Video Interview, Ruth Rosenberg Naparsteck, September 6, 2013
- CREW: I am rolling.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You're rolling?
- OK.
- First and foremost, give me the correct spelling
- of your first and last name, and how you
- want it to appear on screen.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Ruth Rosenberg Naparsteck.
- R-U-T-H. R-O-S-E-N-B-E-R-G. N-A-P-A-R-S-T-E-C-K.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: And if we were to put a title under you--
- historian?
- Author?
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: I would
- say historian slash author.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- Good.
- OK.
- So let's just start out, very general,
- about Rochester's history.
- Very early on, we became this community
- where social justice has been ingrained into the fabric
- of this community, whether it was
- civil rights, or the abolitionist movement,
- or the women's movement, and as we're speaking about,
- the gay movement.
- What can you tell me about Rochester?
- Why we became this champion for the underdogs?
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: I don't
- think it's something we became.
- I think it's something that we are,
- and something that we continue to be.
- If you go back to the pioneer days, settlement in 1812,
- most of the people came from New England.
- And they brought with them more Puritan standards and values.
- And they would not have been very receptive to new ideas.
- When the Irish came in the 1840s,
- and things began to change quite a bit,
- we had what came to be known as the burned-over district.
- A lot of tent revivals, and hellfire and brimstone
- sermons, and Reverend Finney coming through the area.
- And that created a lot of turmoil and a lot of heat.
- But it also-- that friction created a lot of dialogue.
- And from that, I think, we continue
- to have that same kind of dialogue,
- that reception of new ideas.
- There were a lot of intellectual people in the pioneer period,
- continued to come in.
- By the 1840s, following that tent revival period
- in the burned-over district, Susan B. Anthony and Frederick
- Douglass came to the area.
- And they are well known.
- But when they came, they were not so well known.
- But Frederick Douglass, specifically,
- said he chose Rochester because they
- were so receptive to new ideas, so encouraging.
- Yet when you look at his subscription numbers
- for his newspaper, it wasn't all that high.
- It was around one thousand.
- Yet, the people that it went to were key people.
- They were ones who, from Rochester as a base,
- went out on the railroads, went out on the canal,
- and spread their ideas.
- And there are some historical theories
- that Rochester, because the canal came through here,
- had the highway that allowed it to spread ideas
- both east and west.
- And, of course, being a lakefront city,
- too, that allowed us a lot of dialogue
- between Rochester and Canada.
- And that, particularly, with the abolitionist movement,
- helped to make us a destination for ideas.
- But I think it's really not so much
- that Rochester is receptive, but that turmoil
- creates that dialogue and that friction.
- And I think that's very important to bringing
- in new ideas.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: And kind of expanding
- on that, how important did our educational institutions
- start becoming and being supportive
- of new progressive ideas?
- And I say this only in the thought that it seems to me,
- and other people we've talked to,
- that we started to become a very educated community
- pretty early on.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Very early.
- If you look at the pioneer period,
- the men were very busy building businesses,
- as they did in most pioneer communities.
- And the women started the hospitals,
- the Sunday schools-- which then were also teaching academics.
- They started the orphanages--
- everything that was important to building a city.
- Schools were among the very, very first institutions
- that were built in the city--
- and the colleges, of course.
- The University of Rochester, I think,
- was organized around 1854.
- That was a very important college as well.
- But they didn't admit women until around 1900.
- And they actually resisted bringing in women,
- partly because there were schools already open
- for women to go to.
- But the curriculums were not giving women what they wanted.
- So Susan B. Anthony was at the forefront
- of pushing to admit women.
- So new ideas weren't always well-received.
- But that dialogue, as I mentioned,
- that dialogue was very important because that
- created the friction.
- It created the new ideas.
- And from stress-- from friction--
- we get new ideas.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's move a little farther forward then
- on post-World War II.
- In the current community that, again, that we were developing.
- I mean, obviously, with George Eastman and Bausch and Lomb
- and that, we started developing industrially much earlier
- than that.
- But can you give me an idea of what kind of city
- Rochester was post-World War?
- And I'm thinking mostly 1950s, 1960s--
- a bustling downtown, and, again, kind of
- how it all kind of came together with a city who was--
- we were industrial, we were educated,
- but still, we were developing that reputation
- of being pretty progressive.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: In the 1950s--
- CREW: I'm sorry.
- I hit the--
- I was hitting your chair.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- CREW: Pardon me.
- I'm ready.
- Thank you.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: I think in the 1950s
- you'll probably find what we see as the most ideal lifestyle,
- almost like you would have seen on television on Leave it
- to Beaver or My Three Sons.
- Women were coming out of the workforce in larger numbers
- than they had ever been in.
- They had established that they were very capable
- in the factories, in arenas they had never been tested before.
- But when the veterans returned after 1945,
- they took either their old jobs back, or went into new jobs.
- And our industries went from war time to peace time production.
- With the first time having the GI Bill of Rights,
- it allowed people to buy their first homes, which
- were what we wouldn't even consider adequate.
- They were, average, around nine hundred square feet.
- But you had the American dream.
- You had the home, the white picket fence, the two kids,
- the cat and the dog--
- almost a Dick and Jane story.
- And women, at least in our imaginations,
- went out of the workplace, and they were stay-at-home moms.
- They joined the PTA.
- And life was just ideal.
- Everyone not only went to church,
- but they walked to church.
- They took their children with them.
- That was the ideal.
- In reality, there was a growing poverty.
- More and more African-Americans were
- coming north into Rochester as well,
- because there were so many good jobs.
- Kodak was growing.
- Xerox was growing.
- As a matter of fact, Xerox went from Haloid to Xerox,
- taking a major leap of faith in the invention that Chester
- Carlson had for duplication, for what we call today
- the photocopier, or the Xerox machine that's become so big.
- So Rochester was growing tremendously.
- It was a big attraction for people to come.
- African-Americans, however, coming in large numbers took
- those homes that were in the more affordable neighborhoods--
- the neighborhoods that were often run down.
- They became overcrowded.
- And almost undetected to city administration,
- the demands on the community became overwhelming.
- And even though in, I think, 1959, Blake McKelvey, then
- the city historian, sent a letter
- to the editor saying, "If we don't pay attention
- to what's happening in the black community,
- we're going to have real social problems."
- But people really didn't listen.
- They thought they had what they needed
- to address these social issues.
- And indeed, when Saul Alinsky came to the city
- and did some research in the 1960s, he said the same thing.
- He said, "You have all the right programs,
- you just don't have enough of them."
- So there is that contrast.
- The Smugtown-- the label that came
- to be attached to what some people had previously
- called, Kodak City, because everything was ideal.
- In George Eastman's time, he provided everything
- to his workers.
- Partly because he didn't want unions to come in,
- but, also, because he believed in family.
- He believed Rochester was a great place to raise a family.
- He was very receptive to new ideas.
- But that undercurrent, that undetected-- partly ignored.
- It's undetected because no one was looking.
- And these are important things similar to today's politics.
- There are some things that one politician might say, "You're
- not looking in this area."
- While another is saying, "I'm looking at the business world.
- I'm looking at the administration, the city
- growth.
- That's what's important.
- What's good for business is good for the people."
- At the same time, the people in the neighborhoods
- may be suffering because people aren't looking at them.
- Our educational system in the 1950s was very, very good.
- But as we moved into the 1960s, and the overcrowding,
- and the deficits that we had in an increasing rate of poverty,
- put tremendous weight on the school district.
- So now the demands are on the school district
- to improve academics, to improve performance,
- while the lives of these people are not improving.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You hit on something
- that I want to get your opinion on.
- Again, it comes back to how we were developing as a community
- early on.
- People like George Eastman, and Chester Carlson, and Robert--
- Bausch and Lomb, and there was this sentiment
- that in order for them to attract the best quality
- workers, they needed to create the best quality of life
- in the community.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: That's right.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Any thoughts on-- can you just throw that
- back in here?
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Well, George Eastman
- is the most outstanding because he's the most noticeable.
- But other companies did do the same thing.
- And some of them were very small companies
- that people wouldn't even recognize their names.
- Hiram Sibley-- if you go back to the nineteenth century--
- believed that education was the best route to a good job.
- And rather than giving to people who
- worked for him, in the way that George Eastman did,
- he gave huge amounts of money to colleges in order
- to train the people.
- George Eastman believed that people should be well-educated,
- too.
- And his company actually paid for people
- to get further education if it helped them on their job.
- He provided theaters, recreation, clubs, health care,
- and he himself--
- because he had poor teeth as a young child--
- he started the Eastman Dental School, too.
- Partly because he wanted people to get a good education,
- and partly because he wanted to make sure
- that his company had a steady stream
- of well-educated workers.
- He gave a lot of money to the University of Rochester.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.
- I'm jumping around here a lot.
- But I want to go back farther than--
- we need to talk about Front Street.
- Because a lot of-- as I said in my notes
- to you-- a lot of the older people
- that we talked to talked about Front Street as where you went
- if you were looking for a gay man,
- or to socialize with other gay people,
- because it was kind of the Bowery of Rochester.
- And back in those days, you didn't
- have gay bars on the corner.
- You had them hidden somewhere.
- So let's first start out-- just talk to me about Front Street.
- What was Front Street like?
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: I wrote a very good Rochester
- history on Front Street, along with Henry Clune and Bob
- Koch, who used to work with WXXI,
- and he was a professor as well.
- Henry Clune, some people might remember,
- was a very, very good reporter, as well as an author.
- On the Front Street that he remembered--
- because the Democrat and Chronicle that he worked for
- was on Main Street, near the bridge,
- facing Front Street, looking north.
- So he would go there for lunch.
- And he talked about how lively it was.
- In the summer the doors would be open-- a screen door
- like you would see in probably the late nineteenth century.
- But we're talking about pre-1950.
- On Front Street you would hear music spilling out
- into the streets, almost visible because it's so loud.
- And then you'd walk past the next place,
- and you'd feel the heat-- intense heat-- coming out
- from the grill.
- And you'd hear muffled voices talking from inside.
- And you'd hear people laughing.
- There were some very interesting characters,
- like Chicken George, people that he knew from other areas, too.
- But some of these people lived in the doorwells at night.
- The policemen-- there was a patrolman named Vaughn--
- last name Vaughn-- and he knew all of these characters, too.
- And they all became a part, almost, of a TV set.
- This is Front Street, along the river in Rochester,
- with a very different character.
- Women would go there looking for fabric,
- or used clothing, or something like that.
- Men would go there because they had pawnshops,
- they had hardware stores--
- things that only a shop equivalent to a junk shop
- would have exactly what you want.
- But after five o'clock, women didn't go there, especially
- with their children in tow.
- Henry Clune explained it in a way
- that it was almost like at night different kinds of creatures
- come out, and the other ones go to their diurnal world.
- And here comes the nocturnal world, which he loved.
- Henry was an adventurer-- very large, loud-voiced man,
- and very adventurous.
- He used to love to go there just for the music,
- and to be able to talk to people who
- had interesting characters, interesting stories.
- And I can imagine that that would be the place that you
- would go to meet people that you wouldn't see
- in the usual course of the day, when
- downtown is the nine-to-five bankers, lawyers, storekeepers.
- Now you have a very lively street
- along the Genesee River, which is our focal point
- throughout our history.
- And you have a very lively place.
- And a lot of people lived above these bars and stores.
- And so these are places, too, that people
- who wanted to be able to meet, would
- be able to have people in their homes--
- very, very different kind of world.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: And I want to touch on that,
- being that there was like, three or four places that people
- mentioned down there that were well
- known to have gay clientele.
- But I want to get your thoughts on--
- being that it was Front Street, being that Front Street was
- very different at night--
- that it was acceptable to have these places down on Front
- Street, but probably not anywhere
- else in the City of Rochester.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: I would
- say that's definitely the case.
- Because on Front Street it was almost like, anything goes.
- People who were very conventional--
- women, for example, looking for used clothing,
- or looking to go to a butcher's, and fish shops,
- and that kind of thing--
- they wouldn't venture there after dark.
- And I don't think it's so much that it's an unusual place,
- but if you think of the collections, if you
- look at the city directory, and look the kinds of stores there,
- they aren't the kinds of stores that they
- would go to anyway at night.
- But I think it was such an unusual, unconventional--
- I don't want to use the word, forgiving,
- because that's the wrong word.
- I would say it's the kind of place where you could be you,
- no matter who you are.
- You could be Chicken George.
- You could be the man who didn't like
- the clothes he was wearing, but he liked the used clothes
- on the mannequin, so he traded clothes with them.
- This actually happened.
- And there would be the Jewish used clothing salesman,
- or owner of the store, who would come out and chase people,
- waving a stick, running down the road.
- In the downtown Rochester of the 1950s and early sixties,
- someone would call the police, and that would be unusual.
- But on Front Street, people ignored it.
- They would take care of their own problems,
- and nothing was unusual.
- And the music is outstanding.
- When I talk to people, even today, people who are in
- places where I give talks on history,
- and they recall Front Street with the greatest fondness.
- Almost like, just bringing up that place
- is like bringing up the memory of a world that is no more.
- And unfortunately, it was the city--
- as other places were doing across the country--
- they were leveling buildings, and trying
- to redevelop their cities, and getting huge federal grants.
- And in doing so, they not only wiped out old buildings,
- but they wiped out a way of life.
- And those people who used to live there
- would have had to scatter to places,
- and no longer have that place where they could collect,
- and that place they could go.
- It was like the end of their world.
- And it's unfortunate, because redevelopment
- was intended to restore.
- If you look at the condition of the buildings,
- especially photographs of the back side--
- the river side-- of those buildings, they were buckling.
- They were threatening to fall into the river.
- You could see they needed to be replaced in a physical sense.
- But to think that you live in one
- of those apartments above these buildings that
- feels like home to you, and to know
- that your world is no more.
- They can't rebuild them and have the same world.
- It's not the same.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You did touch upon something--
- and I don't know if had an opinion on this--
- with the demolition of Front Street
- that forced all of these people to go elsewhere.
- And it was at that time where, particularly mid
- to late sixties, where we started
- seeing these little publicly known gay
- bars popping up around Rochester.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Like, one was called The Glass Onion?
- Something like that?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: One was The Glass Onion.
- There was Dick's on Stone Street.
- So I just want to get your opinion on--
- and how-- the impact of demolishing Front Street,
- and taking away a place where these places were acceptable.
- And then forcing them to go out in the community,
- and how that maybe actually then sparked the first time that--
- wow, all of a sudden gay people are more visible downtown.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Well, I think that's true.
- But I'm not sure they were more visible.
- I've heard people talk about going into a bar
- because they're new in the neighborhood,
- or they happen to be there, and all of a sudden
- they feel like--
- I'm not in the right place.
- And they can't quite put their finger on it.
- But they know that's not where they feel at home.
- So then, I think they learn in that way.
- And friends who had been friends on Front Street
- are going to say, I live in this other neighborhood
- now, let's gather there.
- And eventually they can reassemble.
- And I think when you're looking at urban renewal
- having changed so much of our city, the culture
- that you're talking about changing--
- the gay community-- becoming, in a way, fragmented,
- a little bit disoriented, is very temporary.
- But that urban renewal ran in tandem
- with the expressways being built,
- and not having the effect that was intended,
- which would bring people downtown,
- but rather take them out of the town.
- So urban renewal, which was intended to restore,
- really fragmented and destroyed a lot that we are trying
- to put back now, as in burying part of 490
- now, to get back neighborhoods that they realize now--
- half a century later-- should not have been fragmented
- and cut off like that.
- And it's the same with people.
- And I think they--
- not just in the city, I'm talking nationwide
- with urban renewal--
- they are realizing very late that pulling these communities
- apart hurts the city.
- Because it does fragment them.
- If people know that in their neighborhood
- they can walk to a bar where they feel comfortable,
- they can walk to the local Italian restaurant
- and feel comfortable, that's what builds communities.
- And I think in Rochester, we know that.
- We are restoring those communities,
- and bringing people back to places
- that they can walk in the community.
- And I'm sure that's happening in the gay community
- as well, where there are neighborhood restaurants,
- bars, theaters, places that they can go.
- And now, unlike half a century ago,
- they don't have to feel out of place.
- And I think there's more public awareness of the contributions
- that the gay community has made to the world.
- You hear a lot more of it today in the military
- as well, how many contributions gay people have made--
- in politics as well, because these two
- arenas are so visible.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Again, when we look at the fabric of Rochester
- and who we are--
- a very educated city--
- yeah, we are called Smugtown, but--
- and we're accused a lot of being very conservative.
- But there's two sides of that coin.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Very much.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I think we're also very progressive.
- Well, let's talk about that for a little bit.
- Let's talk about that.
- We have this reputation of being conservative,
- but we're really not.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: We do have a reputation in Rochester
- of being conservative.
- And some people have even called Rochester, Smugtown.
- But while that may be accurate in that people aren't just
- throwing things away, and changing really rapidly,
- they hold on to what they know.
- They're careful about their choices.
- But they are very receptive to new ideas--
- not just new inventions, but new ideas.
- And that's what has made Rochester
- a continuous wave of movements.
- The abolition of slavery, the women's rights movement,
- the gay rights movement-- all of these things
- have centered in Rochester, because Rochester has been
- very receptive to new ideas.
- The reason people think of Rochester
- as so conservative is that they are careful.
- They are deliberate.
- They think very, very carefully about,
- what does this mean if we move from what
- we know to this new idea.
- So migration does take place.
- And historically, it seems rapid.
- But when we look at it in real time, when we're living it,
- it seems like it takes forever.
- It takes over one lifetime.
- Historically, half a century is a blink.
- When we look at Rochester today, for example,
- many people are familiar with how
- Rochester used to be the home of Kodak, Bausch and Lomb, Xerox.
- Those things are changing, and we're
- searching for a new identity.
- But in the nineteenth century when wheat was no longer making
- Rochester the flour city, F-L-O-U-R,
- we became F-L-O-W-E-R city.
- But that wasn't overnight.
- That took the same amount of time
- that it's taking now for the city to find its new identity.
- Today one of the highest employers is education.
- Medical is right behind it.
- And so these kinds of identity changes keep Rochester strong.
- And people who read about these things
- know that Rochester will remain strong.
- And it's those new ideas that--
- almost an encouragement to try something.
- If it fails, it fails.
- Try it again.
- I think that incubator kind of mentality
- that we have here actually encourages
- people to come to Rochester.
- Go ahead and try an idea.
- You might lose a couple hundred thousand,
- but the next idea is going to work.
- Tom Golisano is a good example--
- Paychex.
- I've talked to people, even my husband, who remembers him
- with a clipboard coming personally
- to a gas station, a little drug store, a little store
- here, a little sign shop--
- he did that personally.
- But he grew it into something that is
- huge today from a small idea.
- So we have a lot of confidence.
- In that, you could call us smug, not conservative.
- But we have confidence.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: In looking at the fabric of who we are,
- and the generations that it took for us to become who we are,
- is it any surprise that Rochester
- has a gay alliance organization that is forty years old?
- That it has the oldest gay newspaper in New York State--
- second oldest in the country?
- That it elected the first openly gay official to City Council?
- When you take in consideration all of those things--
- City of Rochester was one of the first
- in the country that passed domestic partnership benefits.
- What does this say about-- again,
- what does it say about Rochester and who we are?
- That these things that in other parts of the country
- would have been strictly taboo, have been so readily
- accepted here.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: I think
- that the fact that in Rochester people
- are so willing to talk about new ideas, to be receptive.
- They already know from the nineteenth century
- on, when you would read in the newspaper,
- editors complaining why when people look at Rochester--
- and they see it elsewhere in newspapers across the state--
- why is it always because we have these new ideas?
- They were referring to abolition.
- But today, people are very receptive to new ideas
- and continuing that history.
- And that dialogue, again, brings ideas out,
- and people begin to think, so what's the problem being gay?
- I've known this person for ten years.
- I've worked with him.
- I know he's a great director.
- I know he's a great manager.
- I know this woman who's been my friend for ten years.
- Now I see that being gay is no different than anyone else.
- And I think that kind of dialogue in Rochester
- has made us very receptive to the new ideas.
- And you see elsewhere in the country,
- people talking about benefits, establishing partnerships--
- life partnerships--
- and husband and wives.
- What does that really mean?
- That creates a struggle in churches.
- Churches are evolving as well.
- I think Rochester continues to be that kind of leader
- because it continues to openly have dialogue
- on whatever major idea is not just
- having an impact on the city, but having an impact
- worldwide today.
- Rochester, I think, is going to continue
- that kind of receptivity and leadership in new ideas.
- I don't know if you're aware that Marion Folsom from Xerox--
- or from Kodak, rather--
- he was borrowed by President Roosevelt
- to help to create the social security system that we know
- today, because Kodak was so advanced in providing
- for its company employees.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: No, I didn't know that.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Yeah.
- There's a Rochester history on that, too-- on Marion Folsom.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: That'll be the next doc.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: So when
- you were asking about Kodak, and what kinds of benefits
- it offered to its people, that gives you an idea
- that it was so much at the forefront and so progressive,
- that Roosevelt took him as one of the leaders
- to help to create social security.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: From a historian's point of view,
- when we're looking, particularly,
- at gay and lesbian history--
- which isn't very old--
- that we know of.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Well, the written and known history
- is not very old, but gay relationships
- are as old as people.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Right.
- But I want your opinion-- as I mentioned earlier,
- we are at a threshold here, that we are just now starting
- to recognize this history.
- And recognizing the fact that it's important to safeguard.
- So from a historian's point of view,
- can you speak to me about this unique, but yet very important,
- opportunity right now of safeguarding this history--
- to start recording it.
- We can go back to like, the 1950s,
- and have a lot of pretty good information
- of gay and lesbian history.
- But a lot of that's also lost.
- A lot of it's hidden in closets.
- A lot of it has not been recorded.
- So the importance of recording this history--
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Well, one
- of the challenges to being able to do research as a historian,
- is being able to have the records to be able to look at.
- And nationwide that may not be such a problem.
- But the more local you become, the more difficult
- and challenging it is to have records.
- If records aren't created, or if they are not
- thought to be important enough to keep to record,
- then the history is lost.
- And you really can't follow those footprints.
- Now today, of course, we have different research methods,
- and we can find a lot of things that we may not have been
- able to find fifty years ago.
- But being able to preserve records,
- not just think of electronic formats as a way
- to preserve them, but to keep them, both in paper
- electronic formats, that can definitely
- be migrated to the next generation of readers.
- I can't tell you how critical that
- is to being able to understand our history.
- So many people think of history as stories and antiquarian
- things--
- objects.
- But it's not.
- History has so much to do with how we perceive things today.
- And it is what we rest our future decisions on.
- So preserving records, gathering them
- into some researchable format, is very, very important.
- And building a library on different subjects
- is tremendously valuable to our history
- and to the general population.
- Particularly, saving history relating to the gay community
- does not just relate to the gay community.
- It is a huge part of the general population.
- It's like that historical fabric that we
- have referred to before.
- It can leave a big hole in our fabric
- if we don't preserve every part of our history.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Just quickly look at my notes here.
- (pause) I think we've covered it.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Very good.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, thank you.
- EVELYN BAILEY: (unintelligible).
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You got something?
- EVELYN BAILEY: I usually don't interrupt,
- but I have a couple questions for you, Ruth.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: OK.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Can you speak a little bit
- about the influence of transportation
- through Rochester on the diversity of the community?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Actually she did speak to that early on.
- EVELYN BAILEY: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You were probably
- on the (unintelligible).
- EVELYN BAILEY: And then do you have
- any information on Vaudeville as an entertainment piece?
- And I think there was a theatre--
- Cook's Theatre?
- Or Cook's Opera House?
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: I don't know specifically.
- But I know we do have a Rochester history on theater.
- And I know that Don Shilling, who's also a local historian--
- he had been a science teacher and administrator--
- he specializes in theaters.
- I know that there was a concentration of theaters
- in downtown Rochester.
- And many of them that migrated into the silent film,
- and then later talkies, had been burlesque houses before.
- And there were a lot of them downtown.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: What are you thinking about?
- What does Vaudeville have to do with--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well, it's a way for members of our community
- who would have been transgender or transsexuals to live a life
- that may not have been the work-- blue collar, but--
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Would have
- been nontraditional lifestyle, right?
- Yeah, because I know often theater people dressed
- differently, acted differently, definitely
- they were night people.
- So their whole world would be similar to what we talked about
- on Front Street.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And did you touch on--
- it's difficult for me to think that Susan B.
- Anthony, Frederick Douglass, did not
- somehow plant tremendous seeds in this community
- toward freedom--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, we talked about it.
- EVELYN BAILEY: OK.
- CREW: Kevin.
- Kevin?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah?
- CREW: Oh, sorry.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You got a question?
- CREW: I'm sorry.
- (pause in recording)
- KEVIN INDOVINO: History-- how do you research the history
- of a community-- gay and lesbian community-- who,
- for most of their history, have purposely tried to hide
- themselves, who have had to live underground, and have had to--
- up until the 1960s, really, and even more so
- within the seventies, they were hidden.
- And that's one of the difficulties of actually trying
- to do a historical project.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: That's
- one of the tremendous values of diaries, letters,
- and personal photographs, and papers, and that kind of thing.
- When you're a historian, the only way you would speculate
- is if you openly say, I am making my best guess here.
- But if people keep their letters, and diaries,
- and that kind of thing, and those
- exist from another century, then you can tell.
- There are some women writers, for example,
- who exchanged letters.
- One of the dangers of making the wrong assessment of what
- you read, is some people have read, for example,
- in Susan B Anthony's letters, where she might sign off,
- "my darling," "my dear."
- I'm not quoting because I don't have
- those letters in front of me.
- But in the nineteenth century, people were very flowery.
- And women spoke to each other in these ways.
- They would say things like, "my dearest,"
- and that kind of thing.
- And today we would look at those and say, well,
- if you say that, then you must be gay.
- But in the nineteenth century, you
- have to be aware enough of what you're
- reading to know that's the way women addressed themselves.
- But if you have diaries or letters that may openly say,
- "we belong together," or "let's get together
- because that's where we can be ourselves" or something--
- you just have to be careful about the speculation.
- And you may never know.
- But I also have this theory that nothing totally disappears.
- That if we learn the right way to access the material,
- if we get the right material, there is nothing
- that you can't learn.
- That next piece of research is going to give you your answer.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Same kind of question,
- slightly different angle.
- Because a lot of this was so hidden, and a lot of people
- didn't keep diaries, and they didn't keep letters--
- or if they did, when these people passed on,
- that was all thrown out.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Sometimes
- interviews from people will shed light on someone, too.
- For example, Errol Flynn, Sr. was known to have been gay.
- Charlie Chaplin may have been bi.
- So these are things that come from interviews
- with other people who knew them very well.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: But the question here is--
- and it goes back to an earlier question about, again,
- the importance of seeking out this history now,
- because a lot of it was lost.
- But getting it out of people's closets--
- getting it, finding out where this history is, so
- that we can record it and have it saved.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: I think
- it's critical now more than ever to gather the material
- that we can in a very broad cast net.
- Because we don't have the time to look
- at every piece of information to know that that is of value
- or not.
- We need to be able to store those things electronically,
- to make them accessible to people who are doing research.
- But we need to gather them now.
- Because more and more you hear--
- not just young people, but libraries
- that are cramped for space, or museums that focus narrowly,
- and they get rid of everything else.
- I've seen things on eBay disappear from our area.
- And if you're a researcher looking
- at Rochester, or Rochester area, or even upstate New York,
- you're not going to look in California or Florida,
- where somebody who used to live here
- bought something off of eBay that should have stayed here.
- Now it's somewhere else.
- So if you grab it now, or even make
- some kind of broadcast request, that anything that
- relates to Rochester, could you share it with us, at least
- electronically.
- I think that's critical.
- A library for research is critical for our future.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Alright.
- Thank you.
- RUTH ROSENBERG NAPARSTECK: Thank you.