Remaking History: Lesbian Feminist Historical Methods in the Digital Humanities

[pp 132-133:] "Drawing on the historiographic practices of Jeanette Howard Foster in the 1950s, Barbara Grier in the 1960s, Lillian Faderman in the 1980s, and Dell Richards in 1990, we argue that the accumulation of data and the rhetorical structuring of those data (in these examples often as a list, a much ignored data format) serve as important acts of lesbian self- definition, self- definition that resists the erasure of women’s history by mainstream culture and the definition of the lesbian self in relation to men. This listing, or amassing of data, situates lesbian researchers as the heirs of the history that they create. This ordering of data in self- definitional work, even in the face of the increased attention, or even surveillance, that it might bring, is an important corrective to lesbian histories that are often framed as an afterthought in gay men’s histories, or worse, are ignored altogether."