Deborah Edel (born June 23, 1944) is an American activist, archivist, and psychologist. She is best known for co-founding the

Lesbian Herstory Archives The Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) is a New York City-based archive, community center, and museum dedicated to preserving history of lesbianism, lesbian history, located in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The Archives contain the world's largest collection ...

with

Joan Nestle Joan Nestle (born May 12, 1940) is a Lambda Award-winning writer and editor and a founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. She is openly lesbian and sees her work of archival work as critical to her identity as "a woman, as a lesbian, and as a ...

Biography

Deborah Edel was born on June 23, 1944, to anthropologist May Mandelbaum Edel and philosopher

Abraham Edel Abraham Edel (6 December 1908 – 22 June 2007) was a North American philosopher and ethics, ethicist. He was the younger brother of the North American literary critic and biographer Leon Edel, and the uncle of the composer Joel Mandelbaum. He ...

. She had one brother, Matthew, and after her mother's death in 1964, her father remarried philosopher Elizabeth Flower. Her uncle was writer and historian

Leon Edel Joseph Leon Edel (1907 – 1997) was an American/Canadian literary critic and biographer. He was the elder brother of North American philosopher Abraham Edel. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' calls Edel "the foremost 20th-century authority ...

. In the 1970s, Edel worked as a psychologist for children with learning disabilities at the Coney Island Hospital, and in 1985 began working at the Mary Macdowell Friends School in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. In 1974, she and her then-partner, Joan Nestle, started the Lesbian Herstory Archives after being inspired by a women's

consciousness raising Consciousness raising (also called awareness raising) is a form of activism popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group on some cause or ...

group of the Gay Academic Union. The collections of the archive were first housed in an apartment shared by Edel and Nestle on the

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper We ...

, and along with Judith Schwartz, they served as the first official coordinators of the archive. The collection was moved to a brownstone in

Park Slope Park Slope is a neighborhood in South Brooklyn, New York City, within the area once known as South Brooklyn. Park Slope is roughly bounded by Prospect Park (Brooklyn), Prospect Park and Eighth Avenue (Brooklyn), Prospect Park West to the east, ...

in 1993 after it became too large for the apartment. In the 1970s, Edel helped form a Lesbian Illness Support Group, inspired by

consciousness-raising groups Consciousness raising (also called awareness raising) is a form of activism popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group on some cause or ...

as well as a workshop by

Audre Lorde Audre Lorde ( ; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, professor, philosopher, Intersectional feminism, intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "Bl ...

and her partner, Frances Clayton. She contributed a short piece about her mother's death and her experience with her partner's illness to a special edition of ''

off our backs ''Off Our Backs'' (stylized in all lowercase; ''oob'') was an American radical feminist periodical that ran from 1970 to 2008, making it the longest-running feminist periodical in the United States. Marilyn Salzman-Webb and Marlene Wicks we ...

'' about women with disabilities. Edel and Nestle also gave a presentation on the Lesbian Herstory Archives at the controversial 1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Edel, Deborah 1944 births Living people 20th-century American LGBTQ people 20th-century American psychologists 20th-century American women American archivists American LGBTQ women American women psychologists American women archivists Lesbian history in the United States LGBTQ archivists LGBTQ psychologists American LGBTQ rights activists