On Tuesday, October 26th at 5:30 p.m. the Southwest Harbor Public Library is honored to host the launch of the Lesbian History Trail of Mount Desert Island with an online cyber tour, featuring local playwright Carolyn Gage and Frances Miller, a second-year student at College of the Atlantic working on an independent study about lesbian history on Mount Desert Island (MDI). Carolyn and Frances will introduce the website and highlight the part of the trail that travels through the Western part of MDI, or the Quietside. Found at found at https://lesbianhistorytrailmdi.weebly.com/, the full self-guided route leads to the homes, or homesites, of seven famous lesbian couples of historical significance and their partners, also women of achievement.
When Carolyn moved to Southwest Harbor from Portland, Maine five years ago, she knew of Marguerite Yourcenar and Grace Frick and their home Petit Plaisance in Northeast Harbor, but her curiosity lead to her search for the stories of other famous lesbian couples who lived on Mount Desert Island (MDI). Carolyn found women who ran the gamut from daughters of fabulously wealthy industrialists “from away” to working class women native to the island. Together with Tina Gainoulis, professional researcher and writer, Carolyn took her findings and created a unique resource that includes a list of sites, travel directions, biographies, stories (the fun stuff), and resources crediting historical institutions and other resources on MDI.
Couples included on the trail range from authors, Marguerite Yourcenar and Grace Frick and Ruth Moore and Eleanor Mayo, to activists, LaRue Spiker and Louise Gilbert. LaRue and Louise were a part of the group of supporters who helped guard and offer some protection to Andrew and Charlotte Wade, a black couple living in a white section of Louisville, Kentucky. After the house was firebombed in 1954, Louise and LaRue were among seven white activists who were arrested and charged for conspiring to flout segregation laws. One stop on this historic journey is a bench in Southwest Harbor in front of Harbor House Community Center dedicated to LaRue honoring her for her activism and contributions to the island.
In addition to writing plays, Carolyn is a performer, director, and activist. The author of nine collections of lesbian and feminist themed plays and eighty-three plays, musicals, and one-woman shows, she specializes in non-traditional roles for women, especially those reclaiming famous lesbians whose stories have been distorted or erased from history. Carolyn’s papers are archived in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College and Carolyn’s plays are archived in the Maine Women Writers Collection at the Abplanalp Library, University of New England Portland Campus, https://library.une.edu/mwwc/.
Register for the online program at https://swhplibrary.libcal.com/event/8385375.
Image: “Ruth Moore and Eleanor Mayo Building Their House,” Southwest Harbor Public Library, accessed October 19, 2021, https://swhplibrary.net/digitalarchive/items/show/4092https://swhplibrary.net/digitalarchive/items/show/4092. Item 12250