UCLA Center for the Study of Women

Working with the collections at the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives is a unique experience, each collection has its own sense of itself, serving as a window into individual lives, formative political moments and thegrowth and development of the lesbian community. One of the first collections that I processed was the Ruth Reid and Kent Hyde collection. Ruth and Kent were both writers, lifelong intellectuals, weavers and lovers. Their collection covers the duration of their relationship of over forty years. What makes this collection so rich is the breadth of materials which includes a large amount of correspondence between Ruth and Kent and an array of their friends and family. These letters range in subject matter and through their reading one can get a sense of each woman’s particular sense of humor, specific interests and professional tone.