Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Saving the House of the Furies
December 9, 2015
Saving the House of the Furies
By: Jenna Sauber
When Robert Pohl and his wife moved into their home in the Washington, DC neighborhood of Capitol Hill in 2004, Pohl conducted a Google search to find out if there was anything special about the house. He immediately came across a page from a local LGBT organization called the Rainbow History Project that named his “new” house as the operational center and main residence for a small lesbian feminist collective in the early 1970s called The Furies.
<SNIP>
“I wanted a project to keep me semi-coherent intellectually, and the Furies was a great hook,” he says. That research rabbit-hole ultimately led to Pohl transitioning from his career as a computer programmer to a tour guide, historian, and writer.
Now, Pohl’s research is playing a role in a nomination to make the house at 219 11th Street Southeast a historic landmark, with the help of Rainbow Heritage Network co-founder Mark Meinke.
<SNIP>
While there were three sites in DC that the Furies lived and worked at, the 11th Street house had the biggest basement, which the women used to host meetings and create their newspaper, called The Furies: Lesbian/Feminist Monthly. The ten issues of the paper included a mix of poetry, political analyses, and ideological essays, all with the goal of expressing the Furies’ commitment, according to the first issue, to “the growing movement to destroy sexism” and to “building an ideology which is the basis of action.”
https://savingplaces.org/stories/the-house-of-the-furies?utm_medium=email&utm_source=NTHP_newsletter_030917&utm_campaign=NTHP_eNewsletter-FY17_Mar9
Saving the House of the Furies
By: Jenna Sauber
When Robert Pohl and his wife moved into their home in the Washington, DC neighborhood of Capitol Hill in 2004, Pohl conducted a Google search to find out if there was anything special about the house. He immediately came across a page from a local LGBT organization called the Rainbow History Project that named his “new” house as the operational center and main residence for a small lesbian feminist collective in the early 1970s called The Furies.
<SNIP>
“I wanted a project to keep me semi-coherent intellectually, and the Furies was a great hook,” he says. That research rabbit-hole ultimately led to Pohl transitioning from his career as a computer programmer to a tour guide, historian, and writer.
Now, Pohl’s research is playing a role in a nomination to make the house at 219 11th Street Southeast a historic landmark, with the help of Rainbow Heritage Network co-founder Mark Meinke.
<SNIP>
While there were three sites in DC that the Furies lived and worked at, the 11th Street house had the biggest basement, which the women used to host meetings and create their newspaper, called The Furies: Lesbian/Feminist Monthly. The ten issues of the paper included a mix of poetry, political analyses, and ideological essays, all with the goal of expressing the Furies’ commitment, according to the first issue, to “the growing movement to destroy sexism” and to “building an ideology which is the basis of action.”
https://savingplaces.org/stories/the-house-of-the-furies?utm_medium=email&utm_source=NTHP_newsletter_030917&utm_campaign=NTHP_eNewsletter-FY17_Mar9
The Furies Collective
Quick Facts
Location:
219 11th Street SE
Designation:
Listed in the National Register of Historic Places
OPEN TO PUBLIC:
No
The Furies Collective house is directly connected with the early expression of the character, role, and ideology of the lesbian community as a social and political community in the 1970s. The house became the operational center of the“Furies,” a lesbian feminist separatist collective, which between 1971 and 1973 created and led the debate over lesbians’ place in society. The 12 women in the collective published a lesbian feminist edition of motive magazine, a youth magazine of the United Methodist Church, and a tabloid-size newspaper titled The Furies, which over a period of two years addressed major questions of women’s identity and women’s relationships with other women, with men, and with society at large. Together, The Furies and motive set the issues and agenda of lesbian and feminist discussion for many years to come.
National Register of Historic Places information:
Property Name: The Furies Collective
Reference Number: 16000211
State: District of Columbia
County: District of Columbia
Town: Washington
Street Address: 219 11th St., SE
Multiple Property Submission Name: N/A
Status: Listed 05/02/2016
Areas of Significance: Social History
https://www.nps.gov/places/furies-collective.htm
The Furies Collective, 219 11th Street Southeast, Washington, D.C. The Furies Collective, 219 11th Street Southeast, Washington, D.C.
Photographer: Patsy Lynch
Quick Facts
Location:
219 11th Street SE
Designation:
Listed in the National Register of Historic Places
OPEN TO PUBLIC:
No
The Furies Collective house is directly connected with the early expression of the character, role, and ideology of the lesbian community as a social and political community in the 1970s. The house became the operational center of the“Furies,” a lesbian feminist separatist collective, which between 1971 and 1973 created and led the debate over lesbians’ place in society. The 12 women in the collective published a lesbian feminist edition of motive magazine, a youth magazine of the United Methodist Church, and a tabloid-size newspaper titled The Furies, which over a period of two years addressed major questions of women’s identity and women’s relationships with other women, with men, and with society at large. Together, The Furies and motive set the issues and agenda of lesbian and feminist discussion for many years to come.
National Register of Historic Places information:
Property Name: The Furies Collective
Reference Number: 16000211
State: District of Columbia
County: District of Columbia
Town: Washington
Street Address: 219 11th St., SE
Multiple Property Submission Name: N/A
Status: Listed 05/02/2016
Areas of Significance: Social History
https://www.nps.gov/places/furies-collective.htm
Things you find while looking up other things...
