Women Unlimited by Sheryl Ackerman

Music was a key component of building community and engaging neighbors in fellowship. Sheryl Ackerman has provided us with an account of Women Unlimited- a concert production company promoting music by women and lesbian performers. Click here to download the full submission in PDF: Women Unlimited – submission Revised.

Pauline Bélanger founded the company “Women Unlimited” on March 01, 1986 to produce concerts and promote music by women and lesbian performers. Audience members may also remember her hilarious comedic sketches as she introduced the shows. She brazenly included her partner (now spouse), Sheryl Ackerman, in many of the warm-up acts!

There were very few openly lesbian performers in Canada in those days, Heather Bishop being one of the first. Pauline produced several concerts for Heather.

A memorable event occurred March 11, 1987 at the Edmonton Public Library Theatre. During Heather Bishop’s performance with Kris Purdy, Marilyn Lerner and Sherry Shute, the audience was surprised when kd lang leapt onto the stage to perform spontaneously with Heather. Would it be accurate to say the crowd went wild?!

Lobbying the Alberta Government in the 1980s by Sheryl Ackerman

Changing the Individual Rights Protection Act was a Sheryl Ackerman has provided us with a history of letters lobbying to change the Individual Rights Protection Act and efforts to end discrimination based on sexual orientation. Click here to download in PDF: Letters re lobbying submission Revised

On June 5, 1989, in the Alberta Legislature, MLA Marie Laing introduced Bill 225, an Act to Amend the Individual’s Rights Protection Act. This Act would make discrimination based on sexual orientation or mental disability unlawful.

Many of us, including Pauline Bélanger (my spouse) and I, Sheryl Ackerman, wrote to MLAs in support of this bill. Here are two letters we received in response that summer, plus a copy of the proposed bill. The bill did not succeed, despite the fact that the Human Rights Commission in Alberta had recommended inclusion of sexual orientation as a protected category in 1977, 1981 and 1985. Lobbying continued, but the law did not change until 20 years later, in June 2009.

Note: The letter from Pam Barrett is personalized because she was our next-door neighbour at Sundance Co-op!

Every Woman’s Place by Sheryl Ackerman

Sheryl Ackerman wrote us an account of “Every Woman’s Place” which you can download in full here (PDF along with attached images: Every Woman’s Place submission Revised.

Touted as Edmonton’s first successful women’s centre, Every Woman’s Place opened on International Women’s Day in 1982. It was located in a lovely older building in the Oliver area at 9926 – 112 Street.

It was operated by a collective non-profit society and run entirely by volunteers (I among them). I remember, almost verbatim, a conversation, which illustrates the sense of common purpose and ownership.

Edmonton Womens Music Collective by Sheryl Ackerman

Sheryl Ackerman provided an account of the Edmonton Women’s Music Collective — you have likely read about the Riverdale Women’s Dances. Click here to download the full article in PDF along with attached images and passport: Edmonton Women’s Music Collective submission Revised

These dances for women began in December 1988 and lasted until December 1997. They were unique in three ways:

• they were smoke free
• we played only women’s music
• they were alcohol free (only because no one wanted to do all the work of getting the permit and alcohol!)

We held 4 dances per year, the dates of which were as close as possible to the spring equinox, summer solstice, fall equinox and winter solstice. We always checked with Womonspace to make sure our dates never overlapped. People gradually came to refer to our dances as the “Riverdale Women’s Dances” because they always took place at the Riverdale Community League Hall.

The collective changed through the years, but usually consisted of 6 to 8 women. Pauline Bélanger and I, Sheryl Ackerman, were the only ones who stayed with the collective the entire 9 years. Founding members included: Sheryl Ackerman, Pauline Bélanger, Leslie Stewart, Anna Pellat, Karen Caulkins, Reni and Cathy.

Some interesting features of our dances include:

• for women only
• all women’s music
• no alcohol
• no smoking – at the time quite a novel concept (though originally we permitted smoking in the small lounge, then later outside)
• $7 entry fee – sliding scale
• completely volunteer run
• honour system for purchasing beverages
• for music, at first we used cassette tapes (!), then CDs, then switched to a live DJ
• sometimes included card games and board games set up in the small lounge
• occasionally line dance lessons beforehand
• occasionally a softball game and a picnic before the dance
• food catered by the Bagel Tree in the early years
• advertising of other women’s events

We called ourselves the Edmonton Women’s Music Collective because we promoted women’s music. This we did in a number of ways:

• we played only women’s music at the dances
• we publicized women’s music events such as the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival
• we helped create, subsidize, sponsor or co-sponsor concerts featuring women singers and groups

We had amazing, fun-filled, spirited, empowering times. We worked like crazy as a collective, and had fabulous support from volunteers too. However, by 1996, the energy to mount these dances was flagging. We committed ourselves to one final year, with our last dance held December 13^th, 1997. What was left in our account we later donated to the A.S.W.A.C. Defense Fund.

Common Woman Books by Sheryl Ackerman

Queer History Project Supporter Sheryl Ackerman wrote up this article (and provided the attached photos) on Common Woman Books. Please click here to download in PDF Form: Common Woman Books Submission Revised.

Common Woman Books acted as a gateway for me, and probably for many others, to feminist and lesbian events, resources, books, records and culture. In its early days, it was the first bookstore in Edmonton that used the word “Lesbian” for its section on lesbian resources and fiction. It also included a section for gay men. I volunteered there in the 1980s.

A little bit of history follows. Common Woman Books was created in 1978 by Mair Smith, Halyna Freeland and Julie-Anne Le Gras, to make feminist literature available to Alberta Women. It was “a whole shelf of feminist books” in Halayna’s basement in Norwood. For a while, it became a “travelling bookstore” until it moved to a real bookstore location on 109 Street above Windsor Bowl. It was now the first women’s bookstore in Alberta, and was run as a non-profit collective. About 15 women were part of that collective.

September 12, 1981 was the big STOREFRONT opening on 104 Street in Old Strathcona, where it really grew, and became a boisterous centre that included books, records, events, a bulletin board always full of fabulous and interesting information, author readings and signings, concerts (such as Holly Near), guest speakers (e.g. Kate Millet, Barbara Ehrenreich), film festivals and so on. It was a hub of activity, centered on the desire for social change.

In 1987, the store moved to much larger premises on 109 Street in the Garneau Theatre Building. Andrea (Harbour) Ansbacher and Halyna Freeland were key in keeping the store running, Andrea as full time, and Halyna as part time staff. There were still volunteers and an 11-member board. The store added to its name, and became Common Woman Books/ the Radical Bookseller. According to Andrea, “Although we branched out into selling socialist and gay men’s books, it was still the feminist theory, lesbian and women’s fiction which paid the rent.”

Andrea also recalls, “Common Woman Books had one more move, back to Old Strathcona on Whyte Ave and 106th Street. But by now, many stores carried feminist books, and even lesbian books could be bought in more ‘regular’ bookstores. I believe Common Woman Books and other ‘feminist bookstores’ led the way for this to happen.”

Queer History Project Videos: Available Online!

If you didn’t get  a chance to watch the different videos at the Art Gallery of Alberta during our “We Are Here: Edmonton Queer History Project” exhibition, here are the 7 videos in youtube form:

Welcome:

#Fear:

#Pride:

#Identity:

#Community

#Activism:

#Nightlife:

#HIV/AIDS:

To see all of our youtube videos, including videos recorded at the Queer History Days at the EPL Makerspace or footage from events, please visit our youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiLruBLHkyY7lo1NnH7kF0g

Many of this footage was cut from long interviews (1-2hrs) with approximately 20 different individual interview participants. If you are interested in viewing the longer original interview material, please contact edmontonqueerhistoryproject@gmail.com and we would be happy to arrange a sharing of the videos.

We are still working on obtaining permission to share “The Gay Straight Jacket” — a 20 minute 1981 CBC documentary about gay and lesbian life in Edmonton.