape
to Jersey
City from Greenwich
Village.
It seems this
particular
tape has not yet been transcribed,
although
the
first
transcript,
indicated
by page numbers with no
preceding
letters,
does include
part
of this
story.
If this
first
tape is found,
its
order
in the series
will
be
indicated
in a footnote
on the first
page.
(SA)
.1
�II
Mabel
the
Hampton
J:
Where?
M:
In Jersey--I
time.
wonder
Page
And I didn't
what
I was
gonna
they
put
can
Well,
or
read
So,
to
white
other
to
I say .
us.
Tell
children--
to
the
sixth--grade,
Because,
if
you do,
cross.
I don't
school.
let
Don't
know anything.
to
walk.
was Grove
people.
*
grade.
I began
twenty
- -------·--·-
I began
at
but
know if
I went
to
I was in the
*
school.
And I
and write.
That
walk
City
old.
you up against
sixth--five
walk.
anything-
I went
would
why I tell
M: That's
hear
Then
go.
you again?
were
years
Eight
children
say--what
to
was Jersey
on eight.
M: Goin'
J:
know it
know where
How old
.._T:
could
didn't
f2
Now, the
Street.
description
To get
to
I seen
blocks
or more.
I seen
a few colored
where
the
people.
----- ------- --·------------·--------------·
f3he couldn't
However,
the
accounts.
of where
I was,
people
White
2
I had
walkin'-people.
----
be eight
and in the sixth
or even
"eight
years
old" seems consistent
(SA)
I
fifth
with
�Mabel
Hampton
And I came
Jersey
to
City
a hospital,
cops
walking
I found
later
f3
out
was
the
[H]hospital.*
I walked
of
which
Page
past
that
I kept
and
I wouldn't
and
things.
and
walking
walkin'.
ask
nobody
I could--I
and
I seen
must
a coup"!.e
I kept
anything.
have
walked
about
an
-
Then,
hour.
straight
or
all
of
going
a sudden--it
on down the
was
a straight
walk--
I didn't
street.
turn
no curners
nothin'.
All
of
a sudden,
I was on the
left.
Yes,
there,
I seen
b•::!tween
was
onl:. later.
didn't
or
children
the
ages
And,
have
So,
went
says,
they
any
time
I go~s
something.
and
in.
-------
Sh
lefthand
in
of
to
side
of
the
eight,
and
playin',
I sits
ten
playin',
I didn't
play.
to
And
I f igurcd
as
know what
minutes,
to
where
a white
girl
all
playin',
down on something
and
my
street.
The children
a few
and
to
liku
a be1ch
then
I got
was
swingin'
So,
me and
she
she
put
m
pushed
in
the
swing,
me.
-- -
So,
She
---
th
o ly pu lie hospital
in Jers
h Jers y City Medical
C nter.
If this
i~,
in
it is ~o
ed on Summit
v u , m
label
ens,
J urnal S uar
th·n
G v
1 tiv
t
(
)
Today,
3
-
I
anJ
I 5aid
1
do.
swing?'
"Yes."
pushed
I looked
a playground.
seven,
were
and
there
on over
I says,
a noise
I sit
"You wanna
swung.
I heard
tJ
up
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
myself,
"She's
She
nice."
came over
I says,
I
11
me here
"I
and
to
told
goin'
from.
me,
says,
aunt
"Your
aunt
me,
to
you hungry?"
I says,
"Uhugh."
So,
call
him
"Listen,
take
So,
he
her
go home to
have
get
to
Well,
was.
that's
time
Maybe
what
I came
a sudden
she
wait
here
her."
a little
says
his
get
for
more time."
think
I think
got
me.
to
it
She
was her
brother--
name was Tony.
this
kid
to
So,
her·--find
she
her
home."
says,
says,
her
brought
come back."
it
of
at?"
yet?"
brother--!
"Tony."
we've
and
must
her
she
time
live
my aunt
pushed
all
me to
give
"Are
called
she
come back
"We'll
she
until
So,
She told
do you
now 'cause
because
that.
"No.
'Where
know what
be out
hasn't
says,
She
that
She pushed
So I remember
She
she
here
had
I says,
says,
.stay
I don't
school--school
says,
know right
me to
fast.
She
me.
don't
"Alright."
was
f4
"Alright.
I' 11 see
"I'm
going
home.
been
after
six
something
to
you go after
the cop."
When I heard the word
what
It's
_getting
o'clock.
put
on her
"cop",
So,
do."
dark."
she
says,
and a sandwich,
I didn't
A
I can
like
that
See,
"I'll
and
idea.
�
http://herstories.prattinfoschool.nyc/omeka/files/original/a5a47fea3d19fee77509a18c39c420df.pdf
4ec039072dcc77e82e6b8ccdaa77bc61
PDF Text
Text
10
Mabel
take
Page
Han1pton
you
horn~ until
it's
tl-ian
me.
this
And
sl1e
"Wl1at.' s youi'T name?"
do yoi,1 know
I says,
11
1\Jo.
Sl1e says,
tlnti
Yo1.1're
in
you're
was
taller
at?"
City
Jersey
know
"f-Iow did
I -.iust
taller--she
11
corr1e here?"
.Jome on,
my
She
told
because
it's
me to
sit
"
I I r◄
left
.. "
City.·•
Jersey
}tOL"l
1 s11.e ca1ne baclr.
and
bit
wl1ere
"Al r i gl1.t, '' sl1e
late,
will
''
1 don't
Sl1e said,
here
says,
"mabel,
11
And they
aunt.
a little
"Mabel.
11
your
woman was
I says,
I says,
for
r i gl1 t . "
" A 11
So,
time
f6
·boyfriend
in
the
bar.
getting
Sr1e di'?anked
·•
a lot.
was
\.T:
Was
M:
Black.
So,
she
So,
they
7th
or
wl1i te
she
says,
"(:ome
lived--now,
8th
and
or
black'?
I ' 11 ta.ke
or1 ..
she
somewhere
live
goin'
b.er
on Fifth
into
l1ome to
mo tl1er.
Street.
Grove
"
That
Street-•
somewhere
She
around
says,
in
11
I didn't
there.
Con1e or1,
now.
find
those
things.
11
6
l
�----------------------
Page
J.via
be 1 Hampton
I'
that
111
boy
..
and
cop--!
the
I krow
she
So
took
I thanked
"I'll
says,
tell
She
says,
the
cop,
I
shut
to
kj_sst_,d
II
All
II
n.
"Come
n1e "goodbye.
got
lady's
ays
up
Sl1e says,
hand.
T}~e girl
girl.
the
11
T'he cop' 11 tl1ir1k
know wl1at
to
tell
"
She
you."
through
that
lady's
aunt,
yol1r
and
l1im. "
yo1.1 tell
"Alright,
this
So I go on with
cut
and whe
the
So
them.
of
"Al'
_ rig~ lt" .
ys
I says,
Sle
d see
total
me by
the
Is
I dor1 t
cou
when
I' 1n tl1inking
and lcoked.
I turned
tl1i11.king
£7
11im."
We wall-{ed ..
woman.
like
streets
we were
doing
in
We walked
..
The
this
Park
She was a trifle
•
1nc)rn1ng
.
bit
•
taller
or
tl1an
something
Okay>
walked
and
and
walked
and
all
says,
was
She
me.
like
so
she
walked
some
n1y
have
that
'cause
took
me,
and
walked,
been
a woman
I haven't
and
we walked
then
around
grown
and
we walked,
five
see.
walked
and
and
walked,
more.
private
"I-fe.1..e' s
must
• i,::> C:
houses.
motl-ier,
" and
Nice1
private
s11.e ope11ed
7
houses.
a ,gat.e,
and
live
went
�Mabel
Hampton
J:
Page
We have
(Tape
is
to
was
We went
a gate.
And she
on a porch.
I says,
a second.
paused).
Opened
and
stop
£8
'' 1iss
says,
up
a flight
"My name
is
3tairs
of
Bessie."
Bessie?"
•
Sl1e says,
"Yes.
taller
than
a little
So,
good
I looked
lookin'
C
._)o
You have
going
Sl1e looked
at
not
too
me,
at
but
I says
her.
me and
She was
smi 1 ed ..
much.
to
11
1nyself,
Gee,
she
s
."
she
,
"
to
back
,.Mamma, I brought
.sa y s ,
take
to
of
ca1"9e
visit
her
l1er
boyfriend
''That'
or
stay
some
lost
back-
- ''
girl
..
S11.e was
bing.
l1ome r10 tin1e.
I'll
s okay.
a little
I goin
'cause
Mamma sa 'trs
., ' '' You d(Jn' t
Sl1e says,
you
"
be back."
•
So,
by
the
she
hand
I says,
In
lighter
says,
the
than
went
and led
''Y es,
room
all
,...h
,:> e s ai . d ,
I said,
So,
n1a , am .
•
of
"Miss
sl1.e said,
She
us.
stairs,
says,
and Mamma took
a bj_g
"Yot.1're
Sr),
man and
Mother
El le~r1 Wl1i te.
girl."
another
11
says,
Miss
girl
\'Thi te.
''
White."
a11nt.
"That's
me
IC
a grey-haj_red
"Who learr1t
"My
down the
me in.
sat
"My nan1e is
I said,
on back
you
how i..,o tallt'i'
I go t.o scl-1001.
verj?
nice.
8
11
··
"
She
saic_i,
''You
11
Sl1e
�Mabel
I sai, . d
gave
Page
Han1pton
II
y es,
ma ' am.
I'd
II
ate
t]1e
f9
the
sandw:i.cl1
girl
rr1e.
d
So,
she
I tl1inl{
at
•
she
the
you
grace
.
what
she
,....., ()
C
didn't
'
"
he
eay·c.
►J
• ~
look
gonna
tl1e
be
'
him,
I
my head
Ellen
I sai,:l
said,
to
man,
said
and
She
told
me to
and
she
my head
says,
this
sit
sat
to
.girl
at
dawn
just
say
my
" -t,ha·t.' s
"Pappa,
him
and
l1as
l1ad
all.
I
si ttin,
girl
light
here's
I can
l.111til
a girl
fir1d
''Yo,1' 11 nevei.,.
a1:. tr1e
that's
he1."' people
tl1em. ''
find
my eggs.
sl1e
"T'hat'
son1e
nothin'.
"Ellen,
myself,
ate
biscuits,
like
girl--the
"Mamma,
1ny ~elf,
.. P.3.ppa,
said
awhile
to
some
sl1e
I didn't
II
says,
for
1.1s
..
I just
table:..-she
wit11.
To me,
dropped
"Y ea l1
had
I bowed
tc.1 the
t.urr:1.ed t.o tl1e
She
of
at
and
Sl1e s.3.ys,
him.
and
t]1e table,
at
me,
sl'1e turned
1.1p.
eggs
some·t.hing.
down
watching
call
bringing
end
I sat
sit,
S,o,
or
11.3.d bc1con
table.
like
some
scrambled
can
sleep
s good.
9
with
I like
me.
I I
her.
Good
.. ''
I
�t1abel
looking·,
-
balls
great
Light
tall.
because
Her
skin.
it
had
I have
c1f fire."
brown
she
f 1()
Page
Han1pton
-
all
hair
wrapped
her
was
longer
than
tu.rned
up and
was
picture.
mine
around
like
that.
she
got
I'll
eating,
me to
take
you
she
to
"'vi7hen you
says,
the
bathroom
and
tl1rough
get
you
can
she
says,
with
come
bec1 . "
my
''Y es,
I say,
~o--she's
I'm
and
up
na.med
in
goir1g
ma , am.
situation
just
like
an ordinary
and
rooms
downstairs.
There
ki tcl1en.
her
after
1nother--so
"Mom1ny,
1...oon1."
the
Now? the
II
at
their
house
co1ne
was
different.
'fhere
today.
r ot1
was
house
01.1·t.
011
was
the
rooms
upstairs
f ro1n the
porch
a stove--everything--table,
diningroom,
everyt.l1ing.
after
So,
l
I got
bathroom--gave
me a towel
See;
didn't
cry.
washed
my face
in
there
out,
and
put
it
clothes
to
couldn't
-
got
--
__ ____
-......,
eating,
and
I was
one
she
washed
and
a little
Miss
things
very
and
on,
I know
find
out
who I was--where
'cause
I'd
10
she
Ellen,
she
I come
left
So,
woman.
from
and
me to
the
I still
wash.
nightie
shoes
see,
to
my hands
put
took
White
stubborn
on,
do that
-
done
gave
me--went
brought
it
searched
from.
everything
she
my
She
behind
me.
�Mabel
I didn't
leave
papers
So,
But
and
she
I knew
r1ever
it
in
things
and
says,
he
the
was
told
i--ernembe1~ tl1at
011, she
M:
Yes.
next
we goi~ to
h er.
start
sit
train--the
they
much
about
older
Much older
'ti).
me tight--oh,
my uncle,
here
and
come
t]1ey
nineteen
than
than
would
How old
J:
beca
with
came
park
was
or
I was
went
back.
she?
twenty.
you.
And when
me.
11
to1norrowc
they
I lived
the
been
people
given,
that
in
have
was
arms--held
So,
that
story
must
J:
I slept
on the
yotir
I had
and
me to
M:
for
them
a minister,
I l1ad to
girl,
lool{
I told
and
her
it
I left
description
shoppj_ng
me in
park,
"We'll
tl·1en1.
that
the
I had.
with
find
fll
Page
Han1pto11
so
she
held
comfortable,
up a breeze.
morning
we got
1.1p,
abot:t.t
ir1qui1~j_n'
mothei .. told
and
tl1.is
11er,
"Now,
We ca11' t. keep
b:id.
fl
(Suddenly,
\
l·1ave to
much
louder).
M:
She
must
J:
Oh,
she
11:
Yes.
her
arms--held
girl,
I slept
have
was
'
was she?
How old
send
me in
~a1· d
I)ad . ~
been
much
Mucl1 older
nineteen
th·n
tl1ar1 me.
me tight--oh,
I was
up a breeze.
11
'
'ca
1
-
·1sA
\..,
we'd
Ellen?
about
older
"No
or
twenty.
you.
And wl1en
so
sl1.e l1eld
comfortable,
Ellen?
�I
Mabel
Page
Hampt,on
So)
we got
nex·t
to
rno1:ning
start
we got
inquirin'
mother
and
l'.lp,
about
this
told
f12
l-ier,
We can't
kid.
11
N·ow,
keep
II
h er.
(Suddenly,
hav·e
to
his
1n1-1cl1
her
send
hand
to
Dad
lotlder).
scl1ool.
up my dress,
I-!e was
11
feelin'
J:
When did
t1:
That
said,
the
my pussy,
that
"No,
'cause
first
one
and
I told
we'd
eve1 .. 1.~an
Ellen.
happen?
abot1.t
l1appened
sj_x montl1s
seven
01~
1nonths
later.
Okay,
bring
you
to
up
1'1:
next
door
to
around
there
in
Italian
out
the
Second
house
most
was white
people
So
she
says
e ery
par
e.r
H
I
0.
told
I didn't
But
II
H
I kne
ause
e.
d th~m
d l i 11 l1e1:
day.
next
door
that
as
so,
and
"You don't
t
a
second
Italian
lookin'
'cause
says,
was
and
party
woman
the
Okay~
day.
this
the
to
Tl1en we' 11
date.
a searching
find
go back
Italians,
for
and
they
this
give
woman.
remember
where
were
them
the
hews
tryin'
nas
1
Mamrna called
going
send
They couldn't
dRscription
I come from.
.ncle
t
to
of
place?"
the
I knew my
us was--
Everytl1ing
people.
them
to
,ruld
m~s~ \ith
I
.Knew
kill
m-.
�Mabel
you
Hampton
know he'd
her.
the
kill
Whenever
So,
They ain't
nothin'
So,
I just
nobody
by
tl1e
me up
in
school.
donJt
know,
Monmouth
t}1e
of
l{ids
---------
went
tc•
a girl.
ain't
I come
we'll
put
figured
fron1
was
they
her
11--"
told
the
[Kolb]--Monmouth
in
So,
Jersey.
teacher
and
Tl1i.r·ty-Two.
I didn't
school.
sigr1ed
tl1ey
there,
I
[Kolb]--
I think
Street--Thirty-Two.
everybody.
And
I got
try
to
along
beat
tl1.e
wi tl1.
up nobody
scared.
M:
Yes,
l
what
[Kolb]
Was it
I playAd
Ma1111na,
yeai ... somebody
and
J:
we all
They
missin'
T1'1ey figure
lt
was
have
them_
for
They
now.
tell
that.
that
and
about
New York
tl1e
t1~1e scl1ool
didn't
,cause
and
Street
a word
days--nothin'.
s21id,
And,
why I wouldn't
I had
anything
think
of
I was too
'cause
They
end
but
me,
New York.
Eller1
~1aybe
all
said
them
tl1en
to
about
about
let
So that's
passed--three
thought
ot1t
11llmber
spoke
days
churches;
*
another.~
they
two
f13
Page
black
in
to
Jersey
worry
was
the
same.
ith
the
kids,
and
whit
City
students
was black
it
anything
about
I mean,
and
the
------------------
too?
me hittin'
I went
Italian
---
and white.
---
to
somebody
Sunday
boys
-----
and
school
girl
-------
This murder
hasn't
been mentioned
in any transcr·
ts
up to now, but the videotaped
interview
ith
Mabel indicate~
that
her aunt wanted
money from her grandmother
to get this
man ut of some sort
of scrape.
If theres
further
13
�Mabel
Hampton
reference
were
wanted
to
very
nice.
get
a little
ragged--the
of
"new
I'll
this
cross-reference
Naturally,
bit,
girl
"--I
the
Italian
know.
you
d fj ght
boys,
They
the1n
and
they
would
that
run
me
was
the
cry
or
er1d
that.
So,
•
tianscript
another
fl4
(SA)
pag'e.
they
in
Page
sorry
that
all
went
J:
Did
you
for
I was
didn't
even
tell
kissed
me.
I didn't
wanted
After
to
discovered
nothing.
Ellen
tell
where
M:
\vhere
I'd
year.
lonely,
Mabel,
or
to
do anythingw
feel
but
lived
you
like
M:
Miss
White
get
rid
about
that
See,
all
from
or
feel--·like
mother
woma1 that
from?
Nobody
notl·1i.ng.
kn.ew
otl1e1" kids
the
and
had
How did
fatl1er.
you
an orphan?
said
me and
that
that
And they
no missin'
he
first
I
Mabel.
feel
see.
the
come
you'd
come
with
of
was
See,
her.
How dj_d. you
a year,
nothin'
get
stubborn
About
they
Did
too
J:
J:
feel?
ever
Ellen.
I come from
family,
a whole
your--
M:
where
for
maybe
was
read
he'd
they
wanted
a good
the
looked
was
14
for
the
me.
mc,ney
and
way to
papers--it
Many years
person.
said
my aunt
do it.
didn't
later
say
I
He didn't
and
uncle
what
look
was
�Mabel
brought
to
story
f15
that
comes
in
part
of
the
showed me how to
do
on another
altogether.
work
and
that,
M:
Housework.
Showed
son
a light
parks
·1
t1ere
was
night
I slept
So,
she
I would
tell
ber.
she
a girlfriend
had
loved
This
were
they
in
me.
him sat
up to
her
down to
other
out
talkin'
talk
girlfriend's
to
wanted
was.
So,
tl1e
every
during
end
later--she
one
Ellen
of
told
s rnotl1er.
house,
thjs
her.
night,
1
the
was
Everything
to
her
girl.
happened
I belon~ed-
take
wante d to
a good
at
and
that.
was
lived
was
would
mother
house.
found
was
His
anything
a private
like
Benny,
like
B enny
She
that
She wished
man told·--they
and
And,
And she--I
things
saw Ellen
it.
named
And he
l
w~er_
him.
I know
arms.
ho11ses.
was out
that
h ere
want
her
private
mother
and
in
and
she
playgrounds
and
And Ellen
fellow
looking.
'cause
gay--now
another
int
cook
things.
good
didn't
Ellen
street,
girl
and
Ellen
Ellen
with
' s a pause
marry
day,
goin'
me how to
me those
felJ.ow--was
Ellen.
to
showed
was
little
marry
know.
of work?
Nobody
c~o,
you
What kind
EJ.len
me to
things,
J:
see.
was
he started--they
Pappa,
different
there.
the
So,
them.
So, then
he
Page
Hampton
and
and
his
Ellen
I wasn't
�,
Mabel
Hampton
And,
the
Ellen,
nobody
friends
goi11
"I' 11 see
to
"W}1y
Sl1e said,
"Because
there
this
man,
and
she
says,
don, t malte
Bl1t Ellen
that
d beer1
sl1
me and
in
J
~ays,
my family?"
She's
my fa1nily.
on,
been
she
at
the
wanted
him
That's
the
C'h
•., e won't
live
man,
to
See,
and
marry
way
to
she
I think
it
her
I figured
marry
wl1en
Now,
time.
them.
another
by
together--them
gay
I understand
Benny
II
her.
have
out.
it
anyone
if
else
"
didn't
love
the
man!
Sl1e did11't
care
nothing
damn guy.
So,
anyhow,
every
eat
Ellen
understand
daughter.
So,
and
going
had
girlfriend's
come
I didn't
things
a white
must
they
See,
are
about
I ,vant
They
11
else.
to
1na1...ry
So
s.
motheI
do that
you
11
tl1at.
mar ~y nobody
would
means
accidentally
you
to
t]1e
can't
enny
I
f16
c11ild."
women.
was
scl1ool--see,
Sl1e said,
"If
hel:'
I' 11 see
will.
sl1e don't
So that
two
told
mother
else
that
first
yot1r
Page
and
motl·1e.1.. and
day
figured
it
or
so,
So,
talk.
sl1e
don't
know what
wound
up marrying
and
says,
the
out
and carried
they
would
I ··told
EJ. len.
"Wl-iy do
answer
I have
was
her
Benny.
16
and
eat
So,
to
talk
Ellen
marry
mother
She
on.
would
and
goes
cry
to
I
E,enny?"
gave
her,
her
but
she
�t
, ~
ll>I
Mabel
Ha111pton
J:
said
Pa.ge
she
been
was
about
funny
Talk
the
first
the
She
J:
And you
were
M:
I can't
exactly
J:
Twelve
M:
No,
kissed
three
years
remember
•
.
older
fourteen
than
years
I mt1st
that.
old
because
have
I felt
M:
Oh,
J:
Good
M:
I don't
I didn't
I felt
know.
funny
or
bad
know
bad
believe
funny?
or
onto
And I held
funny.
I know
good.
her
was
a
so tight.
older
you' re
it
than
yot.1
you
say
"
are.
,~e were
tell
nevei--
co,
in
me,.,
from
bed,
the
s11.e
there
so
says,
on,
I' 11 find
"Bt1.t
she
S11.e says,
I laug1'1ed..
took
me under
her
I went--she
had
to
know where
I
asked
her
was
so
interested
in me.
just
ijhy
don't
she
N"ant hei-- to
get
in
ti--ouble
out.
it
\here
"I
later.
me.
Wh.y?
"I
You
how old?
I was
or
J:
Sl1e says,
you.
kissed
you.
kissed
me about
no ..
kissed
feeling.
she
or thirteen?
thirteen
she
ti1ne
first
woman that
M:
when
funny
about
f 17
~ent.
with
"You' 11
11
wirgs.
Okay
The mo her
And,
any
he said
of
t e
�1'1abel
Page
Hampton
Granma
sa
s
I called
'' Sh
her
Granrna,
house
and
hand
M:
I stayed
wit}
J:
W re
going
M:
I was
J:
And,
M:
No, I didn't
yo1
going
djd
like
I'd
she
would
I told
her,
and
she
to
f at11e1 ..--and
much
would
comir1'
blame--it
don't
was--if
they'd
the
put
get
of
take
days
turned
child
it
on
time?
their
house.
for
them
I ' d _;ome h m ~
helped
told
them
tell
the
hjm
Ellen
with
the
and
next
how
cooled
sl1e
knew that
wouldn't
Pappa
gii~lf
speak
1.~iend' s
down.
s wl1.y I don't
11
a].ways--in
Tl1ese
old.
tl1ose
care
fresh
t11.e
days,
was or how old
man was doin'
18
his
the
he
l1er
a child
put
That's
me up to
says,
t,l1e chiJ.d.
to
day--'cause
ai ...ound--that'
how young
trying
arms.
'til
They
around--"
care
her
mad at
so1ne people--Mamrna.
children
from
was
and
it
me next
sl1e wo·uld
a couple
for
whole
nobody.
Pappa
me in
take
And Mamma--Mamma
too
years.
I mean--and
beat
was holdin'
stay
Whit~.
Did you wcrk
too?
"
m
the
right
work with
I looked,
Then
to
school
t
rouble.
that.
knew.
house
no
r fiv
tr
school
to
in to
will
f
know what
my dress.
she
get
namA was Ellen
them
to
to
live
you
you work
you
everytime
when
rier
her
did
under
night
but
How long
all
And,
going
J:
do my chores-
and
t
ain
f18
somethin',
it
�I
can
do
Thy
M:
I gu ss
J:
Why do you
1:
Well,
J:
I think
to
M:
Protect
what.
J:
Protect
the
family
M:
Protect
the
family?
J:
Right,
M:
And Pappa,
right.
you'rP
Why is
th
hell
they
t?
hink?
I don't
know.
protect
they
What
he
--
becaus
don't
want
g nna--
to
beljeve
that
someone
do that.
run,
and
sill
J:
run,
stay
run,
run
there
'til
went
Ellen
you
Did
M:
I loved
because
on for
Well,
quite
are
yo1.1 s1..1re VIThat
ma , an1.
o:r· your
street
come
Mrs.
them
all.
to
from
the
at
hit
other
me,
and
girl's
I'd
house
work.
White?
I didn't
Ellen
to
school,
can' ·t understand
say,
"Y es,
mad and
to
nrotect
him
pay
me,
any
see,
and
she
look
that
awhile.
I went
"I
get
love
I had
and
Salem,
down the
J:
attention
he'd
yo1-1 t,old
and
Mrs.
110w yol1.r
1ne was
White,
aunt
left,
you.
at
No~"1,
so?"
II
,gra.ndn1ot11er,
•
or
·t]1e
l1ouse
wi tl1
j~ lowe1~s-
me
-
�Mabel
Hampt
M·
ye rs
later
Nothing,
that
I told
found
they
then,
'I
I'll
giv
couldn't
have
I'd
happened.
they
1
the
do something
days,
out
the
that
like
t
to
go to
is
she
said,
So,
I stayed
r it
like
out
it
cop.
th
c p because
the
It
see.
That's
and
people
happened
what's
IJay~,
ha
"
the
first
thing
ran
away
r
that
had
like
wrong
with
a man
ould
In those
understand.
grownup
happen.
She
s
kn win'
believe
you
child,
h
11
tha
the
They wouldn't
and
didn't
find
wr n
wa.
I was fresh
that
a young
parents
it
up und
that.
to
y didn't
ou 1e a go d girl.
we11t
cop
like
T
l{new s metl ing
you.
stood
want
d tell
something
"I
l1a
I didn't
ut.
it
n
s
to
it
It wa
n thing
And Ha1nma says,
"But
f2
g
n
it
all
he
said,
the
plann
not
world
today.
how old
'cause
with
them
I was quite
I was.
five
for
an old
I clon' t
years.
child
when I left
kr1ow
them
I--J:
Seventeen,
M:
Eighteen
( 1 ape
1
c11ts
ejghteen?
years
off
at
old.
I went
pc int,..
tl1is
20
to--
End
Sj de
1) ..
d
�Mabel
Page
Han1pton
f21
•
You got
J:
I got
the
a job.
You graduated
M:
Eight
they
B,
kind
after
That's
a job.
J:
11.ighest
What
from
that's
of
I graduated
from
8B.
Eighth--
all,
see,
because
A11d I finished
went.
job?
tl1e
eight-B
Eight-B,
was
and
then
I left.
•
J:
Do you
M:
No,
J:
Okay,
11:
I can't
know
what
year?
Do you
have
any
idea--
?
'
years
or
t
1 il{e
night
tl1.ey
and
Mabel
if
woman done
wasn't
sleep
you'd
to
She
anything
sick
and
be
or
a baby
so
wake
J:
How did
M:
Oh,
girl,
she
she
to
me.
she
She
could
wasn't
after
take
five
I left
married,
11
them.
I
and
the
told
says,
mysteriol1sly.
nothin'.
didn't
got
and
--a11d
was
school>
Ellen
happens
clied
something
It
I left
them:
]1ad
out.
out.
when
ta.lkir1'
were
it
that
figure
leave
Nov-1, she
l1abel .. "
figure
'cause,
him.
one
figure--
we'll
something
How I come
didn,
I can't
husband-my baby
You take
You take
my baby
and
I always
believe
that
the
sicl~.
She
Ellen
C
.:Jee,
baby.
just
went
up anymore.
you
feel?
I seer1
so
surprised.
21
much
dor1e
to
people
tr1at
~to
��iO'r
Ma·bel
the
beginning,
n1ontl1s
the
Page
Hampt.,on
and
won't
be he1"'e with
When. Benny
1
'I've
I'm
seen
six
one
was
abc)ut
and
colored.
or
So,
and
to,
won't
baby
bu1 ...1."?y ·the
went
to
under
take
how
sleep
a couple
sl1e told
hin1.
She
The
City
she
sc:tys,
So,
..
put
and
of
all
woke
in
Jived
All
M=
When I think
to
next
to
for
11
take
care
J.c)ng as
as
She
prepare
nigl1t.
You know,
she
''But
says,
as well
so many
under
how treacherous
go around
her
tomorrow
that
to
baby
up.
come
Who?
s
might
boy--white
a white
family.
my
T11e oldest
gi.rls.
for
So,
it.
believe
stay
can
of
up
I've
are
there
them
you
J:
sa
says,
moJ~ning."
'til
live
He was
old.
one
never
and
and
"Mabel
We sat
11
I see
sl1
not.
I cculdn't
it.
years
s11.e, 11 be
they
will
children--boys
fo11rteen
a shotgun
o
..
know how I've
tl1ern.
baby
The
1
believe
s rigl1t.
don't
ruel
about
us. "
r1ig:l1t,,
t}1at
seven
baby.
Tl1at
you
'round
there.
I couldn't
had
the
wife
right
she
wants
came
yot1r
sittin'
So,
only
baby's
said,
old.''
bal)y
the
f23
different
but
the1n,
people
shootin'
I've
lived
I should
are.
all
things,
the
women
and
men.
the--
each
about
how peopl
do each
th
r--
other.
morning
"Benny
st
y
d
1
n
t.
�/0
'
�__
11111111111
.....
Mabel
I liked
The
Page
Han1pton
because
other
children
So,
the
was
a brunette.
J:
Okay,
,~hite.
M:
Yeah,
they
J:
So,
M:
Cleaning
and
like
no,
before
I doin'?
see.
and
doing
for
them
woman with
she
a mother.
cleaning
and
J:
You were
M:
Uhugh.
like
me very
was
quite
as
na1nes
were.
taught
of
the
well.
I at
She
hair.
their
them?
care
something,
grey
And she
taking
where
ad or
for
liked
that,
wasn't
I tl1inl{
blonde.
was white--
And she
an
A little
•
white.
you
I did
Or maybe
Ellen.
This
that.
[Bamberger]
son
named
were
were
I answered
a middle-aged
now,
child's
f25
and
what
was
and
this
woman was
was
old
like
I was
cook
real
good.
old.
me how to
eighteen,
nineteen
So many things
happened
years
old
at
tl1e time'?
me in
one
These
are
two years--
year--or
J:
in
to
the
This
of the
beginning
M:
So,
on this
It. had
I stayed
other
was
with
jot--the
to
nineteen
around
nineteen
be.
It
them
about
other
job
twenty.
twenties.
had
to
two
with
be.
years,
the
then
two
I come
children.
•
in
�t lo
Mabel
Pa,ge f 26
Harnpto11
[Bamberger]
In
and
the
them--he
meantime,
down below
She's
a tall,
mixed
grey
Sl1e would
I falls
these
with
and
she
was
to
and
she
a colored
Her
black
tl1ing·s
brin.g
for
chj_ldren.
good-lookin'
hair,
a lawyer,
was
woman
name
was
woman with
so
nice.
n1e an.d
who worked
[Drummond].
beautiful,
Oh,
take
never--
she
was
n1e places
so
and
nice.
lil~e
that.
But,
maybe
like
the
in
M:
I don't
know.
in
the
How did
M:
Oh,
street
men,
and
porch
and
talk
about
their
talk
in
were
gay.
Now,
were
queer
'cause
an offhand
moved
to
know,
way to
keep
I know they're
I'd
had
the
They
see_
gay
men.
just--somebody--
with
with
up
me,
fun
part.
would
but
switch
I got
more
it
was
out.
they
They
And
on
set
wouldn't
around
and
knowin
that
they
then
I knew
they
so many girlfriends
26
and
and
I got
think
thing
see
me from
gay,
women,
that
l1ello"
them,
into--I
think
come up and
you
life,
some
he].lo,
mixed
mixed
have
tal~,
with
always
how you
had
Street--I'll
to
out.
sometl1ing--"Hello,
White
usAd
find
them?
By getting
Miss
fellows
meet
would
patched
by getting
And,
women.
too?
Never
know
or
life
I got
you
you
see.
with
the
meantime,
J:
that,
[Siegler]
these
Was she
on the
mixed
gay
J:
that
were
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
f27
queer.
many
girlfriends--when
that
were
Well>
I think
church.
met--there
we would
all
I need.
days
laugh
So then,
what's
her
dear's
name!
there
got
you
say
had
was--wait
I went
was
and
was
you
you've
to
fill
in.
lots
of
How
girlfriends
aueer-::1.
M:
•
See,
Already!
J:
off
church
and
and
at
name
to
a minute
a couple
I would
talk,
meet
you
know .
goin'
that
time,
I was
now?
Don't
tell
I went
now.
of
times
girls
in
just
a girl
me I forgot
about
named--
my little
Her name was Viola--Viola·[Bellfield].
a staunch--oh,
we used
boy,
to
go to
I
church,
They were
with
and
to
She
bed
and
have
a
same
age,
see.
ball.
But
they
J:
Was she
older
than
M:
We both
were
'round
was
all
New York
you?
about
people--not
the
Jersey
people,
see .
.
I'm
then
that
quite
out
of
Jersey.
I began
to
These
go to
J:
What
M:
She
gave--[Sisuva]?
as tall.
was
all
New York
womens,
see.
theater~
did
she
reminds
look
me something
What s that
1
[Laquita].
like,
girl's
honey?
of--what
name?
that
girl
She wasn't
And
�Pa
1 H mp o
e f ....
..
•
brina.
11,
n
11.
but
I u
h
t
wn't
qu·t
as
r
g
m.
s methi11g
Shew
}1 l
, I
And
ld
t·ll
as
h
a 1 niglt
H r
1
h r
h
n
d
•
.f
r
J
•
A
•
r
n
sh
nd ~tay
ut
1
of hr
•
�Mabel
Page
Han1pton
'cause,
when
different
they
way,
say
wouldn't
get
ready
thinkin'
to
an.ything
know who I was.
And,
dinner;
their
for
and--what's
me,
J:
Piggy.
M:
Piggy
on the
talk
in
language
no language
So,
liv
they
M:
Catch
onto
Miss
White
liked
[Siegler]
k
track,
make
and
want
their
house
biscuits
a
I
them
to
and
have
and
things
name?
friend--they
and
get
of
ready
I wouldn't
were
were
a couple
would
just
more
talk.
know what
they
saying.
like
would
to
sit
were
And I wouldn't
I didn't
want
talk
them
to
know--
see
her.
She
business.
my business.
I went
them.
I went
Street.
Then
they
talk
take
n rally
1
the
in
to
to
see
her.
And I just
and-J:
would
go to
talk
would
I didn't
always
'cause
all
Know your
lorkin',
~here
so
J:
din
kept
at
to
his
they
I knew what
saying.
'cause
to
friend
and
they
me off
fella's
and
his
porch
Pig
t
in
and
all
used
that
talk,
throw
I used
mother
that--Piggy
out
at
to
f29
s
about
you--yotr
they
~hat
you
did
in
New Y rk
girlfriends--wh-n
~ou
d
J
ak
0
th-y
om
m --Pi
S
see
d
'
�Mabel
know
I'm
found
it
to
Page
Han1pton
So,
queer.
out.
I can't
I was
gain'
me a birthday
give
that
Piggy
gay
men--and
formed
and
of
them
it
was
gay.
in,
see
was
bring
me in.
there.
the
now,
'cause
in
M:
No
was in
J:
Where?
M:
Now,
this
let's
lived--
see.
a few
So,
of
these
girls
they
one
tell
em
That's
the
in
when
and
l1ad drinks
so
those
And every
it.
I walked
tl1ey
me in
point
they
and
I think--
Was this
in Jersey,
quite
party?
that
wanted
bring
think--did
when
J:
Piggy--Piggy
to
how they
they
and
men in
them--I
a party
know
girls
some
there
form
them
was
i.t
everything
they
did
I can
walked
to
And told
how--1
They wanted
and included
for--how
because,
party.
wanted
party
was
with
thern--'cause
they
the
figure
f30
New Jersey
see,
Young girl.
in
New York?
New York.
that
I had
See,
or
was
met
His
Piggy's
at
Piggy
mother
house-
long
time
was very
before
nice
and
\
all
like
around
that.
them
And I know t]1ey
just
to
hear
likt~
they
that
it. was
a gi ving-ot1t
They
didn't
tell
do11't
J:
know
the
Dj_d you
it's
name
what
were
would
they
me> arid
tl1.ese
party
for
or
anything.
already
see
30
queer,
so I would
say.
gi1"'ls
a 'butcl1--and
yourself
as
So it
l~ave
that
butch?
hang
seems
told
was
tl1em
1ne ~
�Page
Han1pton
Mabel
M:
think
about
because
any
them.
See,
so nice
that
from
everything
up with
one
married
just
Ellen
that
why I didn't
bother
people.
he
told
Back
And,
catch
to
caught
So,
party.
this
know
me,
God
he'd
cut
my
they
re
going
to
have
butch--
how many
,t,.
[Benny]
and
butches.
them
Quite
walked
sl1e * says
And
open.
he
woman--great
me.
this
for
when
fell
if
her,
didn't
I don't
She
and
so that's
M:
can't
me,
me,
party
mouths
to
I didn't
period.
I got
to
coming-out
them.
"It
I liked
husband
But
their
women,
hooked
J:
of
liked
was nice
married
above--her
this
just
was
her
I got
throat.
I
'em,
Ellen
connected
with
No,
f31
to
in
a few
the
room,
othei .. gi1~ 1,
t]1e
be."
·· Tl1at'
says,
s her."
Sc) they
had
been
talkin'
all
along.
And them
faggots
boys,
then--they
did
you
and
I couldn't
keep
I said,
come
us
11
they
in
the
talk
to
I clidn'
come
up and
dark?
t
my
possi'ble
II
want
-----------------------It's
up there--we
tl1.ey
...
to.
hu,g and
And I'm
Sv-1eetie"
called
.. --as
tb.ey
"Wl1y
kiss,
on my porch
sittin'
tl1ey
them
called
tl1.eir
··
------·--··------------------Mabel
n1ay
ha,,e
31
said
11
Pen.ny"
instead
of
�L
I/ 6
Mabel
B nny.
really
Page
Han1pton
Was Benny,
Ell n's husband,
gay?
Did he and Mabel
stay
in touch
after
Ellen
died'
For how long?
it was some partyall
night
long.
Well,
'cause
J:
Was it
M:
There
mostly
few white,
all
and
girlfriend
at
work
And,
out
white
them
and
J:
Do you
M:
Well,
that.
jacket
and
But
I never
like
th,3.t.
(stammering,
the
night
was
arty?
white
women
I knew
colored.
you
I was
For
Did
there?
have
a
yourself?
by
I always
alone.
what
you
reason,
managed
I don't
lncw
remember
I tell
what
you,
and
Or else
I had
blouse
blouse.
got
in
z·ight
with
know,
wore
to
jacket.
with
wear,
but
I alway.:>
white--white
women--going
I just
party?
the
to
nothing
and
I dress
a co]ored
I don't
you
to
skirt,
bed
with
simply
inaudible).
J:
What, do you
1nean,
tl1at
M:
I never
right
in--for
with
a
me--
suit--skirt
like
not
the
few.
Or were
alone.
liked
then
girlfriend
alone.
at
people
men there,
very
party?
be
white
my friends
were
I was
a grey
dressed
of
the
everybody
wore
and
was white
there
M:
to
black
Who was your
J:
•
f32
a person
got
and
you
tl1en
r, .-,
yo11
neve1,.
"got
instance,
go to
bed
into
you
with
spend
them,
I
�It?
•
Page
f :33
get
away
Everybody
I knew
had
right
me to
Mabel Hampton
you
knoww
it.
But
But why did--
M:
In
I wanted
and
take
what
wot1.ldn't
way,
of
I didn't
feel
from
on a hundred
basement--it
had
was
it
for
if
Even
me--they
from
come
in
it,
I
I wanted
·three
the
rooms--I
you
M:
Not
often.
it
because
t]1ey
would11't
J:
to
just
known
so
an apa1:-tment
Street
in
a lovely
And,
the
My
time.
next
long--lived
I don't
in
door
know,
·to
I was
by
·time.
But
from
had
apartment.
J:
away
love
me the
When I got
twenty-second
I'd
got
all
f rier1d.s..
and
friends--girls--that
Or you
my own.
to
do it.
New York
made
managed
somebody.
And I r1ad so 1nany
myself
I always
somebody
something
it.
done
J:
somebody,
and
I never
be
So,
had
sex?
I never
I was
good
women,
didn't
people
afraid
me like
to
.YOU
didn't
Ellen
you
didn't
make
love
at
M:
Yeah,
yeah,
that's
J:
Which
one,
honey?
M:
All
them
into
with
would
let
all?
right.
one.
I ran
it.
do me bad
or
was.
lov-re t.o women?
malte
and
of
bothered
them
make
Or you
love
to
you?
�.J ,J
Mabel
Hampton
husband
Page
J:
So,
M:
Yes,
want
to
you
did
have
I had
some
your
throat
I was
with
slit
sex.
'cause,
some.
f34
why would
that
if--remember?--you
told
rn.e--
M:
don't
Well,
know how he
her,
J:
But
M:
That
blamed
they
dragged
me into
I never
wanted
knew
was
it
Now,
the
in
then
bed
the
her
with
you
me.
her
to
the
make
He found
love
to
be
out.
I
her?
he.
And the
And she was after
home.
And with
caught
in
some
heard
tl1roat.
wife.
out--
I was after
danger,
me!
that,
with
a married
way,
if
him
the
blame
That's
how she
I called
it
woman
'cause
bed.
outs.
catch
"I' 11 catcl1
tl~e
under
wouldn't
husband
that--
say
I was
"
I
you.
her,
I 11.ad been
in
woman.
"-T:
Makin.g
M:
Uhmhum.
bed?
I'd
did
I hadn't
if
I' 11 cut
found
his
Sittin'
J:
But
you
M:
Not
to
draw
the
line
J:
How old
M:
011,
love?
else
do you
down playin'
cards?
What
just
said
to
everybody.
from
were
I was
you
goin'
me you
Just
then
think
we were
doing
make
love?
didn't
some
people,
see,
and
on.
at
in
that
my
time?
twe11·ties--abol1t
twenty-
�Mabel
Page
I-Ian1pton
£35
five.
J:
Can you--
M:
No,
it
was
before
twenty-three--twenty-three,
I was
I was
J:
Now,
M:
Now that's
J':
Sl1.ould
we've
to
got
where
in
twenty-five
Bedford.
tell
that
all
because
the
story,
rest
honey.
of
the
things
•
1.n.
con1e
getting
we ].eave
t.}1,at, for
day?
another
·yot1
tired?
(Tape
J:
clicks
Tell
and
off
the
on again
Bedford
I was
immediately).
story.
workin'
woman had
for--this
three
boys.
now,
tell
and
di
her
orce
otl1er
J:
Don't
M:
This
you
their
J:
Thats
alright.
M:
It
one,
was
•
M:
three
I can't,
boys.
Let's
but
went
this
talk
it's
She went
a divorce--or
And she
w
three.
two,
gettin>
he was--n
•
mouth.
right
names.
him.
from
your
woman had
was
husband
man
cover
·s
about
all
with
she
this
a story
all
in
Don t woiry
you.
•
in
was
otler
one.
I worke
She
away.
gettin'
an.
a
Thi
ne.
b
t
m.
�..
Mabel
Hampton
an.d
woma11,
divorce
she
from
l'lad
her
tl1ree
tl'le
is
boys,
She
husband.
Where
straigl1t.
Japan
man,
was
•
•
M:
he
There
is
a Japan
controlled--he
J:
That's
M:
In
order
J:
But
it's
M:
I have
sl1e was
and
to
gett,j.n'
can't
marry--I
a
it
get
Point?
J:
this
f36
Page
I don't
•
alright,
honey.
to
be because
Has
Point.
had--it
know,
was
a great
amount
doesn't
make
a
got
to
It
honey.
of
difference.
bring
him
to
bring
things
back,
I've
in.
if
alright
you
can't
remember
exactly.
And she,
left
me--the
Now,
this
to
she
went
away--It
boys
went
away--she
man--oh,
Lord,
something,
it
white
And he--stop
man.
1narried
her ..
wealthy
woman,
up all
the
no business.
remember
She
money
it
divorced
and
or
Th.at's
her
was
what
me of
reminds
.
to
make
a summer
left
is
his
his
name .
th.ere---l"te
her
the
husband.
me with
name?
did
how she
he
do?
come
to
come
fle's
rnai--ried
She
to
He did
divorce
in.
month.--and
the
house.
Everytime
husband--something
what
story
I see
a very
fine
l1e1~.
I-le
·had been
do--did
he use
something
him,
a
and
he had
she
�,0
( 2-{
Mabel
was
Page
Hampton
goin'
comes
with
here
very
But
where
she
this
happened.
lived
Viola--[Bellfield],
girl--she
girls
are,
I went
they
soda
a11d stuff.
you,
there's
he
So,
stay
at .
So,
he
with
me.
Jersey
in
So,
used
to
the
to
pick
that
next
in
"Oh,
him
out
the
Viola,
would
up
City
We'll
his
a
mind
family--
"Yes.
"
at?"
and
be
gettin'
them
she--now,
about
you
how these
buy
I said,
yeah.
of
know
they
too
Jersey
there,
couple
you
her
I pick
from
Viola,
name--colored
a man so's
to
Wl1ere will
him
her
a cabaret.
stayin'
his
up
That's
Avenue.
And,
man asked
I said,
I wrote
bring
a cabaret.
come
I was
See,
somebody
Viola,
was
to
attached
11
had
Morningside
that
we go to
says,
she
me of
Viola--Viola,
this
a story
Now,
II
like
us would
asked
in
I think
and
reminds
much.
anyhow
all
She
man4
this
f37
at
ready
was
going
where
to
I work
to
go back
everything.
He
to
days.
address
and
boyfriend.
\
\.T:
Was . he
M:
No!
Wait'll
I tell
thought
about
knew
he
He was
you.
no gay
Wasn't
it
at
in
love
with
he would
take
us
I wasn't
said
gay?
the
man.
gay
nothin'
It
time.
him,
to
the
He was
didn't
and
she
cabaret.
about
worry
wasn't
no gay
him.
man.
I neve1."
me 'cause
in
love,
I
and
�,J (
Mabel
Pa,ge
Han1pton
At the
cabaret
[Henderson]
or
the
What's
Ethel
girl's
J:
Billie
M:
No,
So,
waited
did.
she
for
in--him
and
jackets
or
there
of
Wasn't
walked
in--great
I says,
I says,
you
the
was
door;
sit
at
nobody
"What
same
age.
one,
out
do jtou
We dressed
the
door
waiting
'till
let
him
we get
we're
I had
And two
and
man
and
While
I know
there.
I
11
o'clock--this
nine
Now,
and
boyfrier1d
my
tl1ere.
I opens
opens.
white
"We' re
the
we go on out.
else
big
other
my house.
he's
and
door
that
·tl1.e.1~e, and
we' 11
friend--now,
the
He says,
around
was
II
and
something
door.
now?
name
about?
it
They came about
at
talkin',
were
at--Viola
them.
his
them
take
was
child's
so much
Billie,
" 011,.. yes.
a soda,
He knocks
we read
wasn't
it
"I'll
you
give
the
Fletcher
Holiday?
All
He says,
I think,
of--what's
name
I sai . d ,
S o,
playin',
a couple
Waters.
will
was
f 38
white
our
standin'
shut
the
men
men.
want'?
1:·aidin'
11
tl1e
11.ouse.
It
''Fo1. .. what?''
He says,
"Presti
I hadn't
been
with
he
says.
"Come on,"
ttl.tion.
"
a man no time.
'' come
on.
Get
I couldn't
you1"
coat.
figure.
Get
you1"
�c a
they
and
l1at.
Thy
t
fing
rprinte
peculiar
An
one
of
They
set
M:
Sure
it
After
about
So,
takin'
time
M:
Yes,
that
to
11
and
front
today
on the
his
Just
us tw1 girls.
d set
his
I could
own wife
wn moth
pick
her!
Hair,
corner.
there's
r
find
up.
lesbians.
They don't
I guess
they'd
know nothing
have
tellin'
go around
thiowed
people
key
the
that
you're
No.
And,
a judge.
woman.
of
h w up.
or
Next
next
mornin',
mornin',
nothin'.
So,
now.
I tried
we was
had
Ain't
to-
·I says,
(inaudible)."
you
.image
didn't
Bedford,
overnight.
of
H
H
les--
know
Why'd
up.
were
other.
no clothes
A little
[Norris],
set
we were
the
a
up.
in
lesbians.
g,
fellows.
HA set
You don't
get
'' I didn't
was
I got
we stayed
in
you
you two
But
See.
us.
two
I
him.
J:
we were
this,
th
th
fellow.
h y gt
n
w1
v i"'ythi
this
J:
everything
at
abut
He st--
about
d
thing
Neither
up.
·
'e111 up for?"
Just
eyes,
I said,
nobody--she
like
little
Judgie.
I looked
everything!
if
that
must
don't
be her
look
mother.
The
spit
at
he:t
like
Jean
�Mabel
She
say
is
and
nothin'.
from
other
kid
this
could
to
spend
that
girl
Okay,
f i.1~st
She
railroaded
only
tl1 ing
I can
the
she
was
night.
from
That
for
now,
next
thing,
up to
so that
when
I hit
develops
Mabel's
City
make
came
he
is
she'd
think
that
I
man--and
this
for.
I was
Bedford
The
and
it
Bedford
was
a strange
voice
me.
And the
what
tape
Jersey
prostitution.
that's
(The
railroaded
would
cops
l1appened
I was the
me.
So they
the
t]1ing
point
say,
kid.
prove
there
told
fellow
"Wel]
sl1e
f40
. ··
No lawyer,
other
had
tip there
sat
'Bedford
oldest
come
Page
Hampton
sent.
this
echoing
reverberating
The
[ I1 ...isl1.rr1an].
sound
back
at
this
and
forth).
t.all,
Big,
tell
me your
anyt.hing;
mc,ntl1,
storyJ
3ent
and
11
that.
lil{e
He sat
judge
haridsome
she
(Tape
get
ends
said,
He said,
"Because
And I' 11 tell
down-·-11im
me here.
he
[Irishman].
and
his
She had
payed
for
at
thj.s
0
you
wife--an.d
you
don't
one.
"
told
Now,
look
like
·n1e wl1.y this
to
send
up so man.y people
so
many
peopJ~e.
point).
you
··
a
�'
)
I
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'--J
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N
.del
n
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1.
Thi
M:
Yes.
i.
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�INTERVIEWWITH MABELHAMPTON
(M)
Interviewer:
Joan
Nestle
J:
This
is
M:
Today
J:
Seventh
this
is
tape
about
Mabel's
Mabel
the
to
Joan
Nestle
New York
to
New York
is
the
or
and
first
Twenty-eighth--
twenty-eight,
Mabel
life
Well,
City
J:
New York
December
in
I don't
Hampton,
New York
question
know.
is,
and
City
in
we're
as
what
But
anyway,
doing
a
a lesbian.
year
did
you
come
City?
M:
•
(J)
or
I'll
turn
Jersey
away
from
that.
That
We' re
just
interes·ted
I come
City?
No, New York City.
City.
M:
in
'
New York
City.
Okay.
1
Let's
see,
nineteen--
�I
l'iabel
when
and
Pag
Hamp on
I came
to
York
e
City--you
see,
I
as
c2
goi
g
hen
you
ack
s
ar
forvards.
J:
that's
Okay,
J:
lell,
I'll
hen
you
alright,
say,
first
don
t--
nineteen--
hit
the
ci
y.
irst
city.
it
M:
the
it
ha
city.
J:
A ound
11:
Y al
~
J:
But
you
M:
Y ah
was
tla
.
nineteen--now
•
for
irl.
a li
o J fts y Ci
day~
i i g
r
•
1
0
'
•
T
ld
at.
h
m
•
y
I
y
•
•
l
ou
l .
•
•
as
a few
you
•
•
•
er
I came
m
•
0
bu
ut
y
J:
came
•
yo
U C
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
M:
aunt
brought
I came
that
happened
start
living
Now,
let's
and
in
M:
West
you
Oh,
Eighth
My
Street_
away
ran
that
and,
City
was
we know
as
now,
what
a lesbian
around
everything
year
did
you
woman?
nineteen--I
was
about
old.
J:
So,
that
would
be
around
nineteen
nineteen,
City
you
Okay.
twenty.
M:
Nineteen
J:
In
what
I never
M:
nineteen
twenty.
Street.
I had
J:
skip--'cause
New York
years
nineteen
fifty-two
me.
J:
seventeen
to
c3
two
twenty.
part
New York
thought
about
I lived
in
rooms
there.
you
Did
of
one
that
pick
That
that.
twenty
did
was
live?
♦
in
Twenty-Second
West
neighborhood
for
any
special
reason?
No,
that
me--
three
met
house.
Oh,
A girlfriend
no.
yes.
They
of
lived
next
•
in
mine
was
livin'
door
and
they
got
got
me
•
J:
Were
they
lesbians?
M:
Yup,
they
were
rooms
Lillian,
there
in
and
we--
that
lesbians.
house.
And they
And I stayed
3
there
'till
I
,
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
J:
So that
around
there
eighteen
M:
then
back.
I went
1 i ving
and
name.
If
there
dollars
it
was
a bedroom,
J:
You remember
M:
I don't
think
Ten
dollars
work
know,
her
get
Well,
go to
you
I'll
M:
would
something,
and I went
then
Were
then
later.
it
apartment
was
three
I'd
come
lots
of
what
was
think
of
rooms
I paid
on the
and
ground
a big
paid
I think
She was a funny
work
for
for
rent?
parties
in
your
lesbian
parties
I paid
place.
Mr.
floor,
kitchen.
them more than
a week
to
anyhow--
like?
how much you
I went
I can
But,
a livingroom,
was funny.
there
I knew--oh,
name,
the
'cause
And,
back.
neigl1.borhood?
of
was
It
and,
think
What
apartment.
or
neighborhood
J:
a week.
come
I worked,
me go back.
that
of them.
stayed
show.
that
I can
and
a room
let
around
I'd
people,
the
Around
rest
the
in
Alright,
M:
all
times
kept
thirty--you
How long--
I was--different
J:
les·bians
nineteen
yeai~s'?
I always
Then
here
'till
I went away with
meantime>
away,
was
c4
ten
for
that
Then I
[Dandrick],
I had--
J;
Did
M:
Have what?
J:
Did
you
you
have
have
4
house?
in
your
house.
�cE,
Pa,ge
Hampton
Mabel
M:
Not
in
my house.
Next
door,
this
girl,
she
'
had
four
time.
rooms
in
the
basement,
And sometimes
J:
Oh,
M:
We'd
food--chicken,
'cause
name?
the
rest
If
J:
pay
parties,
and
vegetables,
I'd
think
chip
you
in,
of
her
name,
the
up all
the
too_
a pay
party?
we'd
buy
and
salads
in
all
with
and
them
know.
you
know
And--what
I can
think
of
was
all
names.
So,
Or did
What's
different
parties
parties
pay
that.
salad--and
those
gave
about
have
I can
she
have
my girlfriends
bring
of
party.
tell
potato
I'd
her
we would
and
and
things,
and
you
the
paid
money
for
the
go form
things
you
party
the
to
brought
pay
to
rent
the
or
something?
M:
rent.
No,
We went
J:
no.
to
We didn't
a lot
Well,
talk
We went
and
you
meet
house,
maybe
pay
other
we just
less
give
of
those
about
to
a couple
women and
of
have
a lot
of
the
and
had
for
our
close
How many women would
M:
Sometimes
maybe
pay--where
You by your
J:
and
the
too.
that
dollars.
there
with
places.
dance
it
no parties
fun.
friends.
be there
would
more.
be twelve
•
5
But,
you
drinks
with
go
and
our
Pigs'
feet.
about?
or
fourteen--
•
lil
�'
Hampton
Mabel
let's
in
J:
And,
M;
Oh, potato
see,
the
what
seldom
that
because
What
were
M:
Most
of
did
they
or
pig
to
eat?
feet,
chittlins.
peas,
and
And,
it
was
all
that
And sometime
black-eyed
them
of
girls
just
bring
their
supposed
there
women wearing
wore
them
of
them
to
in
of
them
And,
was
through
a car,
they
would
be
of
there
in
or
the
corn.
like
street.
Of
the
car
and
too,
single
anything
slacks,
women
was
suits.
the
had
of
party?
wore
them
a lot
the
They wore
slacks
come
most
at
suits.
have
good-lookin'
Were
single
the
were
on.
short
or
come
hair.
with
And,
was--
there
couples
but
were
there
a
women?
M:
the
have
we have?
was
had
six
slacks
of
any
they
J:
over
did
J:
five
their
lot
you
salad,
it
if
course,
most
else
would
we had.
Very
then
what
time
winter
stuff
c6
Page
Well,
come
there
and
bring--the
women with
to
jive
at
them,
over
bulldykers
you
there.
So,
--
J:
There
was
dancing?
M:
Oh,
Charleston--they
did
they
know.
danced
a little
up
bit
6
couples
used
And you
You wasn't
all.
yeah,
and
because
to
and
wasn't
supposed
a breeze.
of
come
the
everything.
to
look
They
did
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
Do you
J:
records?
How was
the
The music
J:
Who?
M:
I think
records
I want
that
we used
to
save
as
M:
Hrnmm?
J:
Did
you
it
They were
records.
I got
some
bring
you.
to.
by
all
records~
who?
records
home
Some old,
You see,
with
women at
these
now.
old
the
I've
got
records
fire,
I tried
I could.
you
ever
was
to
dance
Did
records--was
Do you remember
much as
J:
what
music?
M;
some
to
remember
c7
meet
meet
anybody
that
you
parties,
took
Mabel?
home
across
the
hall?
M:
No,
No ..
no,
There
do that.
I didn't
was
I don't
do that.
Mildred
Green;
there
know,
I didn't
quite
a few
of
would
these
be
was
them.
Were these
J:
black
women,
or
unless
we ran
into
women too?
white
M:
had
a white
me,
I'd
had
a couple
Village
were
all
No,
white
rare
woman with
venture
and
very
out
of
with
any
girls--white
tell
them
girls,
and
They were
them.
about
we got
of
them.
girls--from
it
and
along
7
they
fine.
all
I just
someone
colored.
had
downtown
would
who
But
a ball.
in
I
The
come up.
They
�Mabe 1 Han1pton
J:
you
that
Village
went
Do you
remember
to
Village
The
M:
Went to
J;
As a lesbian
'cause
you
the
first
time,
approximately,
a lesbian?
as
The Village?
knew
woman--that
that's
where
you went
to
The
lesbians
other
hung
out.
M:
tl1e
time.
started
the
I didn't
and
out
down there
acting
No,
in
at
first
know
got
in
time--I
''first
the
was
time''
show
with
surnmer--those--
the
the
Cherry
Lane
J:
And what
going
it.
at
the
After
at
So,
all
I
show-girls,
Then,
Theater.
down there
we'd
that
time,
therefore,
go
I was
I went
there--
nineteen
twenty,
M:
nineteen
was
around
we figure
this
was--this
was
right?
Yeah,
it
But you
lesbians
in
that
It
time.
was
down there
and
J:
in the
M:
knew that
The Village
was
a place
went?
M: Well,
Village
did
twenty.
J:
where
time
meet
I wasn't
up with
Did you ever
sure,
but
I knew
you
a few of them,
quite
go to
any bars
down in
seldom.
I didn't
could
go
see.
The
twenties?
Very
seldom.
Very
8
have
to
�Mabel
go to
the
Like,
Jackie,
girls
from
had
Page
Hampton
all
bars
maybe,
the
the
women
have
the
the
houses.
women's
party,
a big
girls
remember
and
this
from
how the
nowadays,
Like,
were
go to
all
the
place/that--she
there.
Do you
themselves.
What
would
show--all
J:
or--
I would
because
c9
some
we call
that
words
called
women
ou1.~sel ves
they
used?
"lesbians··
Like,
you
said
"bulldagger"-M:
Yeah,
"ladylovers"--and
the
man,
wife,"
What
was
M:
Well,
I'll
J:
Right,
M:
And the
the
knew
woman
else?--
called
who wasn't
a butch?
tell
you,
the
butch
was
what
were
the
other
ladies
other
Did
mostly
like
other
yot1 use
Central
me very
the
like
the
What
Park
well,
word
my friend,
my
we heard
on Riverside
it?
is
It's
Now,
I used
9
to
II
S
t
UC l 't
when
Drive--not
thing?--we
other
West.
and
"stud"?
Mostly
yeah.
party
day.
called?
And we wot.1ld--
Sometimes,
a big
is
ladies--"This
blah.
Drive--what's
Street--no,
that
the
and
blah,
M:
there
and--What
know.
J:
Riverside
bulldykers
J:
blah,
to
11
"butch"--and--
you
we went
11
came
a hundred
there
was
go up to
through
and
tenth
a woman there
her
house.
�Mabel
At her
house.
Oh, the
we had
J:
Oh,
M:
God!
that.
That
That
around
night--What
is
the
think
of
year
been
c10
two
women.
was
that,
around
Mabel?
nineteen--
I met Lillian.
no,
no,
nineteen
thirty-nine?
no,
It
no.
nineteen
I met
I can
have
around
No,
one
What
must
was after
was
between
about--
M: No.
that--'cause
if
marriage
So that's
like
Now,
the
talk
marriage
J:
as
Page
Hampton
her
in
back
thirty-two.
name?!--I'm
I can
before
eight--something
nineteen
woman's
her,
thirty
was
trying
a lot
tell
And,
of
to
think.
things.
Oh,
brother!
That's
M:
Anyhow--no,
Anyhow,
she
and
says,
she
for get
called
11
what
"Yes,
Mabel,"
door.
"No,
"You know,
can't
she
down to
get
Monroe
will
he was
He was
a faggot_
What church
M:
He's
to
We was livin'
down--her
J:
I got
marry
was
a hundred
door,
Florence--"--I
married.
"
.. "
and her
the
remember.
next
name- - "S11.e' s get ting
The Reverend
gay.
okay,
says,
last
going
going
ain't
she
says,
she's
mamma is
it
us next
Florence's
So Lillian
her
okay.
J:
marriage
them."
friend
and her
certificate
So that's
and
and
how I knew
he with?
and
10
fourteenth
Street
and
Saint
�Mabel
Hampton
Nicholas
Page
Avenue.
So,
dressed
Oh,
anyhow,
was
I said,
you
fine,
he
"Alrigl1t.
know,
thirty/thirty-five
a fine
and
people
In their
house?
M:
In their
house.
natt1rally,
So,
must
there.
J:
guy.
11
there
ell
have
we
been
about
And big--
was
It
an apartment.
And,
I
,
think
thats
Hit
becoming
oh ten.
one
on
some
something.
Don't
get
yourself
them
World
in
trouble
She says,
are--you'll
get
me to
with
messed
that
"Don't
both.er
in
trouble."
yourself
woman who I--I
what
just
with
before
them
Now,
..no.
says,
those--'',
up
was
an Assembly
become
Lillian
do it.
I wouldn't
now?--people
War.
the
wanted
she
that.
like
That's
and
or
something
stories.
political,
woman
call
or
do you
the
Second
because
in
the
they
meantime,
I was--
remember
and
they
slippers,
go back
J:
Let's
M:
Oh,
J:
What were
what
you
M:
Wait
had
and
the
to
wedding
and
you
wedding
ceremony,
wearing
ceremony.
okay.
back
then?
Do you
Lillian--?
a minute
on tux--white
I had
the
now.
No,
neckties
the
and
girls
there
everything--and
I remember,
on a suit.
was
I had
on a white
my hair.
She
suit.
My hair
was
long.
I had
the
11
girl
fix
�tro
•
Mabel
all
up,
down
all
around
And,
Lillian
rolled
come
it
arriving,
and
to
c12
more
J:
Was it
all
all.
[Elga},
And,
her
like
waved
it,
a fashion
people
M:
They had
J:
Both
the
her
Yeah,
women.
no men there
gave
How would
started
I knew--
that
All
course,
J:
see.
women?
wasn't
mother
it
and
[plate],
The guests
trucculently):
of
and
it
that
wedding.
this
I seen
There
in
like
look
and
women.
water
my face
M (a bit
that's
I put
always
we went
So,
all
Page
Hampton
outside
girl
the
was
it
minister--
who was marrying
away.
they
pants
dress
the
bride?
on .
•
M (with
The girl
think
had
she
had
different
the
arm.
of
more
a veil--a
had
white
trucculence):
wedding
shoes
dresses
And music
them?
dress
on.
on with
No,
and
And the
flower;
not
her
both
them.
veil--and
bride's
they
of
had
I
maids--they
flowers
on
was playing.
,
the
. had
J:
And how was the
bride
M:
Oh,
she
had
a real
Oh,
she
had
the
groom--the
woman who was
groom.
a gown
beautiful
on .
J:
gown.
12
bridal
gown.
She
�f fl
Mabel
Hampton
Page
M:
The
J:
And what
M:
And the
other
She
dressed
pants.
white
bride
had
the
did
was
c13
gown on--
the
worn 1 have
other
woman had
in
on?
on pants.
white
too,
She had
and
on
so was the
bride.
The
passed
downtown
How did
J:
you
change
She
tell
was
had
and
I forget
down there,
had
a blood
back,
give
the
it
to
J:
said
at
the
man to
be your
the
and
and
voice
some
them
of
have
anyhow.
when
everything.
and
like
didn't
time,
back--went
Did
just
lawfully
J:
He said
M:
No,
anything
he
like
lawfully
be your
at
remember
ceremony?
Yes,
a heavy
test
like
so much
to
They
she
went
went
Everything
got
it,
a
brought
was
it
minister.
Do you
M:
woman to
the
looked
image
who,
thing
girl
apart--just
She
down there,
Brought
her
spitting
voice.
okay.
That
the
her
Hall!
do that?
know.
couldn't
do today.
City
they
M: I don't
fellow
at
say
Reverend
Monroe
anything--?
the
regular,
married--,
wedded
the
that
"Do you
[and[do
you
take
this
take
this
say
"two
husband?"
word
"man
think
he
11
?
He didn't
women... ?
I don't
13
did.
I don't
think
he
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
did.
There
I could
was
hear
so many
her
people,
sayin',
J:
How old
M:
Well,
and
I was
so
two
people
cl4
far
And
back.
"Yes."
were
they,
the
getting
married?
And then,
thirty.
kiss
the
to
he
and
gay
was
marry
anyhow,
What
M:
I can't
he
was
that,
he
men and
I think
twenty-five,
and
knew
they
the
Monroe
Reverend
hisself.
J:
somebody.
was
after
bride,"
because
was
one
were
said,
wc)men.
all
And that's
other
was
"Now,
He knew
he
went
in
for--
women.
was
his
first
name?
remember
[Sis]
I'd
now.
would
Do you
know
have
his
first
know,
to
Mabel?
get
it
name.
from
But,
Monroe.
J:
Did
M:
I didn't
a lot
of
lesbians
that
you
knew
then
get
mar.r1e. d?.
I heard
about
woman who got
married.
home.
around.
hometown.
didn't
not
too
many.
mixed
up with
all
her
coming
come
killed
Her
give
many--not
but
husband
She
too
them,
We were
Her
know
and
him
Lillian
a day.
in,
another
from
and
right
He was
I heard
girl,
a big
he
there.
went
that
to
and
party,
must
have
She
school
a mean guy.
14
was
got
married.
about
she
and
slapped
from
together.
another
was
she
went
her
Lillian
He
s
�Mabel
Hampton
Page
J:
made
it
easier
someplace
chance
met
Mabel,
for
do you
you
else--like
to
them
hospital,
Yes,
get
around
to
knew
they
like
that.
in
over
from
night
in
M:
all
to
the
were
and
to
out
you
wouldn't
the
theater
City
lived
to
that
the
mixed
head
a
New York,
to
you
the
went
one
women there.
And we start
I got
have
I even
I met
and
it.
in
Now,
anything.
from that
found
you
from
I knew
if
thdn
people.
meeting,
And then
spiritualism
town,
place:
gay.
New York
town?
meet
hospital
in
a lesbian
a small
political
the
be
living
a small
and
the
think
c15
to
I
talkin'
and
up in
woman was
a
lesbian.
J:
lesbian
was
really
this
good
a good
place
to
be a
in--.
M:
learn
So New York
Yes,
so much,
a very
and
you
see
place
to
be
so much,
and
a lesbian.
you
You
meet
so many
a lesbian?
Like
people.
Did
J:
other
towns,
you
M:
Brooklyn,
out
there
safe
here
lesbians
I never
went
New York,
a little
feel
know,
No,
I never
point.
you
went
nowhere
get
That's
maybe,
all.
15
up?
towns.
other
Brooklyn,
Jersey--well,
bit.
beat
to
but
as
•
in
That
was the
New York,
and
White
In The War,
Jersey;
Plains
you
�Mabel
Hampton
couldn't
get
Page
me out
J:
gay
in
M:
places>
get
and
out
some
the
there
we'd
talk
and
and
we'd
I was
go to
I'd
night
sit
they'd
one
the
with
clubs
and
and
drink
there
drink
go to
in
show
my
up a breeze,
and
we'd
them's
and
meet
of
house
more.
J:
What
M:
All
I moved
Bronx.
all
i1 Harlem--in
a lot
Of course,
know.
you
they'd
of
around
yes.
a few--and
different
soda,
hang
Harlem?
Well,
people--quite
New York.
you
Did
community
of
c16
of
that
had
year
of
it?
is
that
happened
to
the
Bronx
to
happen
nineteen
in
in
before
between
I moved
to
the
forty-three.
The
So
Twenties
and
The
Forties.
J:
went
back
and
five
to
to
in
Do you
Yeah,
of
my hand
go in.
there's--I
forgot
I remembered
They'd
them--maybe
a white
the
names
of
any
places
you
Harlem?
M:
of
remember
be
playin'
more.
them
them.
the
You'd
like
the
go down the
mµsic.
And then
down there
place
now--just
I went
I went
and were
to
four
down the
treated
steps
village
very
•
nice.
J:
Tell·
us--I
remember--when
16
they
used
to
have
of
�Mabel
those
big
drag
M:
went
Page
Hampton
to
dance~
Well,
those.
Those
drag
balls?
drag
balls
are
the
The women wore
pants
c17
'
di~ferent.
and
the
Everybody
men wore
dresses.
J:
M:
something
like
[or
Florence
with
that--because
What
in
the
Carol.
Avenue.
around
part
M:
That
But,
there
in
.
place,
or
happened
know?
New York
I remember,
The
was
Twenties,
Seventh
were
you
you
of
1960s,
But,
the
twenty-five
that
died,
[Millrose[
one
in
twenty-six--
around
the
time
Miller]
J:
me to
When was this?
That happened
were
they
with
Lillian.
where
in?
You took
I was
they?
were
Avenue--someplace
so many
see.
And then--
Get
of
in
they
them,
there
on Seventh
and
were
have
open
all
a nice
time.
J:
You also
M:
Boat
rides?
J:
That
there
M:
Oh,
told
me that
there
used
to
be boat
rides.
know
it
boat
rides
up
there
better
than
up the
all
night
yes.
was
What
some
is
her
I know my own.
Hudson,
long--and
you
know,
that's
17
women who ran
name
now?
And they'd
I mean
where
boat
rides?
I used
to
give
these
way up there--way
you'll
see
the
gay
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
at.
people
And she-J:
What
M:
That's
around
year?
Can you
since
we've
That
was
call
on somebody
else
boat
rides.
of course,
[Post]
nineteen--
Oh,
Road
her
And,
for
or
boat.
those
been
is
those,
that?
here
her
but
in
Rose
would
off
go when
and
she
have
to
know the
of Boston
she's
Street,
Bronx.
I'd
would
sixty--think
sixty-sixth
the
name?
one woman lived
and
Everybody
I knew
remember
What
on a hundred
fifth--sixty-fifth
for
c18
sixtyshe
gave
was known
a boat
ride.
faggots--
J:
Was this
in
M:
No, no,
these
the
nineteen
fifties
or
forties
or--
Seventies,
and
those
rides--and
boat
we would
come
down into
The
Sixties
Hudson.
All
night
go up the
sometimes
in
the
day,
but
and
long,
mostly
at
of
the
city
loved
to
night.
J:
Mabel,
loved
more
that
you
with
a girlfriend--or
were
than
any
there
any
any
other
others--that
parts
you
go
parts--beautiful
parts
that
you
remember
I was
travelling
remember?
M:
so much--going
for--I
didn't
No,
I don't
away
with
have--Lillian
the
white
went.
18
because
people
that
I worked
She was on a couple
of
�Mabel
them,
Hampton
but
I didn't
J:
walk
or
bother
There
parts
of
c19
just
liked
so much.
wasn't
the
Pa.ge
anyplace
city
that
M:
No.
in
J:
Uhm-hmmm.
M:
Let
me look
J:
Did
you
M:
No, I did
Here
that
you
to
you--
New York?
over
like
the
place.
Park
Central
or
did
you
like
the
•
river.
Park;
didn't
like
and
Crotona
Park.
there
and
we carried
sit,
food
Street.
*
and
Most
I loved
Crotona
we used
and
all
011., picnics.
M:
Picnics,
[Mel]
And there
J:
What
to
out
yeah.
downtown,
are
year
I -didn't
No, no.
river.
J:
I met
there.
the
not.
I go is
Park;
go out
there
Central
people's
I'd
there
like
homes--
go out
and--on
holidays,
and----
We had
see.
a beautiful
She
two women I can
lived
tell
time
in
out
River
you--
was this?
----------·----------------------------------*
Not being
a native
New Yorker,
I asked someone to
look this
up for me on the map to get the right
spelling.
For the record,
Crotona
Park is in the Bronx,
between
Treemont
and East
Treemont,
about
eight
or ten blocks
south
of Bronx Park with the zoo and garden.
(SA)
19
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
M:
was [Mel]--oh,
[or Nel?J
[Mel]
in The Sixties.
around
hair
and
drive
she'd
from
was
She's
come uptown.
the
time
over
was crazy
it
she
would
She's
was knee-high
If there
gotten
gettin'
you can't
I know,
gonna
we'll
Do you
J:
get
ever
cuttin'
to
right?
loved
kick
She
And she
you knew,
ready
so religious,
M: Yeah,
a duck.
a woman that
was ever
we're
through
had a car.
to
M:
and now I'm
get
always
J:
[Mel],
was in The Sixties-'
women--ooooh,
my God.
She taught
you everything
J:
a woman,
her
butt.
do a thing-get
her
before--
her.
remember
Did you know women who liked
any
that
There
c20
to
anything
play
about
softball
sports.
or were
there
teams.
M:
about
care
special
No, all
the
women,
they
liked
the
them--softballs--they
about
any old
softball.
J:
I've
J:
What about
jewelry
got
that
cut
to
didn't
soft
it
you these
there
jewelry?
liked
to
women.
too
much
Didn't
outl
ask
women
care
questions?
Was there
wear,
or
any
how they
wore
things?
M: I don't
. that's
about
J:
know.
Most
everybody
had a watch,
Any special
significance
and
all.
What about
rings?
20
to
�Mabel
Page
Hampton
c21
rings'?
M:
wore
in
No,
their
to
What
a shirt--a
when
when
you
had
I wasn't
Twenties,
sick
or
Can
you
or
Thirties,
one
of
when
That
all.
on and
I wear
would
How would
I was
flat,
know
low-heeled
you
was
what
a
you
shoes.
Even
socks.
thinking
Forties--when
couple
young,
Nobody
happen--I'm
or
the
died?
We all
got
the
woman's
of
in
lesbian
How did
you
The
couples
handle
got
that?
Later,
there.
There
was--oh,
I still
name.
you
make
a list
of
all
the
names
that
she
and
remember.
had--she's
of
ever
remember?
M:
end
outfit?
outfit,
a suit
What
think
can
they
no~- tlian
rings
favorite
tie.
J:
J:
you
your
workin',
M:
can't
was
My favorite
M:
was
more
up?
dress
suit--and
re
life.
J:
like
there'
the
No,
one
I have
'cause
Mabel
loves
name?
Well,
anyhow-We'll
think
who told
my tongue--"I
J:
to
don't
all
get
to
that
Lillian--oh,
know
of
of
the
it.
what
won1en. "
What
21
because
it
you
gonna
Oh,
would
just
was
on the
do with
what
happen
was
if
I
her
Mabel
�Mabel
somebody
many people
woman.
but
I'll
that
tell
get
you the
sick
I wasn't
truth.
and die.
around
I was a lucky,
too
fortunate
The first--
The first
years
c22
died?
M:
J:
Did you hear
M:
Well,
funeral
old--and
went
Page
Hampton
to
the
I got
you'd
I went
hear
to,
along
and another
and carried
with
How did
M:
Well,
me.
about
all.
twenty-five
friend
of mine,
they
I was uncomfortable,
okay.
it
J:
and that's
of it,
I was more than
a girlfriend
funeral
any--?
of
women help
each
other
through
those
times?
They lived
together,
J:
friends
they
worked
and they
They worked.
together.
worked.
And when somebody
got
sick,
would
The friends
come and help
all
the
come?
M:
know--bring
food,
bring
of us had a little
would
money,
piece
and help
of money.
them--you
them out
'cause
Nobody was broke
all
then.
And-J:
Or did
lesbians
M:
Did you ever
stick
Well,
feel
lonely
as a lesbian,
Mabel?
together?
no,
I never
felt
22
lonely
because
I was
�/61
Mabel
too
Hampton
busy
Page
working.
really--'cause,
you
see,
home
to
have
be workin'
a Lillian'd
be home
and
somebody
find
month--for
this
or two years--I'll
months
come
you'll
See,
two
for
before
c23
who
months
or
this
person,
that
I had
three
I'd
other
f.riends.
J:
But
you
had
had friends
lots--you
all
through--
M: I had plenty
onto
one
this
place
I would
person
and
go to
special?
too
long
the
other
You loved
M:
Oh, I loved
J:
Isn't
Because
you
Well,
the
the
theater--in
you liked
because
I was too--I
place.
And then,
the
if
hold
don't
know--
I got
lonely,
theater.
another
thing
couldn't
find
to the
that
that
in
theater.
theater?]
The German
made
New York
city.
another
I went
down to
--down
in
there
operas.
Can you
the
the
I went
a proper
name,
[German theater]
that
I didn't
but
theater.
that
[or
J:
friends,
a theater.
J:
M:
of
name
some
of
best
through
the
yeah,
I seen
that
the
plays
years?
that
you
saw
I know you saw
The Captive.
M:
there
was
other
Oh,
pl·ays
that--I
can't
23
so many times.
remember
them--but,
And then
do
�Page
Hampton
Mabel
you remember,
it.
I went
that
thick.
left
· I've
it
you gave
back
about
J:
I don't
M:
Yeah,
your
always
you had
mother
Oh, the
M:
No,
I just
liked
alright,
but
J:
when you wore
a suit
the
night.
I don't
but
in
It's
that
about
long.
1, begin
I didn't
Is
that
to me, and
it
show--
it
an encyclopedia?
feel
for
2).
I can't
like
them.
answer.
a man,
mind the
So when you dressed
Time when
there.
Side
Never
care
every
you
book.
a question
women.
know whether
you gave
'cause
but
I just
I couldn't.
They were
men.
See.
however
you dressed,
and
you wanted--
M:
I was always
J:
But you knew you were
M:
Oh, yes.
with
everything
no encyclopedia.
girl,
I didn't
what
last
encyclopedia?
Now there's
them.
has
and about
it.
book
wasn't
it
(End Side
like
wide
in that
was a young
didn't
book
or what,
that
J:
M:
that
that
on earth--is
Hayes
and it
remember.
cherished
everything
Helen
and found
It's
with
me a book,
c24
low-heeled
dressin'
in a suit.
a woman--
I knew I was. a woman.
shoes--and,
in those
24
I dressed
days,
people--if
in
�Mabel
they
you
seen
were
you
too
much with
low-heeled
J:
They
M:
And they
wearin'
wear
low-heeled
were
'em.
''Yes,"
on,
they
think
right.
were
'cause
shoes
I says,
right.
some
all
the
But that
people
didn't
would
ask
me
stop
me,
"You
I had
a lie
time?"
my
feets'
that
you
"Because
bad.··
them.
J:
All
and
Lillian,
joked
you
about
those
M:
the
years
called
eacl~
other
When I first
she
was
little
after
she
made
Little
Bear,
I was
the
Big
All
of
Mrs.
when,
the
we hit
little
Bear.
six
goin'
the
cards
with
"pop",
and
you
Bronx,
and
was
and
me mad,
Bear.
as
"Duchess".
I'd
call
And all
The Little
everything
cute,
would
I
you
her
our
The
friends
And Big
say
Mr.
Bear.
and
(Laughs).
( Pause
three
because
she
And then,
us
Duchess
her,
know.
knew
living
"mom" and
met
her
and
were
things--?
called
to
shoes
c25
queer.
from
for
Page
Hampton
on tape)
J:
You hit
M:
We hit
the
the
on forty-four.
thirty-nine.
.
Bronx?
Bronx.
This
We hit
And there
the
I met
25
was
nineteen
Bronx.
two
girls
forty-
And we moved
upstairs--
�Mabel
Hampton
Frances
had
and
to
Billie--and
none..
And they
Page
Billie
had
Frances
was the
parties
had
Big
all
three
Cl1eese.
children,
And they
Billie
the
SlJ.e was
up there.
c26
still
man,
see?
would
go
parties.
And then
'round
the
that's
still
the
corner
you
moved
in,
I said
to
on 2ants
there,
M:
Oh,
that
out
moved
was
or it
no,
There's
just
no,
I didn't
a few of them
down
I looked
I says,
"A hundred
So,
says,
"You go to parties
''Yeah.
"
she
"Where'd
course,
drink]
to
we got
together
you're
we had
and
from
she
one
bound
What
year
you
live
and eleventh
all
Lillian,
J:
at
know the·re
to be--?
them,
but
and
the
way
in--when
spoke
to
we
us,
Billie
Billie.
and
had
everything.
says,
of
out
way we moved
came
"Hmmmm."
you
did
know
So they
one,
lives
She
quite
turned
Now, the
myself,
and
So,
[Florene].
someplace,
I remember--Frances
I says,
find
I met
from me now.
When you
lesbians
find
one
alive.
J:
were
next
to
to
'
was
is
the
find
this
to
at?"
Street."
much?"
do was
right
there.
other.
everybody
now we're
26
[say
a little
So,
But
that's
I mean,
else.
talking?
when
how
you
�Mabel Hampton
M:
and we've
Oh, nineteen
been
Second
there
eleventh
And then
Bryce,
very
good-lookin'
you?
The
Is
M:
No.
light
not
I left
me to
Run for
J:
--
M:
No,
the
to
name--
about?
But she knew all
an office,
Mabel,
reasons
you
see?
because
didn't
about
you were a
do it?
told
a lesbian?
me not
in trouble.
say.
to.
These
No,
people
and you'll
hot-headed,
to
a
office?
Lillian
supposed
She was
talkin'
run for
you were
'cause
you're
And then,
we're
do that,
one of the
M:
it
woman's
Bryce.
She was married.
Did you not
you up 'cause
my thing-
woman.
she a lesbian
"You' 11 get
says,
I got
warden.
the
and
name)
Was that
lesbian?
was in a hundred
Bryce--that's
little
J:
J:
Street
Miss
And we wanted
see.
World War--I
(inaudible)
Miss
me.
World War [effect]
the
I was an air-raid
(a
you're
since.
The Second
Street.
a-ma-jigs.
· she
that--
World War.
M:
it,
and four--like
forty-three
ever
How did
J:
c27
Page
So leave
it
"Because,"
will
beat
say things
alone."
Okay with
alone.
you see,
Lenox Avenue.
we moved from hundred
I met some fine
27
girls
and eleventh
up there
on
�Mabel
Hampton
number
nine
A Lenox
second
Street.
What kinds
J:
kind
of
work
into
they
did
M:
went
Avenue--that's
of jobs
I was doing
awhile,
for
And these
J:
The friends
other
Oh, they
chamber
others'
was
was all
around,
these
and
twenty-
women have?
What
then:
day's
work,
then
I
then--
and
women, what were their
jobs?
you were meeting.
that
M:
did
c28
do?
The jobs
a factory
a hundred
Page
had different
maid,
and
one
jobs"
was
in
cook,
the
and the
hospital
and
it
you know?
J:
Did anyone
drive
M:
No, I remember
a taxi
or do anything
like
that?
drive
a cab
didn't
because
keep
tabs
J:
describing
your
M:
helped
think
Frances
she
the
that
taxi
I met one woman who would
was hers.
I met
her,
but,
on her.
When you said
neighbors,
''Billie"--when
Billie
They had been
to
raise
those
and
together
Frances--?
years
children.
J:
When you said
Billie
was
a man,
or was
she
M:
I don't
know.
you were
'cause
had
Billie
And--
was the
man, did Billie
just~-?
I didn't
28
ask.
She looked
that
�Mabel
Hampton
And,
way.
Page
of course,
she
that
looked
c29
and. she act
way,
that
way.
M; Well,
the
beat
J:
She
M:
Yes,
hell
would,
-she get
a couple
house
from
up
was
loving,
the
wasn't
children
you
know,
'cause
look
at
to
in her.
a private
house.
children?
the
but
her,
Frances--she
was fresh.
Frances
somebody
of drinks
else,
Frances
see,
live
She bought
when
up the
a private
there.
Now,
M: Yes,
you
mean?
(Laughs).
now.
get
one of th.ese
things,
I'll
her
not
on the
Grand
long
ago
(Pause
you
she,
adored
of Frances
me in
J:
that
she act?
• • •
out
Frances
street
How did
How do you mean?
J:
I started
send
them
to
s--
to Frances.
If
I
I met
Concourse.
on tape).
M:
She bought
one
J:
Mabel,
there
a lot
were
aware
A lot
of
was
of?
for
me.
of
physical
people
beating
violence
each
other
..
up?
M:
heard
go into
of
Well,
it--could
a club
I didn't
hear
and
get
about
half
go around
them,
half
you
drunk
29
people.
those
know,
and
you
I
a fight.
look
They
at
�Mabel
Hampton
Page
somebody--bip!--they
then
that's
how the
men would
say,
that.
So,
didn't
go to
to
theater,
the
singin'
I didn't
the
left
and
men found
out
what
they
lessons
come that
place
so
I meat
old
around
with
with
those
have
and
all
like
I
and
why I was
lessons,
to
And the
people,
That's
up dancin'
I didn't
were.
bulldyker,"
them.
I took
But,
and
be bothered
runnin'
I took
with
up
them.
(inaudible).
J:
you
you
pal
and
right.
knockin'
"Here
c30
Would
you
be
ashamed
if
then
anybody
called
a bulldagger?
M:
started
rest
out.
'cause
I knew
that
was the
first
name that
See?
J:
Were
M:
And anytime
assured,
when
it--not
about
about
call
No,
you
ever
ashamed?
somebody
they
call
you,
you
about
called
that,
you
they
that--or
else
something,
know
something
they
wouldn't
you.
J:
Were
you
ever
M:
No, I never
ashamed
of being
was ashamed
and
a lesbian,
Mabel?
people
who was
We had
lovely
J:
ashamed.
The all
mingled
times.
We'll
stop
now.
30
never
in
with
got
each
around
other.
�l6 i
Mabel
Hampton
(End
Page
of
tape).
31
c31
�l•
•
I
ies, anc
che au·
the los
Wh
her be
in OUI
confro
lives,
suspec
wome
that i·
I Lift My Eyes to the Hill:
The Life of Mabel Hampton as Told
by a White Woman
hund1
Africa
withs·
In
break
black
each
book
for.
0
out 1
Joan Nestle
'
l
I hope that many of you had the privilege of meeting Mabel Hampton yourself. On Thursday nights, as many of you know, Ms. Hampton held
court at the Lesbian Herstory Archives, opening the mail and finding out
everyone's story. A devout collector of books on African American history and
lesbian culture, Ms. Hampton in 1976 had donated her lesbian paperback collection to the archives. Surrounded by these books and many others, she shared in
welcoming the visitors, some who had come just to meet her.
Another more public place you could always count on finding Ms. Hampton
in her later years was New York's Gay Pride March. From the early 1980s on,
Ms. Hampton could be seen strutting down Fifth Avenue, our avenue for the
day, marching under the Lesbian Herstory Archives banner, wearing her jauntily tilted black beret, her dark glasses, and a bright red T-shirt proclaiming her
membership in SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment). Later in the
decade, when she could no longer walk the whole way, Ms. Hampton would be
the center of a mob of younger lesbian women all fighting for the right to push
her wheelchair down the avenue. Mabel Hampton, domestic worker, hospital
matron, entertainer, had walked down many roads in her life-not always to
cheering fans. Her persistent journey to full selfhood in a racist and capitalistic
America is a story we have not yet learned to tell in our lesbian and gay history
•
•
work.
Over the past ten years, I have been dazzled at our heady discussions of
deconstructionism, our increasingly sophisticated academic conferences on gender representation, the publication of sweeping communal and historical stud-
T (")(4
(Cle,s
~(l
Vl
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V rt i ; ,I\
fre!;SJl]i';~
apar
for r
T
fina
rem
I
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bac1
rem
togt
live
I
bou
me.
Reg
kill
do
1
and
•
m1
H2
WC
rn·
sh
�I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: The Life of Mabel Hampton / 259
ies, and our brave biographies of revered figures in American history in which
the authors speak clearly about their subjects' sexual identity. But my grief at
the loss of Mabel Hampton turned my attention elsewhere.
When I was offered this honor, the Kessler Lecture, I knew I had to speak of
her because her life in this country was the story we are in danger of forgetting
in our rush of language and queer theory. I also knew that I would have to
confront a racist history in my own relationship to Ms. Hampton. Our two
lives, Ms. Hampton's and mine, first intersected at a sadly traditional and
suspect crossroads in the history of the relationships between black and white
women in this country. These relationships are set in the mentality of a country
that in the words of Professor Linda Meyers '' could continue for over three
hundred years to kidnap an estimated 50 million youths and young adults from
Africa, transport them across the Atlantic with about half dying unable to
withstand the inhumanity of the passage." (Bell, 11).
In some war111month of 1952, my small white Jewish mother took her
breakfasts in a Bayside, Queens, luncheonette. Sitting next to her was a small
black Christian woman. For several weeks they breakfasted together before they
each went off to work, my mother to the office where she worked as a
bookkeeper, Ms. Hampton to the homes she cleaned and the children she cared
for.
One morning, as Ms. Hampton told me the story, she followed my mother
out to her bus and as Regina sat down in her seat, she threw the keys to our
apartment out the bus window to Ms. Hampton, asking her to consider working
for her.
This working relationship did not last long, because of my mother's own
financial instability. I remember Ms. Hampton caring for me when I was ill. I
remember her tan raincoat with a lesbian paperback in its pocket, its jacket bent
back so no one could see the two women in the shadows on its cover. I
remember, when I was twelve years old, asking my mother as we did a laundry
together one weekend whose men's underwear we were washing, since no man
lived in our apa1t111ent."They are Mabel's,'' she said.
In future years, Regina, Mabel, and her wife, Lillian, became closer friends,
bound together by a struggle to survive and by my mother's lesbian daughterme. Ms. Hampton told me during one of our afternoons together that when
Regina suspected I was a lesbian she called her late that night and threatened to
kill herself if I turned out that way. "I told he~ she might as well go ahead and
do it because it wasn't her business what her daughter did and besides, I'm one
and it suits me fine."
Because Ms. Hampton and I later funned a relationship based on our commitment to a lesbian community, I had a chance much later in life, when Ms.
Hampton herself needed care, to reverse the image this society thrives on, black
women caring for white people. The incredulous responses we both received in
my Upper West Side apartment building, when I was Ms. Hampton's caretake~
showed how deeply the traditional racial script still resonates.
•
�260 I Joan
· estle
To honor her, to touch .her again, to be honest in the face of race, O rei,u
,c._
e
1 ess of physical death, t~ ~hare the story of her O\Yn narrati·, e ~
t_h e bl~nkn
liberation-for
all these reasons-it
1s she I must \vrite about.
Ms. Hampton pointed t'he way her story should be told. Her legaev·0
~ocuments so carefully assembled for Deborah Edel, who had met Ms. HamPton
in the early seventies and who had all of Ms. Hampton's trust ' tell 1·0 n,o
uncertain ter111sthat her life revolved around t\vo major themes-her
material
struggle to survive and her cultural struggle for beauty. ·sread and roses, , he
worker's old anthem-this
is what the nagging voice wanted me to remember
the texture of the individual life of a working woman.
After her death on October 26, 1989, \vhen Deborah and I were gatherin
her papers, we found a box carefully marked, "In case I pass away see that Joan
and Deb get this at once, Mabel." On top of th pile of birth certificates and
cemetery plot contracts was a piece of lined paper with the following typed
•
entnes:
I
thl
un
I
1915-1919: 8B Public School 32, Jersey City
1919-1923: Housework, Dr. Kraus, Jersey City
1923-1927: Housework, Mrs. Parker, Jersey City
1927-1931: Housework, Mrs. Karim, Brooklyn
1932-1933: Housework, Dr. Garland, New York City
1934-1940: Daily housework, different homes
1941-1944: Matron, Hammarlund Manufacturing Co., NYC
1945-1953: Housework, Mrs. Jean Nate
1948-1955: Attendant, New York Hospital
1954-1955: General, daily work
Lived 1935: 271. West 122nd Street, NYC
Lived 1939-1945: West 111th Street, NYC
Lived 1945-current (1955) 663 East 169th Street, Bronx, NYC
Compiled in the mid-fifties when Ms. Hampton was applying for a position
at Jacobi Hospital, the list demanded attention-a
list so bare and yet so
eloquent of a life of work and home.
Since 1973, the start of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, I knew Ms. Hampton's story must be told, but I was not a trained historian or soci,ologist. I
attended every session I could o·n doing lesbian history work, and tog,ether \"le
tried to for111ulateth,e right questions that we thought would elicit the kind of
history we wanted: What did you call yourself in the twenties 1 How di,d you
and your friends dress in ·the forties? What bars did you go to? In the late
seventies, when I started doing oral history tapes with Ms. Hampton, l soon
learned how limited our methods were. Here is a typical early exchange:
].: Do you remember anything about sports? Did you know women who
liked to play softball? Were ther e any teams?
M.: o, all the women, they di,dn't care 'too much about them-softballs,
1
Ol
ch
't
Ol
l
C
r
1
I
I
'
I
I
�I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: The Life of Mabel Hampton /
2 61
.
I
I •
''
they liked the soft women. Didn't care about any old softball. Cut it
out!
•
1 •
•
l
I
►
'
'I
J
•
'. t
t
I
I
'I
I soon realized that Ms. Hampton had her own narrative style tightly
connected to how she had made sense of her life, but it wasn't until I had gone
through every piece of paper she had bequeathed us that I had a deeper
understanding of what her lesbian life had meant.
Lesbian and gay scholars argue over whether we can call a woman a lesbian
who lived in a time when that word was not used. We have been very careful
about analyzing how our social sexual representation was created by medical
terminology and cultural terrors. But here was a different story. Ms. Hampton's
lesbian history is embedded in the history of race and class in this country; she
makes us extend our historical perspective until she is at its center. The focus
then is not lesbian history, but lesbians in history.
Preparing this essay gave me a new understanding of the saying Ms. Hampton loved to repeat. When she was asked, ''Ms. Hampton, when did you come
out?'' she always replied, "What do you mean? I was never in!'' The audience
always cheered this assertion of lesbian identity, but now I think Ms. Hampton
was speaking of something more inclusive.
Driven to fend for herself as an orphan, as a black working woman, as a
lesbian, Ms. Hampton always struggled to fully occupy her life, refusing to be
cut off from the communal, national, and world events around her. She was
never in, in any aspect of her life, if ''in'' means withholding the fullest
response possible from what life is demanding of you at the moment.
Ms. Hampton found and created communities along her way for comfort and
support, communities that engendered her fierce loyalty. Her street in the
Bronx, 169th Street, was her street, and she walked it as ''Miss Mabel," known
to all and knowing all, whether it was the woman representing her congressional district or the numbers runner down the block. How she occupied this
street, this moment in urban twentieth-century American history, is very
similar to how she occupied her life-self-contained
but always visible, carrying her own sense of how life should be lived but generous to those who
were struggling to make a decent life out of indecent conditions.
I cannot give you the whole of Ms. Hampton's journey, but I would like to
take you through Ms. Hampton's decades up to the 1950s by blending the
documents she left, such as letters, newspaper clippings, and programs, with
excerpts from her oral history and my interpretations and readings of other
sources.
These personal daily documents represent the heart of the Lesbian Herstory
Archives; they are the fragile records of a tough woman who never took her
eyes off the hilltop, never let racism destroy her love for her own culture, never
let the tyranny of class keep her from finding the beauty she needed to live,
never accepted her traditional woman's destiny, and never let hatred and fear of
lesbians keep her from her gay community.
l
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•
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�''
262
/
Joan Nest le
None of it was easy. In each decade, right from the beginning M
had to run for her life.
' s. Hampton
We need to start the story in April 1963, when Ms. Hampton was d
to document her own beginnings so she would be considered for e ~sperate
0
by the city:
mp YTnent
To the county clerk in the Hall of Records, Winston-Salem, North
.
caro1Ina•
•
Gentlemen: I would appreciate very much your helping me to secure my b· h
~ape~s~
or_an~ re~ordyou may have on file, as to_my bi_rt~and _Proofof age as ~his
1nfo1111anon
1s vital for the purpose of my secunng a evil serY1ceposition in N
York.Listed below are the infonnation I have to help you locate any records ~:
y
may have.
.
I was born approximately May 2, 1902 in Winston-Salem. My mother's na
was Lulu Hampton or Simmons. I attended TeachPr'sCollege which is its narne
now at the age of six. My grandmother's name was Simmons. I lived there wi~
her after the death of my mother when I was two months old. It is very important
to me as it means a livelihood for me to secure any info1111ation.
by Jae
tl
Llrtd
\esbia.J
""ho'
chat h
create
lent a
in cht
Ev
press:
'' in t
gainf
Qurh
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per10
the
t
whit•
were
On an affidavit of birth dated May 26, 1943, we find the additional inforrna..
tion: Ms. Hampton was of the Negro race, her father's full name was Joseph
Hampton (a fact she did not discover until she was almost twenty), and he had
been born in Reidsville, North Carolina. Her mother's birthplace was listed as
Lynchburg, Virgina.
This appeal for a record of her beginnings points us to where Ms. Hampton's
history began: not in the streets of Greenwich Village, where she sang for
pennies thrown from windows in 1910 when she ~as eight years old, or even
in Winston-Salem, where she lived on her grandmother's small far111from her
birth until 1909, but further into a past of a people, further into the shame of a
country.
Ms. Hampton's deepest history lies in the middle passage of the Triangular
Slave Trade and before that in the complex and full world of sixteenth-century
Africa. When Europe turned its ambitious face to the curving coastline of the
ancient continent and created an economic system based on the servitude of
Africans, Ms. Hampton's story began. The middle passage, the horrendous
crossing of the waters from Africa to this side of the world, literally and
figuratively became the time of generational loss. Millions died in those waters,
carrying their histories with them. This tragic "riddle in the waters," as the
Afro-Cuban poet Nicholas Guillen calls it, was continued on the land of the
Southern plantation system. Frederick Douglass writes, ''I have no accurate
knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it."
These words were written in 1845 and Ms. Hampton was born in 1902, but
now as I reflect on Ms. Hampton's dedication to preserving her own documents,
I read them as a moment in the history of an African American lesbian.
The two themes of work and communal survival that run so strongly
throughout Ms. Hampton's life are prefigured by the history of black working
women in the sharecropping system, a history told in great and moving detail
-
I'
C
t~
n
s
a
f
C
l
l
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�I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: The Life of Mabel Hampton / 263
by Jacqueline Jones in Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work,
and the Family from Slavery to the Present. Though Jones never mentions
lesbian women, Ms. Hampton and her wife of forty-five years, Lillian Foster,
who was born in Norfolk, Virginia, carried on in their lesbian lives traditions
that had their roots in the post-slavery support systems Southern black women
created at the turn of the century. The comradeship of these all-women benevolent and mutual aid societies was rediscovered by Ms. Hampton and Ms. Foster
in their New York chapters of the Eastern Star.
Even the work of both women, domestic service for Ms. Hampton and
pressing for Ms. Foster, had its roots in this earlier period. Jones tells us that
"in the largest southern cities from 50% to 70% of all black women were
gainfully employed at least part of the year around the turn of the century." In
Durham, North Carolina, closer to Ms. Hampton's birthplace, "during the
period of 1880-1910 fully one quarter of all black women 65 years and older in
the urban south were gainfully employed, a figure five times higher than for
white women'' (11.3). Very likely, both Ms. Hampton's grandmother and mother
were part of this work force.
•'
•
I
I
I'm Mabel Hampton. I was born on May 2, 1902, in Winston-Salem, North
Carolina, and I left there when I was eight years old. Grandma said I was so small
that [my] head was as big as a silver dollar. She said that she did all she could to
make me grow. One day she was making the bed and gettin' things together after
she fed the chickens. She never let me lay in the bed; I lay in the rocking chair,
and this day she put the clothes in the chair; when she carried 'em outside, she
forgot I was in 'em and shook the clothes out and shook me out in the garden out
on the ground. And Grandma was so upset that she hurt me.
My grandmother took care of me. My mother died two months after I was
born. She was poisoned, which left me with just my grandma, mother's younger
sister and myself. We had a house and lived on a street-we
had chickens, had
hogs, garden vegetables, grapes and things. We had a back yard, I can see it right
now, that back yard. It had red roses, white roses, roses that went upside the
house. We never had to go to the store for anything. On Saturdays we go out
hunting blackberries, strawberries and peaches. My girlfriends lived on each side
of the street, Anna Lou Thomas, Hattie Harris, Lucille Crump. Oh-OOh-O Anna
, Lou Thomas, she was good lookin', she was a good lookin' girl.
One day Grandma says, "Mabel I'm goin' to take you away." She left Sister
there and we went to Lynchburg, Virginia, because Grandma's mother had died. I
remember when I got there, the man picked me up off the floor and I looked
down on this woman who had drifts of gray hair. She was kind of a brownskinned woman and she was good lookin'. Beautiful gray hair she had. I looked at
her and then he put me down on a stool and I set there. They sang and prayed
and carried on. I went to sleep.
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However pleasant Ms. Hampton's memories were of North Carolina, she had
no intention of returning there later in her life.
Lillian tried her best to get me to go to Winston-Salem. I says, "No, I don't want
to." She says, "You wouldn't even go to my home?" I says, "No, because with 1:1~
nasty temper they'd lynch me in five minutes. Because they would see me walkin
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down the street holdin' ~ands with some woman, they want to put me in Jail
Now I can hold hands W1th some woman all over New York, all over the Bron~
and everywhere else and no one says nothing to me."
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When she was seven years old, in 1909, Ms. Hampton was forced to migrate
to New York. In her own telling, there is a momentous sense that she has lost
whatever safety she had in that garden of roses.
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One morning I was in the bedroom getting ready for school [a deep sigh]. I heard
Grandma go out in the yard and come back and then I heard a big bump on the
floor. So I ran to the door and I looked and Grandma was laying stretched out on
the floor. I hollered and hollered and they all came running and picked her up and
put her on the bed. She had had a stroke. Grandma lived one week after she had
that stroke. My mamma's younger aunt, I'll nevPr furget it, was combing my hair
and I looked over at Grandma layin' in bed. It was in the morning. The sun was
up and everything. She looked at me and I looked at her. And when my aunt got
finished combing my hair, Grandma had gone away.
They called my mother's sister in New York and she came so fast I think she
was there the next day. I remember the day we left Winston-Salem. It was in the
summertime. We went by train and I had a sandwich of liver between two pieces
of bread. And I knew and felt then that things was going to be different. After
eating that sandwich I cried all the way to New York. My aunt tried to pacify me
but it didn't do no good, seems as if my heart was broken.
Taken to a small apartment
at 52 West 8th Street, Ms. Hampton met her
uncle, a minister, who raped her within the year.
In telling her story, Ms. Hampton has given two reasons for her running
away at age eight from this home: one involves a fight with a white girl at
school and the other, a terrible beating by her uncle after she had misspelled a
word. Whatever the exact reason, it was clear that Ms. Hampton had already
decided she needed another air to breathe .
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My aunt went out one day and he raped me. I said to myself, "I've got to leave
here." He wouldn't let me sleep in the bed. They had a place where they put coal
at, and he put a blanket down and made me lay there. So this day, I got tired of
that. I went out with nothing on but a dress, a jumper dress, and I walked and
walked.
Here begins an amazing tale of an eight-year-old girl's odyssey to find a
place and a way to live. After walking the streets for hours, the young Ms.
Hampton came to "a thing in the ground, in the sidewalk, people was going
down there." A woman came by and thought she recognized the lost child.
"Aren't you Miss Brown's little girl?" Before Ms. Hampton could answer, the
woman placed a nickel in her hand and told her to go back home to Harlem. As
Ms. Hampton says, "that nickel was a turning point in my life." Instead of
going uptown, Ms. Hampton boarded a Jersey bound train and rode to the last
stop. She came above ground and walked until she found a playground. "I seen
all these children playin', white and black, all of them havin' a good time." She
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�I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: The Life of Mabel Hampton / 265
joined t~e child~en and played until it began to get dark. Two of the children
ook an interest 1n her, and she made up a story: "My aunt told me to stay here
t ntil she comes." The girl called to her brother, "You go get the cops, I'll try to
~nd her aunt." She brought a woman back with her, a Miss Bessie White, who
began to ask the child questions. Ms. Hampton: "I looked down the street and
from the distance I see the boy comin' with the cop, so I decided to go with the
woman. Bessie said, come, I'll take you home."
Ms.Hampton
remained with the White family until she was seventeen. One
rnemberof the family, Ellen, particularly stayed in her memory:
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I seen a young woman sitting left of where I come in at. l say to myself, this is a
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good-lookingwoman.I was alwaysadmiringsomewoman.Oh, and she was.She
had beautiful hair and she looked just like an angel. She got up out of the chair,
she was kind of tall, and she says, "You come with me." So she tuok me upstairs,
bathed me, and said, "We'll find you some clothes." She always talked very softly.
And she says, "You'll sleep with me.'' I was glad of that.
So I went and stayed with them. The other sister went on about lookin' for my
aunt. I knew she never find her. See I knew everything about me, but I kept quiet.
I kept quiet for twenty years.
Mabel Hampton, from the very beginning of her narrative, speaks with the
determination of a woman who must take care of herself. She will decide what
silences to keep and what stories to tell, creating for herself a power over life's
circumstances that her material resources seldom gave her.
For Mabel Hampton, the 1920s was a decade of both freedom and literal
imprisonment. In 1919, at seventeen, she was doing housework for a Dr. Kraus
of Jersey City. Her beloved Ellen, the first adult woman to hold Ms. Hampton
in her arms, had died in childbirth. With Ellen gone, Ms. Hampton's ties to the
White family loosened; she found work dancing in an all-women's company
that perfonned in Coney Island and had her first requited lesbian love affair.
She discovered the club life of New York. This is the decade that Ms. Hampton
paid a visit to the salon of XLelia Walker, the flapper daughter of Madame
Walker, and was amazed at the multiple sexual couplings she observed. She
perfonned in the Lafayette Theater and danced at the Garden of Joy, both in
Harlem. In this decade, she made the acquaintance of Ethel Waters, Gladys
Bentley, and Alberta Hunter. She was one of the 150,000 mourners who sang
"My Buddy" as the casket bearing Florence Mills, beloved singer, slowly moved
through the Harlem streets in 1927. This was Ms. Hampton's experience of the
period that lives as the Harlem Renaissance in history books.
But before all this exploration took place, Ms. Hampt~n was arrested for
prostitution by two white policemen and sentenced to three years in Bedford
Hills Reformatory for Women by a Judge Norris. As Ms. Hampton recounted
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While we're standing there talking, the door opens.Now I know I had shut it.
And two white men walk in-great big white men. "We're raiding the house,"
one of them says. "For what?" "Prostitution,"he says. I hadn't been with a man
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~o time. I couldn't figure it out. I didn't have time to get clothes or nothin Th (
Judge she sat ~p there and says, "Well, only thing I can say is BedforJ.;, Ne
lawyer, no nothing. She railroaded me.
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When Ms. Hampton talked about her prison experience, she dwelled on the
kindnesses she found there:
It was summertime and we went back out there and sat down. She (anothe
prisoner] says, "I like you." "I like you too." She said no more until time to go t~
bed. We went to bed and she took me in her bed and held me in her arms and I
went to sleep. She put her arms around me like Ellen used to do, you know and I
went to sleep.
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But where Ms. Hampton found friendship, the board of managers of the
prison found scandal and disgrace. Opened 1n 1902 in a progressive era of prison
reforrtl, Bedford Hills under its first woman administrator, Katherine Davis,
accepted the special friendships of its women inmates. But in 1920, word that
interracial lesbian sex was occurring throughout the prison caused Davis to lose
her job. The new administrators of the prison demanded segregated facilities,
the only way, according to one of the men, interracial sex could be prevented.
I want to pause here to comment on both the generosity of Mabel Hampton
in sharing her prison experience with me and the impact her words had while I
read about this prison in Estelle Freedman's book Their Sister's Keepers.
By the time I was doing the oral history with Ms. Hampton she had left this
experience far behind. She told me that she seldom told anyone about it; she
would just say she had gone away. But toward the end of her life, Ms. Hampton
wanted the whole story to be told. She realized that her desire to be open about
her life was not popular with her peers. ''So many of my friends got religion
now,'' she would say. ''You can't get anything out of them." But because of Ms.
Hampton's courage to document the difficult parts of her life, my reading of
background history was transforxned.
When I read the following sentence in Freedman's book, ''By 1919, we are
told, about 75% of the prisoners were prostitutes, 70% had venereal disease, a
majority were of low mental ability and ten percent were psychopaths," I was
forced to see the women encoded in this list. Mabel Hampton was among these
counted women. We have a special insight, a special charge, in doing gay and
lesbian history work. We, of all peoples, have had our humanity hidden in such
lists of undesirables all our public days. I started this work on Mabel Hampton
because her life brought to the study of history the dignity of the human face
behind the sweeping summaries.
·
After thirteen months, Ms. Hampton was released from prison with the
condition that she stay away from New York City and its bad influences. But
Ms. Hampton could not contain herself. She spoke of a white woman with a
gray car whom she had met in Bedford coming to Jersey City to take her to
parties in New York. When a neighbor infonned on her, she was forced to
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return and complete her sentence at Bedford. Ms. Hampton later described
e of the life that the state had declared criminal.
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In 1923, I am about twenty years old. I had rooms at 120 West 122nd Street. A
girl friend of mine was living next door, and they got me three rooms there on
the ground floor-a bedroom, living room, and big kitchen. I stayed there until I
met Lillian in 1932. I went away with the people I worked for but I always kept
my rooms to come back to. Then I went into the show.
Next door these girls were all lesbians; they had four rooms in the basement
and they gave parties all the time. Sometimes we would have "pay parties." We'd
buy all the food-chicken
and potato salads. I'd chip in with them because I
would bring my girlfriends. We also went to "rent parties," where you go in and
pay a couple of dollars. You buy your drinks and meet other women and dance
and have fun. But with our house we just had close friends. Sometimes there
would be twelve or fourteen women there. We'd have pig feet, cl1ittlins. In the
winter time, it was black-eyed peas and all that stuff. Most of the women wore
suits. Very seldom did any of them have slacks or anything like that because they
had to come through the streets. Of course, if they were in a car, they wore the
slacks. Most of them had short hair. And most of them was good-lookin' women
too. The bulldykers would come and bring their women with them. And you
wasn't supposed to jive with them, you know. They danced up a breeze. They did
the Charleston; they did a little bit of everything. They were all colored women.
Sometimes we ran into someone who had a white woman with them. But me, I'd
venture out with any of them. I just had a ball. I had a couple of white girl friends
down in the village. We got along fine. At that time I was acting in the Cherry
Lane Theater. I didn't have to go to the bars because I would go to women's
houses. Like Jackie (Moms) Mahley would have a big party and all the girls from
the show would go. She had all the women there.
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In addition to private parties, Ms. Hampton and her friends were up on the
latest public lesbian events. Sometime in February 1927, Ms. Hampton attended
the new play that was scandalizing Broadway, The Captive. Whatever her
material struggle was in any given decade, Ms. Hampton sought out the cultural
images she needed. Here, is how she remembered that night at the theater:
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Well, I heard about it, and a girlfriend of mine had taken me to see this play, The
Captive. And I fell in love-not only with The Captive, but the lady who was the
head actress in it. Her name was Helen Mencken. So I decided I would go backI had heard so much talk about it. I went back to see it by myself. I sat on the
edge of my seat! I looked at the first part of it, and I will always think that woman
was a lesbian. She played it too perfect! She had the thing down! She kissed too
perfect, she had everything down pat! So that's why I kept going back to see it
because it looked like to me it was part of my life. I was a young woman, but I
said, now this is what I would like to be, but of course, I would have to marry and
I didn't want to marry [the play focuses on the seduction of a married woman by
the offstage lesbian], so I would just go on and do whatever I thought was right
to do. So I talked to a couple of my friends in Jersey City. I carried them bad~
paid their way to see it, and they fell in love with it. There was plenty of wome_n
in that audience and plenty of men too! They applauded and applauded. This
same girl with the green car, she knew her-Helen
Mencken-and she carried
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Joan Nestle
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me backstage and introduced me. Boy, I felt so proud! And she sa ,,
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you like the show?" I said, "Because it seems a part of my life and
1Why do
what I hope to be." She says, "That's nice. Stick to it! You'll be all righ:\ arn and
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The twenties ended with Mabel Hampton living fully "in the life"
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piece together another kind of living both from her day work and ;tying to
chorus line jobs. Later, when asked why she left show business sh rom her
"Because I like to eat."
' e replied,
The Depression that befell the country in 1929 did not play a large l .
M s. H ampton ,s memories,
. per haps because she was already earning ro ehtn
5
marginal income. We know that from 1925 until 1937 1 she did day work fuc
or t ha
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family of Charles Haubrick. Ms. Hampton carefully saved all the letters fr
her employees testifying to her character:
orn
"Dec. 12, 1937. To Whom It May Concern: This is to certify that the bearer
Mabel Hampton has worked for me for the last 12 years doing housework off
and on and she does the same as yet. We have always found her honest and
industrious."
Reading these letters, embedded as they were in all the other documents of
Ms. Hampton's life, is always sobering. So much of her preserved papers testify
to an autonomous home and social life, but these letters sprinkled through each
decade remind us that Ms. Hampton's life was under surveillance by the white
families that controlled her economic survival.
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In 1935 Ms. Hampton was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church at St.
Thomas the Apostle on West 118th Street, another step in her quest for
spiritual comfort. This journey included a lifelong devotion to the mysteries of
the Rosicrucians and a full collection of Marie Corelli, a Victorian novelist with
a moralistic bent. She ended the decade registering with the U.S. Depa1t111entof
Labor trying to find a job. She is told, "We will get in touch with you as soon
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as there is a suitable opening."
The event that changed Ms. Hampton's life forever happened early on in the
decade, in 1932. While waiting for a bus, she met a woman even smaller than
herself-''dressed
like a duchess," as Ms. Hampton would later say-Lillian
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Ms. Foster remembered in 1976, two years before her death, that "Fortyfour years ago I met Mabel. We was a wonderful pair. I'll never regret it. But
she's a little tough. I met her in 1932, September 22. And we haven't been
separated since in our whole life. Death will separate us. Other than that I don't
want it to end."
Ms. Hampton, to the consternation of her _more discreet friends, dressed in
an obvious way much of her life. Her appearance, however, did not seem to
bother her wife. Ms. Foster went on to say, "A lady walked in once, Joe's wife,
and she .say, 'You is a pretty neat girl. You have a beautiful little home, but
where is your husband?' And just at that time, Mabel comes in the door with
her key and I said, 'There is my husband.' " The visitor added, "Now you know
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�I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: The Life of Mabel Hampton
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if chat was your husband, you wouldn't have said itl" to which Ms. Foster
firmlyreplied, "But I said it!''
Lillian Foster, born in 1906 in Norfolk, Virginia, shared much of the same
southern background of Ms. Hampton, except that she came from a large
farnily. She was keenly aware that Ms. Hampton was "all alone," as she often
put it. Ms. Foster worked her whole life as a presser in white-owned dry
cleaning establishments, a job, like domestic service, that had its roots in the
neo-slavery working conditions of the urban South at the turn of the century.
These many years of labor in underventilated back rooms accelerated Ms.
Foster's rapid decline in her later years. But together with a group of friends,
these two women created a household lasting forty-six years.
This household with friends took many shapes. When crisis struck and a fire
destroyed their apart1nent in 1976 (part of the real estate "''ars that were gutting
and leveling the Bronx), Ms. Foster and Ms. Hampton came to live with me and
Deborah Edel until they could move back to their apartment house. Later Ms.
Hampton described our shared time as an adventure in lesbian families:
Down here it was just like two couples, Joan and Deborah and Mabel and Lillian;
we got along lovely, and we played, we sang, we ate, it was marvelous[ I will
never forget it. And Lillian, of course, Lillian was my wife. I had Joan laughing
because I called Lillian "Little Bear," but when I first met her in 1932, she was to
me, she was a duchess-the
grand duchess. Later in life I got angry with her one
day and I called her the "little bear," and she called me "the big bear," and of
course that hung on to me all through life. And now we are known to all our
friends as the "big bear" and the "little bear."
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Ms. Hampton saved hundreds of cards signed "little bear," but when she
appealed to government officials or agencies for help, as she often did as their
housing conditions deteriorated, she said Ms. Foster was her sister.
In a letter to Mayor Lindsay in 1969, she wrote,
Dear Mr Mayor,
I don't know if I am on the right road or not, but I am taking a chance;
now what I want to know is can you tell me how I can get an apart11tent, I
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have been everywhere and no success. I am living at the above address
[639 E. 169th St., Bronx] for 26 years but for about the past 10 years the
building has gone down terribly. For two years we have no heat all winter,
also no hot water. We called the housing authority but it seems it don't
help; everywhere I go the rent is so high that poor people can't pay it and
I would like to find a place before the winter comes in-with rent that I can
afford to pay. It is two of us (women) past 65. I still work but my older
sister is on retirement so we do need two bedrooms. If you can do
something to help us it will be greatly appreciated. Thanking you in
advance,
I remain, Miss Mabel Hampton.
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or me one of the most important documents w e have ·
Lesb1an Herstory Archives. Ms. Hampton's request for a safe and warmin the
for her and Ms. Foster now marks the starting point of all m h·15t0home
inquiry-how did you survive?
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In a document of a different sort, the program for a social event 5
by Jacobi Hospital, where she was employed for the last twenty yea~onstred
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working life, we discover that a Ms. Mabel Hampton and Ms. Lillian ;
her
are sitting at table 2 5. These two women negotiated the public worldam_p~on
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1nt1macy.
There is a seamless quality to Ms. Hampton's life that does not fit our us l
paradigm for doing lesbian history work. Her life does not seem to be organi:~
around w~at we have come to see as th~ usual rites o~ ~ay passage, like coming
out or going to the bars. Instead she gives us the vision of an integrated lif
where the major shaping events are the daily acts of work, friends, and soci~
organizations, where the major definers of these territories are class and rac~
an d where she expects all aspects of her life to be respected.
Another indication of how Ms. Hampton expected that her life would be
taken as it was is that in every letter preserved by Ms. Hampton there is a
greeting or a blessing for Ms. Foster in its closing, whether the correspondent
is a friend or for111eremployer. "I do hope to be able to visit you and Lillian
some evening for a real chat and a supper by a superb cook! Do take care of
yourself and my best to Lillian," Dolores, :1944."God bless and keep you and
Lillian well always, I wish I could see you both some times," Jennie, 1977.
The 1940s were turbulent years, marked by the international war abroad and
the national unrest at home. While black American soldiers were fighting the
arniies of racial supremacists in Europe, their families were fighting the racist
dictates of a Jim Crow society at home. Harlem, Detroit, and other American
cities would see streets become battlefields.
For African American working women like Ms. Hampton, the forties was the
decade of the slave markets, the daily gathering of black women on the street
corners of Brooklyn and the Bronx to sell their domestic services to white
women who drove by looking for cheap labor. In 1940 Ms. Hampton was part
of this labor force, as she had been for over twenty years, working year after
year without workmen's compensation, health benefits, or pension payments.
In September :1940she received a postcard canceling her employment with
one family: "Dear Mabel, please do not come on Thursday. I will see you again
on Friday at Mrs. Garfinkels. I have engaged a part time worker as I need more
frequent help as you know. Come over to s~e us."
Ms. Hampton did not let her working difficulties dampen her enthusiasm for
her cultural heroes, however, and on October 6, 1940, she and Ms. Foster were
in the audience at Carnegie Hall when Paul Robeson commanded the stage. The
announcement for this concert is the first document we have reflecting Ms.
Hampton's lifelong love of the opera and her dedication to African American
cultural figures and institutions.
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In 41, perhaps in recognition of her perilous situation as a day worker, Ms.
19
f-{arnpton secured the job of matron with the Hammarlund Manufacturing
cornpanY on West 34th Street, assuring her entrance into the new social
security system begun just six years earlier by Franklin Roosevelt.
she still took irregular night and day domestic employment so she and Ms.
foster could, among other things, on May 28, 1946, purchase from the American Mending Machine Company one Singer Electric Sewing Machine with
console table for the price of $100.00. She leaves a $44.00 deposit and carefully
preserves all records of the transaction.
On February 20, 1942, we have the first evidence of Ms. Hampton's involvement in the country's war efforts: a ditto sheet of instructions from the American Women's Voluntary Services addressed to all air raid wardens. It reads,
During the Ge1111anattack on the countries of Europe, the telephone was often
used for sabotage thereby causing panic and loss of life by erroneous orders. We
in New Yorkare particularly vulnerable in this respect since our great apart111ent
houses have often hundreds even thousands under one roof. ... The apartr11ent
house telephone warden must keep lines clear in time of emergency. Type of
person required: this sort of work should be particularly suited for women whose
common sense and reliability could be depended upon.
In August Ms. Hampton worked hard for the Harlem branch of the New
York Defense Recreation Committee, trying to collect cigarettes and other
refreshments for the soldiers and sailors who frequented Harlem's USO. In
December 1942 she was appointed deputy sector commander in the air warden
service by Mayor La Guardia. This same year she also received her American
Theater Wing War Service membership card. Throughout 1943 she served as
her community's air raid warden and attended monthly meetings of the Twelfth
Division of the American Women's Voluntary Services Organizations on West
116th Street. During all this time, her country maintained a segregated anny
abroad and a segregated society at home.
In January and February 1944, she received her fourth and fifth war loan
citation. This support for causes she believed in, no matter how small her
income, continued throughout Ms. Hampton's life. In addition to her religious
causes, she sent monthly donations to SCLC and the Martin Luther King
Memorial Fund, and by the end of the seventies she was adding gay organizations to her list.
On March 29, 1944, Ms. Hampton attended the National Negro Opera
Company's perfonnance of La Traviata. This group believed in opera for the
masses and included in its program a congratulatory message from the Upper
West Side Communist Party. On its board sat Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary
McCloud Bethune, both part of another moment in lesbian history. In 1952 this
same company presented Ouanga, an opera based on the life of the first king of
Haiti, Dessaline, who, the program says, "successfully conquered Napoleon's
annies in 1802 and won the Black Republic's fight for freedom." Ms. Hampton
was in the audience .
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Continuing her dedication to finding the roses amidst the bread, on Novem.
ber 12, 1944, Ms. Hampt?n heard Marian And~rson sing at Carnegie Hall and
added the program of this event to her collection of newspaper articles abo
the career of this valiant woman.
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Ms. Hampton's never-ending
from home, and Ms. Foster was
their Bronx apartment on 169th
the war's end, and which would
death in 1978.
pursuit of work often caused long absences
often left waiting for her partner to return to
Street, into which they had moved in 19 , at
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remain their shared home until Ms. Foster's
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Dear Mabel:
Received your letter and was very glad to hear from you and to know
that you are well and happy. This leaves me feeling better than I have
since you left. Everything is ok at home. Only I miss you so much I will
be glad when the time is up. There is nobody like you to me. I am writing
this on my lunch hour. It is 11 pm. I am quitting tomorrow. I don't see
anyone as I haven't been feeling too well. Well the 1/2 hour is up. Nite nite
be good and will see you soon.
Little Bear
In 1948 Ms. Hampton fell ill and was unable to work. She applied for home
relief and was awarded a grant of $54.95 a month, which the agency stipulated
should be spent the following way: $27.00 for food; $21.00 for rent; $ .55 for
cooking fuel; $ .80 for electricity; $ 6.oo for clothing; and for personal incidentals she is allotted $1.00. But from these meager funds she managed to give
com£ort to friends.
Postcard, August 9, 1948:
Dear Miss Lillian and Mabel:
The flowers you sent were beautiful and I liked them very much. I
wear the heart you sent all the time. It was very nice to hear from you
both. I am feeling fine now. I hope you are both in the best of health.
Love Doris
In 1949 Ms. Hampton wrote to the home relief agency, telling the case
worker to stop all payments because she had the promise of a job.
The decade that began in war between nations and peoples ended in Ms.
Hampton's version of history with a carefully preserved article about the
international figure Josephine Baker. Cut out of the March 12, 1949, issue of
the Pittsburgh Courier are the following words:
•
.
Well friends, fellow Negroes and countrymen, you can stop all that guesswork
and sur11using about Josephine Baker. This writer knew Edith Spencer, Lottie Gee,
Florence Mills, knew them well. He has also known most of the other colored
women artists of the last thirty years. His word to you is that this Josephine
Baker eminently belongs. She is not a common music hall entertainer. She has
been over here for a long time, maybe 2 5 years. The little old colored gal from
!
•
•
•
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�I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: The Life of Mabel Hampton / 273
back home is a French lady now. That means something. It means for a colored
person that you have been accepted into a new and glamorous and free world
where color does not count. It means that in the joy of the new living you just
might forget that "old oaken bucket'' so full of bitter quaffs for you. It means that
once you found solid footing in the new land of freedom, you might tax your
mind to blot out all the sorry past, all the old associations, to become alien in
spirit as well as in fact. It pleases me folks to be able to report to you that none of
this has possessed Josephine. I tested her and she rang true. What she does is for
you and me. She said so out of her own mouth. Her eyes glistened as she
expostulated and described in vivid, charged phrases the aim and purpose of her
work. She was proud when I told her of Lena [Horne] and of Hilda [Simms]. "You
girls are blazing trails for the race," I commentated. "Indeed so," she quickly
retorted. After she had talked at length of what it means to be a Negro and of her
hope that whatever she did might reflect credit on Negroes, particularly the
Negroes of her land of birth, I chanced a leading question. "So you' re a race
woman," I queried. I was not sure she would understand. But ~ht:!did. "Of course
I am," she replied. Yes, all the world's a stage and Josephine comes out upon it for
you and for me.
In my own work, I have tried to focus on the complex interaction between
oppression and resistance, aware of the dangers of romanticizing losses while at
the same time aggrandizing little victories, but I am still awed by how a single
human spirit refuses the messages of self-hatred and out of bits and pieces
weaves a gar1nent grand enough for the soul's and body's passion. Ms. Hampton
prized her memories of Josephine Baker, Marian Anderson, and Paul Robeson,
creating for herself a nurturing family of defiant African American women and
men. Her lesbian self was part of what was fed by their soaring voices. When
the New York Times closed its obituary on Ms. Hampton with its words, "there
are no known survivors," it showed its ignorance of how ari oppressed people
makes legacies out of memory.
We are now entering the so-called confonning fifties, when white middleclass heterosexual women, we have been told, were running in droves to be
married and keep the perfect home. Reflecting another vision, Ms. Hampton
added newspaper clippings on the pioneer sex-change personality Christine
Jorgensen. From 1948 until her retirement in 1972, Ms. Hampton worked in
the housekeeping division of Jacobi Hospital, where she earned for herself the
nickname "Captain" from some of the women she worked with and who kept
in touch with Ms. Hampton until their deaths many years later. Here she met
Jorgensen and paid her nightly visits in her hospital room. From Ms. Hampton's
documents: a Daily News article of December 1, 1952, "Ex-GI Becomes Blond
Beauty," contains a letter written by Jorgensen explaining to her parents why
there is so much consternation about her case, concluding, "it is more a problem
of social taboos and the desire not to speak of the subject because it deals with
the great hush hush, namely sex."
Ms. Hampton began the decade earning $1,006.00 for a year's work and
ended it earning $1,232.00. Because of lack of money, Ms. Hampton was never
able to travel to all t e places in the world that fascinated her; but in this decade
fI
•I
'
i
f
�274 / Joan Nestle
she added hundreds of pages of s~amps to her overflowing albuIJls, little squares
of color from Morocco and Zanzibar, from the Philippines and Mexico.
/
Throughout her remaining years, Ms. Hampton continued with her eyes
the hilltop and her feet on a very earthly pavement. She always had very lit~[~
money and always was generous. In the 1970s Ms. Hampton discovered senio
citizen centers and "had a ball," as she liked to say, on their subsidized trips t~
Atlantic City. She lost her partner of forty-five years, Lillian Foster, in 1978.
':fte~ almost drifti~g aw~y in mourning, she f~und new energy and a loving
family 1n New Yorks lesbian and gay community. She had friendly visitors
from SAGE and devoted friends like Ann Allen Shockley, who never failed to
visit when she was in town. She marched in Washington in the first national
lesbian and gay civil rights march. She appeared in films like Silent Pioneers
and Before Stonewall. In the early eighties she gave her power of attorney to
Deborah Edel, whom she trusted completely and with whom she had shared so
much. In 1987 she accompanied Deborah and her lover Teddi to California so
she could be honored at the West Coast Old Lesbians Conference.
She eventually had to give up her fourth-floor walk-up Bronx apartment
and move in with Lee Hudson and myself, who along with many others cared
for her as she lost physical strength. On October 26, 1989, after a second stroke,
Ms. Hampton finally let go of a life she loved so dearly.
I would like to end this essay where it began, with the memories many of
you have of this indomitable woman who gave this country her working life
and her support in time of national emergencies but who received so little social
protection.
Ms. Hampton never relented in her struggle to live a fully integrated life, a
life marked by the integrity of her self author~hip-"If
I give you my word,"
she always said, ''I'll be there''-and
she was.
On her death, her sisters in Electa Chapter 10 of the Eastern Star Organization honored her with the following words: ''We wish to express our gratitude
for having known Sister Hampton all these years. She became a member many
years ago and went from the bottom to the top of the ladder. She has served us
in many capacities. We loved her dearly. May she rest in peace with the angels."
Class and race are not synonymous with problems, with deprivation. They
can be sources of great joy and communal strength. Race and class, however, in
this society are manipulated markers of privilege and power. Ms. Hampton had
a vision of what life should be; it was a grand, simple vision, filled with good
friends and good food, a wann home, and her lover by her side. She gave all
she could to doing the best she could. The sorrow comes because she and so
many others have to work so hard for such basic human territory.
"I wish you knew what it's like to be me" is the challenge posed by a society
divided by race and class. We have so much to learn about the victories, the
sweetnesses, as well as the losses. By expanding our models for what makes a
life lesbian or what is lesbian about history, we will become clearer about
contemporary political and social coalitions that must be forged to ensure all
•
3~
{
(
.
•
�I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: The Life of Mabel Hampton / 2~5
our liberations. We are just beginning to understand how these identities or
constructs shape lesbian and gay lives. We will have to change our questions
and our language of inquiry to take our knowledge deeper. Class and race,
always said together as if they mean the same thing, may each call forth their
own story. The insights we gain will anchor our other discussions in the
realities of individual lives, reminding us that bread and roses, material survival
and cultural identity, are the starting points of so many of our histories.
In that spirit, I will always remember our Friday night dinners at the
archives, with a life-size cut-out photograph of Gertrude Stein propped up at
one end of the table; Ms. Hampton sitting across from my partner, Lee Hudson;
Denve~ the family dog, right at Ms. Hampton's elbow; and myself, looking past
the candlelight to my two dear friends, Lee and Mabel, all of us carrying
different histories, joined by our love and need of each other.
Ms. Hampton addressed the 1984 New York City Gay Pride Rally as follows:
"I, Mabel Hampton, have been a lesbian all my life, for eighty-two years, and I
am proud of myself and my people. I would like all my people to be free in this
countrj and all over the world, my gay people and my black people."
Note
This speech was delivered as CLAGS's first annual David R. Kessler Lecture in Lesbian
and Gay Studies on November 20, 1992. It was transcribed by Sarah Atatimur, the& r p I)
transcription made possible from a grant from the &1tr11e11fet1Rdafi9a, 61e'<'- l\A'11Lo--Ot'-''"
Works Cited
Bell, Derrick. Facesat the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. New York:
Basic Books, 1992.
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of FrederickDouglass-An American Slave,
Written by Himself. 1845. Reprint, Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1960.
Freedman, Estelle B. Their Sisters' Keepers:Women's Prison Refor111
in America, 18301930. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981.
Jones, Jacqueline. Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family
from Slavery to the Present. New York: Basic Books, 1985 .
•
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ad
Mabel
1
'O
and L1111an;
ate~
san,
here
1t
was
an
are
,
CO
lo
0
,
8
In
ous.
•
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Bu
wh~n
had Jon
I first
met
I call
1
h
9)2
1n
•
, sh
s11
h t
th
h
0
o
•
•
•
B
h
B
Bar,
and
of
And now qe•re
B
t,
co
kno n
o
1
0
n
h
o
--
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_-1\ never
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considered
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L
'
little:·-Jittle
when I was
~p~ble
r1ed
then
every
'
the
men would
So,
t.,
try
therefore,
,o1ng something
to
they
I
•
didn't
I
'
and my uncle
I went
people
•
to work
.
o'n my but tons
a.nd ·I didn't
1 ike
•
'
nothine;
like.
'
.
'
meant
'
'
'
even
I
me
touch
' I had so much '
gbi,ng "to· scho61
'
'
'
'
,
~irl
house,
•
me and
marrying.
'
IC'
rape
to
•
to 'me·· 1)eca.11se·· they
And if
ybu do something
I
I
i:1ere always
I don't
I
like
,
I
,
'
'
Good·riddens
•
I don't
bother
with you.,
'
Joan:
You _knew--this··
I\
I
Mabel:
any sense
age
t'
that
you would
never
f'
I
•
thRt
I
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t)."-••<''
early
From a very
yo~.
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very·· ear.ly · age
I
•
see
a
from
marry.
I
'to
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'
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'
I .would
' '
never
. .
11
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Joan :--And--tha
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'f>1a}?e·l: That
And right
up until
t, ...meant
meant
I
;i:
I pass
•
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,
. '
still
'
working.
Lt,1 11 an--
)W
that
~ght.
nd lots
I
And
I believe
d
1
of peop e on
0
1932' to 197.8
~
bit
went
teeth
fa
sou,
•m tha , I am, just
\i:
about
to
jump ine
she
,t
sees it
correct.
becguse
myself
anything)
she sees
I be li eve
I
'
and
'
I
and
on •
11
,
•
f
of my .~omen.
r
We quRrreled
a little
part.
t but we just
haPPY now
when she used
10 1
'
I
I
know she's
.'
•
had,' to 'alwa:y,8: \'{,ork,',il?-4:
.~'1:e; ,alw..~r~ '.w9,r,~f,?,;••'• ,,
away I'm
And I took care
We didn't
were together.
.ybe that's
all:
tongue and
that
--•.
I
•
i'label:
I
I didn't
.',I. .
l,,,
marry.
something ' that I didn't
like.
'
'
you had,
to
··work·
to·--tal<e"··care
·
of·
your-self
.
'
in marrying
.....•
she
sees,
that
I'm
eincarnation
in r
'
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'Of~like
Joan
- Mabel
to•, wear
you
•
•
me 11's clothes
•
tailored,
skirt
I like
to wear
and blouse
a-nd'"-•th·l-tY·gs=•%u~ou'
•
•
•
I I
I
I
' I
'
,J
I
'
I
dress
caP,
and the
Because
I never
I don•t
take
liked
UP•
~he women and what
!,at:
but
like
the
men that
And I always
they
I never
stood
', .. I 'I
'
' 'I I
,~
'"
I II
kind
~
I ·,
I\''
that.
the
•
pant'
'
'
myself
I
'
be,t'ng a 'man.·
.,
I
considered
much.
• ,, •. ,.
of .'
But I•~ike
I
and the
'
I
pants.
and things
' I '
~
• ,,.
I always
'
- Yes ■
'
I
•
Mabel
.
·I
l
,.
I
And anything
took up hetag
I·don•t
like
a woman because
for.
I •
I liked
•
'
•
•
'
'
.
'
Mabel:
I had quite
a lot
as
part
comes
of my. f r 1 ensd
of the
that
way they
were
dressed
known as studs
and the stud
You see, because_th~Y
dr,e,ssed ni~ely
an~ short hair and
I think.
.'
bother
my a r, I didn't
But I didn't
care I ke}Jt
hi
things
like tl1at.
~pans
and shoes.
I
just liked
the suits,
and th
t
t11 i th
the hair.
to be
I
_just
wanted
anyt~i11g.
'
I didn't
want to be tied down
to. '
'
'
myself.
'
I
'
�.
•
'
•
•
•
OBITUARIES
THE "NEW YORK TIMBS
.TUESDAY,
OCTOBER
31, 1989"
•
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Rights Advocate, 8 7
I
•
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Mabel Hampton, an advocate in the
gay rights movement, died of pneumonia Thursday at St. Luke's-Roosevelt
Hospital Center. She was 87 years old
and lived in Manhattan.
•
Ms. Hampton, a native of -Winston
l Salem, N.C., ·had been a dancer in
. earlier years. In 1974, \Vith three other
j women, she founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Manhattan, a collec- · ·
tio11 of lesbian books and art if acts including her personal library.
.. She was an annual participant
in the
city's Gay and Lesbian Pride March
and was its grand 1na1..shal in 1985.
There are no immediate • survivors.
......
�..
abel
g us.
abel
not
see
dead.
her
who meant
This
et,
is
You can
neighbors
ts.
•
Hampton
was
and
the
her
MAbel
long
and
good
ton is
part
of
to
her,
that
walks
made
their
many
talks
j ,'l ~ Bro'I'"greeting
all
a
whom are
the
street
so many years
Foster.
life,
of
in
home for
Lillian
and
strees,
taking
was
partner
friends,
and
down 169th
so much
Lillian
work
breathes
striding
commmunity
life
and
She
Here
on 169th
life
filled
with
here
today.
Mabel
•
never
F)\
survival
energy
of
this
communitv. .,
She
leave.
~bel loved
~~
the
l>\
life
so
much
that
her
passions
will
life
,.•...:_
c-om-r...ad.e s - h e r 1 o v e o f c a r r i d e s a n d b a c o n
ng,
be our
her
enthusiastic
support
of
and
the long night
bu~ rides
e.~ t ~ r (\-t ,,r-tt \ 11·c \,
~ u\N-'--~~ ___ _
in
meeting
new
friends
and
1 .;~
to
her
dear
Atlantic
an d e g g s
Mets,
her
love of
n e✓ ,l p J , ,,()··~ ; ='>• ••
A the joy she
City,
____
•._,.'
her
devotion
to
old
.
ht and
concern
lamations
of
for
her
her
dear
right
•
in
l1ope
ones,
her
h~~
lo have heard
Ms.
I
:fe was generous
\them of
i n the
to
Libby
love
whomever
HAmpton's
famous
and
and
brave
difficult
and
er
Denver,
she
whoppee
choose
know
encompassing
proud
~1
to.
All
that
her
of
yes
enough
to
become
alone;
she
knows
of
poems
times.
I
~bel
too
•
Hampton
lS
rds,
her
love
ngs,
her
charm
which
echo
in
will
t,
gave
1
ity
you
is
we will
of
stubborn
my word,
too
rare,
not
folk
sayings,
memories.
I will
too
be able
her
turn
could
our
leave
to
remembered
to
a loolc
Mabel
s t i c l< b y
precious
to
to
Mabel
leave
us
bits
that
Hampton
i t , ''
and
could
always
she
lay
said,
did.
This
not
those
be forgotten.
alone
either,
·~
6
h<"; , ~ r.
"
�•
•
l
•
•
rom
..lf·
tl
L
r
ti
11
11 r
r
ll
•
p
d
r
.
p
h
qu
d m ,
11 m
h r
c
h_r
n
h us
Lh
1
nd
r
n
1
,
\
ould
h
· f MAbe 1
would
,~as
t
w
hr
to
do
not
stop
h d no h'ng
mon hs
p
ll
\ 11 n
no h'ng
wh n
r
•
n r o s · t y;
y u,
v
h ,
•
not
hou
r d
nd
p
d d
u n
•
i
n
m r c
m hr
f-
f
•
P~,
her
hat
gre
she
test
laundry
so
much work
so
h v
for
•
·er
Frid
to
'
r n
d'f
g ver _
I \ ould
times
and
and
yes
; her
nt
person
'.Ssed
check
in
wise.
never
Mabel
little
the
gifts
showered
on is
not
pirit
soars
from
to
the
the
lcnew who she
from
dead;
above
two
known.
saw
flinched
help
to
w re
ever
others
of
from
ands
and
•
caring
floating
She
was
also
of
was,
she
her
grace
of
had
had
as
trulv
spirit,
a fullness
amazing
.,
self
of
life
into
herself
of
family.
a
allowed
most
created
she
child
a little
selected
to
was
challenge
change
she
brave
the
the
to
During
whom she
elegant
In
worlds,
enthusiastic
boys
struggle
on
1abel
young
heart
yet,
that
sit
it.
or·es.
ho\v
be as
was
nt
Ab-1,
said
abel
She
11ampton
brad
have
ab'l"ty
y differ
rom v
rd
of
leganc
h
,~ond,er
rs,
I have
and
sl
Som
fiends
10
•
her
he
sh
, · h
c
loved
,1om n
s,
1.
had
last
at
, ook
gr
how
•
urn·
j
n r,
·1 be
hr
n d room,
d r
lmso
d
dinn
n 1
C
pr
m•
I would
nd
b 1
being
~1Abel
opportunity,
us.
•
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mabel Hampton Oral History Collection, 1976-1989
Description
An account of the resource
Mabel Hampton (1902-1989) was an African-American lesbian, an activist, a domestic worker, and a dancer. Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she lost her mother when she was only two years old. For the next five years, Mabel was raised by her maternal grandmother, but she too passed away. In 1909, she moved to Greenwich Village in New York City at age seven. Less than a year after moving in with her aunt, Mabel was raped by her uncle, a minister. She ran away to New Jersey, buying a bus ticket purchased with a nickel given to her by a woman on the street. Luckily, Mabel was taken in by a family that cared for her for the next several years.
As a young woman, Mabel gravitated toward the lively scene in Harlem. In 1920, when she was seventeen, Mabel was wrongfully arrested during a prostitution sting and sentenced to time in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. Upon her release, she danced at clubs like "The Garden of Joy", sang as a member of the Lafayette Theater Chorus, and performed with Harlem Renaissance stars such as Gladys Bentley. Mabel engaged in several relationships with women and lived openly as a lesbian.
In 1932, Mabel met Lillian Foster, who would be her partner until Lillian's death in 1978. With the Harlem Renaissance waning, Mabel sought out employment in other areas, primarily working as a domestic worker and hospital attendant. As a domestic, she worked for the family of Joan Nestle. Mabel and Joan developed a friendship that lasted for decades. When Joan started the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1974, Mabel joined her as a founding member. Mabel donated her huge collection of lesbian pulp fiction novels and worked tirelessly with Joan and other volunteers to amass lesbian-related materials--literature, biographical information, academic publications, and ephemera--as a resource for the lesbian and gay community.
Mabel was also a vital, enduring element in the gay rights movement-she participated in every gay pride march that occurred during her lifespan, including the first, historic march and demonstration for gay rights in Washington, D.C., which took place in 1979. In 1985, Mabel was named the grand marshal of the New York City Gay Pride March. That same year, Mabel was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays.
After the Lesbian Herstory Archives were founded, Mabel carried the LHA banner in many marches. She also worked tirelessly for SAGE, an organization devoted to promoting advocacy and developing services for elderly members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities. Interviews with Mabel are featured in "Before Stonewall" and "Silent Pioneers"; both movies document the struggle for gay rights and the efforts made to obtain equality.
Joan Nestle started recording Mabel's oral histories in the late seventies, realizing the importance of documenting Mabel's life story as an example of racial and sexual freedom. In these histories--many of which are featured on this website--Mabel discusses her relationships with women, her struggles with racism, and her identity as an African-American lesbian in the twentieth century. Mabel died of pneumonia in 1989 at the age of eighty-seven. Her life as an advocate, activist, performer, and storyteller lives on in the images and oral histories collected by the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Many of the resources below, as well as additional subject files, biographical information, images, and media about Mabel, lesbian history, and gay pride are available by visiting the LHA in person.
Resources
City University of New York. (2003). Queer ideas: The David R. Kessler lectures in lesbian and gay studies. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York.
DuPlessis, R. B., & Snitow, A. B. (1998). The feminist memoir project: Voices from women's liberation. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Hampton, M. (1979) "I didn't go back there anymore: Mabel Hampton talks about the south." In Feminary 10, 7-16.
Hogan, S., & Hudson, L. (1998). Completely queer: The Gay and Lesbian encyclopedia. New York: Henry Holt.
Lesbian Herstory Archives. Mabel Hampton special collection, including transcripts of oral history. Lesbian Herstory Archives, Brooklyn, NY.
Nestle, J. (1993). Excerpts from the Oral History of Mabel Hampton. Signs, 18, 4, 925-935.
Nestle, J. (1998). "I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: the Life of Mabel Hampton as told by a White Woman." In A fragile union: New & selected writings. San Francisco: Cleis Press.
Nestle, J. (1991). "Surviving and More: Interview with Mabel Hampton". In Sinister Wisdom 43/44, Summer. Berkeley, CA.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPWC1
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mabel Hampton Tapes transcripts
Subject
The topic of the resource
Mabel Hampton
Abstract
A summary of the resource.
Transcripts of interviews with Mabel Hampton between 1976 and 1989.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Joan Nestle
Mabel Hampton
Sara Atatimur
Deborah Edel
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Mabel Hampton Oral History Collection, 1976-1989
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Open Meadows Foundation
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1999
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1989
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://herstories.prattinfoschool.nyc/omeka/rights-statement">See the LHA Copyright Statement</a>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPWC2
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1976 to 1988
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
2 volumes
Description
An account of the resource
A two-volume transcript of several tapes in the Mabel Hampton Oral History collection. In addition to tape transcriptions, the volumes include notes and other annotations by Joan Nestle and Sara Atatimur. The final pages of volume two also include Joan Nestle's article "I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: The Life of Mabel Hampton as Told by a White Woman;" Mabel Hampton's obituary in the New York Times; and a draft of Joan Nestle's article "Her Spirit Soars Above Us."
Deborah Edel
Joan Nestle
Mabel Hampton
Oral History
Sara Atatimur
-
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Title
A name given to the resource
Mabel Hampton Oral History Collection, 1976-1989
Description
An account of the resource
Mabel Hampton (1902-1989) was an African-American lesbian, an activist, a domestic worker, and a dancer. Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she lost her mother when she was only two years old. For the next five years, Mabel was raised by her maternal grandmother, but she too passed away. In 1909, she moved to Greenwich Village in New York City at age seven. Less than a year after moving in with her aunt, Mabel was raped by her uncle, a minister. She ran away to New Jersey, buying a bus ticket purchased with a nickel given to her by a woman on the street. Luckily, Mabel was taken in by a family that cared for her for the next several years.
As a young woman, Mabel gravitated toward the lively scene in Harlem. In 1920, when she was seventeen, Mabel was wrongfully arrested during a prostitution sting and sentenced to time in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women. Upon her release, she danced at clubs like "The Garden of Joy", sang as a member of the Lafayette Theater Chorus, and performed with Harlem Renaissance stars such as Gladys Bentley. Mabel engaged in several relationships with women and lived openly as a lesbian.
In 1932, Mabel met Lillian Foster, who would be her partner until Lillian's death in 1978. With the Harlem Renaissance waning, Mabel sought out employment in other areas, primarily working as a domestic worker and hospital attendant. As a domestic, she worked for the family of Joan Nestle. Mabel and Joan developed a friendship that lasted for decades. When Joan started the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1974, Mabel joined her as a founding member. Mabel donated her huge collection of lesbian pulp fiction novels and worked tirelessly with Joan and other volunteers to amass lesbian-related materials--literature, biographical information, academic publications, and ephemera--as a resource for the lesbian and gay community.
Mabel was also a vital, enduring element in the gay rights movement-she participated in every gay pride march that occurred during her lifespan, including the first, historic march and demonstration for gay rights in Washington, D.C., which took place in 1979. In 1985, Mabel was named the grand marshal of the New York City Gay Pride March. That same year, Mabel was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays.
After the Lesbian Herstory Archives were founded, Mabel carried the LHA banner in many marches. She also worked tirelessly for SAGE, an organization devoted to promoting advocacy and developing services for elderly members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities. Interviews with Mabel are featured in "Before Stonewall" and "Silent Pioneers"; both movies document the struggle for gay rights and the efforts made to obtain equality.
Joan Nestle started recording Mabel's oral histories in the late seventies, realizing the importance of documenting Mabel's life story as an example of racial and sexual freedom. In these histories--many of which are featured on this website--Mabel discusses her relationships with women, her struggles with racism, and her identity as an African-American lesbian in the twentieth century. Mabel died of pneumonia in 1989 at the age of eighty-seven. Her life as an advocate, activist, performer, and storyteller lives on in the images and oral histories collected by the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Many of the resources below, as well as additional subject files, biographical information, images, and media about Mabel, lesbian history, and gay pride are available by visiting the LHA in person.
Resources
City University of New York. (2003). Queer ideas: The David R. Kessler lectures in lesbian and gay studies. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York.
DuPlessis, R. B., & Snitow, A. B. (1998). The feminist memoir project: Voices from women's liberation. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Hampton, M. (1979) "I didn't go back there anymore: Mabel Hampton talks about the south." In Feminary 10, 7-16.
Hogan, S., & Hudson, L. (1998). Completely queer: The Gay and Lesbian encyclopedia. New York: Henry Holt.
Lesbian Herstory Archives. Mabel Hampton special collection, including transcripts of oral history. Lesbian Herstory Archives, Brooklyn, NY.
Nestle, J. (1993). Excerpts from the Oral History of Mabel Hampton. Signs, 18, 4, 925-935.
Nestle, J. (1998). "I Lift My Eyes to the Hill: the Life of Mabel Hampton as told by a White Woman." In A fragile union: New & selected writings. San Francisco: Cleis Press.
Nestle, J. (1991). "Surviving and More: Interview with Mabel Hampton". In Sinister Wisdom 43/44, Summer. Berkeley, CA.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPWC1
Sound
A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Joan Nestle / Mabel Hampton [undated]
Subject
The topic of the resource
African Americans, Childhood and youth, Feminism, African American lesbians, Civil rights
Description
An account of the resource
Oral history recording of Joan Nestle. Side A: Joan Nestle speaks about lesbian self-expression and the importance of language to identity. She goes on to talk about her early life and how she was motivated to take a stand against the oppression she saw around her in society, specifically oppression against women and lesbians. Side B: Mabel Hampton takes over as the main speaker and recounts her life story, beginning when she was only one month old. Mabel discusses her early years, including the crucial transition from living with her grandmother to living with her aunt, and how she eventually decided to run away to Jersey City.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Mabel Hampton
Joan Nestle
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Side A (mp3) http://herstory.prattsils.org/mp3_files/spw46_A.mp3 Side A (wav) http://herstory.prattsils.org/wav_files/spw46_A.wav
Side B (mp3) http://herstory.prattsils.org/mp3_files/spw46_B.mp3 Side B (wav) http://herstory.prattsils.org/wav_files/spw46_B.wav
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Lesbian Herstory Archive
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
Digitized: November 2011
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="/omeka/rights-statement" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> See the LHA Copyright Statement </a>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Original = Cassette Tape
WAV
MP3
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Digital reproduction of audio cassette.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Oral history
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPW46
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Winston-Salem, United States; City of New York, United States; Jersey City, United States
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Lesbian Herstory Archives, Contact Designation: Maxine Wolfe, Contact Address: 484 14th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215, Phone Number: 718-768-3953
Autobiography
Discrimination
Identity
Joan Nestle
Language
Mabel Hampton
Oral History
Social Life
Youth
-
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Buffalo Women's Oral History Project, 1978-1990
Description
An account of the resource
Part-ethnography and part-history, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy is an intimate history of a lesbian community in Buffalo, New York. It combines the ethnographic method of a rigorous study of a single community’s culture and identity, along with the historian’s urge to analyze the specific forces that shape these communities over time. In terms of primary sources, this historical analysis relied on the Buffalo Women’s Oral History Project. This extensive oral history project began in 1978 and extended through the next 13 years. Interview subjects were working-class lesbian women from Buffalo, New York who described their experiences during the period from the mid-1930s to the early 1960s.
These recordings of interviews with working-class lesbians are rich with wisdom, insight and emotion. Interviews discuss a wide range of topics including butch/femme roles, gendered sexuality, relationships, family dynamics, the bar scene, religion, realization of homosexuality, coming out, lesbian mothers, oppression, police brutality, race, gay rights movements, women in the military, youth, and identity. They offer dynamic first-person perspectives of the place and time before the emergence of the gay and lesbian liberation movements. From these stories surface the personal struggles and triumphs of the lesbian community during an intensely oppressive time.
These interviews were donated to the archives by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy and were subsequently digitized by students from the Pratt Institute, Projects in Digital Archives class, LIS-665.
Sound
A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Enit, October 3, 1978 (Tape 2)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lesbian community--New York (State)--New York, Lesbian bars, Lesbians--United States--Identity, Lesbians--United States--Interviews, Lesbian community--United States--History, Oral history interview
Description
An account of the resource
Enit discusses how her perception of Lesbian oppression has changed over time. She also talks about acceptance in the work place and how professionals view Lesbians. Enit explains that her personal interests have changed with age and that her hobby is dance. She finishes by discussing her interactions with straight women and the support she gets from her Lesbian friends.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Enit (Interviewee)
Madeline Davis (Interviewer)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
SPW478_ENIT_A
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1978, October 3
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
Digitized 2012, September
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="/omeka/rights-statement" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> See the LHA Copyright Statement </a>
Relation
A related resource
Tape 2 of a 3 tape series. Preceded by SPW477. Followed by SPW487.
Is Referenced By
A related resource that references, cites, or otherwise points to the described resource.
Kennedy, E. L. & Davis, M. D. (1993). Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York: Routledge
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Original= Cassette Tape
WAV
MP3
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
Side A=43:05 minutes
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Digital reproduction of audio cassette.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Oral History Interview
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPW478
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Buffalo, NY
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1950-1970
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Lesbian Herstory Archives, Contact Designation: Maxine Wolfe, Contact Address: 484 14th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215, Phone Number: 718-768-3953
Bars
Coming Out
Dance
Identity
Madeline Davis
Oral History
Social Life
Women's Liberation Movement
Work
-
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Buffalo Women's Oral History Project, 1978-1990
Description
An account of the resource
Part-ethnography and part-history, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy is an intimate history of a lesbian community in Buffalo, New York. It combines the ethnographic method of a rigorous study of a single community’s culture and identity, along with the historian’s urge to analyze the specific forces that shape these communities over time. In terms of primary sources, this historical analysis relied on the Buffalo Women’s Oral History Project. This extensive oral history project began in 1978 and extended through the next 13 years. Interview subjects were working-class lesbian women from Buffalo, New York who described their experiences during the period from the mid-1930s to the early 1960s.
These recordings of interviews with working-class lesbians are rich with wisdom, insight and emotion. Interviews discuss a wide range of topics including butch/femme roles, gendered sexuality, relationships, family dynamics, the bar scene, religion, realization of homosexuality, coming out, lesbian mothers, oppression, police brutality, race, gay rights movements, women in the military, youth, and identity. They offer dynamic first-person perspectives of the place and time before the emergence of the gay and lesbian liberation movements. From these stories surface the personal struggles and triumphs of the lesbian community during an intensely oppressive time.
These interviews were donated to the archives by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy and were subsequently digitized by students from the Pratt Institute, Projects in Digital Archives class, LIS-665.
Sound
A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Enit, October 3, 1978 (Tape 1)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lesbian community--New York (State)--New York, Lesbian bars, Lesbians--United States--Identity, Lesbians--United States--Interviews, Lesbian community--United States--History, Oral history interview
Description
An account of the resource
Enit discusses facing her sexuality at the age of 12 and coming out to her family despite her frustration at their lack of acceptance. She goes on to discuss her social life and dating in Buffalo, NY, noting how she used to meet women at bars but that her social activities have changed with age. She discusses her participation in the Erie Picnics held for gay men and women in Pennsylvania. She is 47 at the time of the interview.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Enit (Interviewee)
Madeline Davis (Interviewer)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
SPW477_ENIT_A
SPW477_ENIT_B
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1978, October 3
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
Digitized 2012, September
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="/omeka/rights-statement" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> See the LHA Copyright Statement </a>
Relation
A related resource
Tape 1 of a 3 tape series. Followed by SPW478 and SPW487.
Is Referenced By
A related resource that references, cites, or otherwise points to the described resource.
Kennedy, E. L. & Davis, M. D. (1993). Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York: Routledge
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Original= Cassette Tape
WAV
MP3
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
Side A=45:48 minutes
Side B= 45:56 minutes
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Digital reproduction of audio cassette.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Oral History Interview
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPW477
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Buffalo, NY
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
1950-1970
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Lesbian Herstory Archives, Contact Designation: Maxine Wolfe, Contact Address: 484 14th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215, Phone Number: 718-768-3953
Bars
Butch and Femme
Coming Out
Identity
Madeline Davis
Oral History
Sexuality
Social Life
-
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Title
A name given to the resource
Buffalo Women's Oral History Project, 1978-1990
Description
An account of the resource
Part-ethnography and part-history, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy is an intimate history of a lesbian community in Buffalo, New York. It combines the ethnographic method of a rigorous study of a single community’s culture and identity, along with the historian’s urge to analyze the specific forces that shape these communities over time. In terms of primary sources, this historical analysis relied on the Buffalo Women’s Oral History Project. This extensive oral history project began in 1978 and extended through the next 13 years. Interview subjects were working-class lesbian women from Buffalo, New York who described their experiences during the period from the mid-1930s to the early 1960s.
These recordings of interviews with working-class lesbians are rich with wisdom, insight and emotion. Interviews discuss a wide range of topics including butch/femme roles, gendered sexuality, relationships, family dynamics, the bar scene, religion, realization of homosexuality, coming out, lesbian mothers, oppression, police brutality, race, gay rights movements, women in the military, youth, and identity. They offer dynamic first-person perspectives of the place and time before the emergence of the gay and lesbian liberation movements. From these stories surface the personal struggles and triumphs of the lesbian community during an intensely oppressive time.
These interviews were donated to the archives by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy and were subsequently digitized by students from the Pratt Institute, Projects in Digital Archives class, LIS-665.
Sound
A resource whose content is primarily intended to be rendered as audio.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Anita, November 16, 1978 (Tape 1)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lesbians--New York (State)--Buffalo--History--20th century, Lesbian teenagers, Relationships
Description
An account of the resource
Anita talks about her first encounters with a relationship with a woman. She then speaks about the difficulties of raising her child. She also talks about the roles of Butch and Femme.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Anita (Interviewee)
Madeline Davis (Interviewer)
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
SPW529_ANITA_A
SPW529_ANITA_B
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
1978, November 16
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
Digitized 2012, September
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="/omeka/rights-statement" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> See the LHA Copyright Statement </a>
Relation
A related resource
Tape 1 of a 2 tape series. Followed by SPW530.
Is Referenced By
A related resource that references, cites, or otherwise points to the described resource.
Kennedy, E. L. & Davis, M. D. (1993). Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York: Routledge
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Original= Cassette Tape
WAV
MP3
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
Side A = 47:19 minutes
Side B = 44:37 minutes
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Digital reproduction of audio cassette.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Oral History Interview
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPW529
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Phoenix, AZ, Buffalo, NY
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Lesbian Herstory Archives, Contact Designation: Maxine Wolfe, Contact Address: 484 14th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215, Phone Number: 718-768-3953
Butch and Femme
Families
Friendship
Identity
Madeline Davis
Oral History
Relationships
-
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Title
A name given to the resource
Buffalo Women's Oral History Project, 1978-1990
Description
An account of the resource
Part-ethnography and part-history, Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy is an intimate history of a lesbian community in Buffalo, New York. It combines the ethnographic method of a rigorous study of a single community’s culture and identity, along with the historian’s urge to analyze the specific forces that shape these communities over time. In terms of primary sources, this historical analysis relied on the Buffalo Women’s Oral History Project. This extensive oral history project began in 1978 and extended through the next 13 years. Interview subjects were working-class lesbian women from Buffalo, New York who described their experiences during the period from the mid-1930s to the early 1960s.
These recordings of interviews with working-class lesbians are rich with wisdom, insight and emotion. Interviews discuss a wide range of topics including butch/femme roles, gendered sexuality, relationships, family dynamics, the bar scene, religion, realization of homosexuality, coming out, lesbian mothers, oppression, police brutality, race, gay rights movements, women in the military, youth, and identity. They offer dynamic first-person perspectives of the place and time before the emergence of the gay and lesbian liberation movements. From these stories surface the personal struggles and triumphs of the lesbian community during an intensely oppressive time.
These interviews were donated to the archives by Madeline Davis and Elizabeth Kennedy and were subsequently digitized by students from the Pratt Institute, Projects in Digital Archives class, LIS-665.
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Andy, March 30, 1982 (Tape 1)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lesbians--United States—Interviews, Lesbians--United States—History, Lesbian Bars, Work, Relationships, Lesbians –African American, Butch-femme, Childhood, Coming out.
Description
An account of the resource
Andy discusses the history of gay rights in Buffalo, New York, and describes how it feels like to be open about her sexual identity. She shares some of her childhood and early adulthood experiences in the 1950s and 60s –her first relationships and confronting the risk of losing her job. Other topics discussed include the gay and lesbian bar scene, raids, prostitution, butch and femme roles, and Andy’s experience within the African American gay community.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Andy (interviewee)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Lesbian Herstory Archives
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
30 March 1982
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2013-06
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Pratt Institute, School of Information and Library Science, LIS 665 Projects in Digital Archives students
Is Referenced By
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Kennedy, E. L. & Davis, M. D. (1993). Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community. New York: Routledge.
Format
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Original= Cassette Tape
WAV
MP3
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
Side A [45:33 minutes]
Side B [45:27 minutes]
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
PhysicalObject
Oral History Interview
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SPW 500
Spatial Coverage
Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Buffalo, NY
Temporal Coverage
Temporal characteristics of the resource.
20th Century
Rights Holder
A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource.
Lesbian Herstory Archives, Contact Designation: Maxine Wolfe, Contact Address: 484 14th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215, Phone Number: 718-768-3953
Rights
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<a href="/omeka/rights-statement" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> See the LHA Copyright Statement </a>
Bars
Butch and Femme
Childhood
Coming Out
Oral History
Race Relations
Relationships
Work