Mazer Archives November 2021 Newsletter | Out of the Archives: Diane F. Germain

This month, our Mellon-funded UCLA Community Archives Lab archivist intern Hall Frost is highlighting Diane Germain and her contributions to the archives.

I came across Diane’s collection while helping the Mazer write finding aids as part of a Community Archives class at UCLA. I was struck by her innate calling to save everything, something I, a minimalist, and my partner, who saves everything, disagree on. In the moment, it’s hard to think that bits and pieces of your life could someday be valued by people in the future. Yet, Diane knew exactly that. She saved things relating to lesbians from political events, women’s retreats, lesbian centric periodicals, and the like. She also saved things from other lesbians’ trash cans, garages, and attics. She knew that the things lesbians were doing in the 1970s, 80s and beyond were worth remembering. Also, she knew that lesbians from the future would want to look back on the past to reminisce, or to learn, or to see what’s changed and what hasn’t, and of course, especially to marvel at the fashion, outfits and haircuts of the past.

Diane came to Southern California via Vermont for grad school at UCLA. She went on to become a founding member of Dykes on Hikes, The Lesbian Referral Services, Beautiful Lesbian Thespians, and the California Women’s Art Collective. In addition to saving important ephemera, Diane also volunteered for the Lambda Archives of San Diego, where she noticed a lack of lesbian representation in the archive. To fill this gap, she conducted interviews, oral histories, and collected materials from lesbians in Southern California.

Diane’s collection at the Mazer includes political buttons, tons of cartoons and clip art she drew for various lesbian publications. Also included are a jean jacket complete with a stitched on peace sign, her master’s thesis, photos, and a binder of policies and new decisions from the Califia Community—a women’s retreat held in the woods to discuss topics such as anti-racism, sexism, and class. The best part is that Diane continues to collect and contribute to the Mazer to this day.

One of my favorite discoveries in her collection was a photo of her from high school, ca 1958-59. In it, she is wearing a vest over a button down with jeans. She has short hair and sunglasses and an unlit cigarette in her mouth, her arm thrown over an inflatable dummy. I loved the picture before I found the typed note from 2007 telling the story of this photo, how she came across the inflatable dummy and spray painted it blue. She ends the note pondering why she posed as she did. “In trying to create an image for my own camera, was this my youthful idea of the coolness of James Dean? Or was it just an unconscious interpretation of a devil may care lesbian with her arm around her fantasy girlfriend? Oh how we give ourselves away without even knowing.” Not only is it a great story, but something I relate to. Surely, Diane and I are not the only ones with photos as these, our youthful selves giving us away.

A photo of Diane from high school, ca 1958-59.