Madeline Davis

Madeline Davis (July 7, 1940 – April 28, 2021) was an American LGBT activist and historian. In 1970 she was a founding member of the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier, the first gay rights organization in Western New York. Davis became the first openly lesbian delegate at a major party national convention, speaking at the 1972 Democratic National Convention. The same year, she taught with Margaret Small the first course on lesbianism in the United States, titled "Lesbianism 101" at the University at Buffalo. Along with teaching, Davis helped found the "Women's Studies college at UB", which is now named the "Global Gender and Sexuality Studies Department".

In 1993, she co-authored Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community, a history of gay women in Buffalo, New York, that won awards from the American Sociological Association, the American Anthropological Association and the Lambda Literary Foundation. She also participated in the founding of the HAG Theatre Company, the first all-lesbian theater company in the U.S., in 1994.

Early life

Madeline Davis was born in Buffalo, New York, on July 7, 1940, to a factory worker at Ford Motor plant and a homemaker, Harriet, who had attended nursing school. She was the oldest of three children and described a happy upbringing in Buffalo's East Side, describing herself as a "nice Jewish girl".

At 16 she got a job at the North Jefferson branch of the Buffalo Public Library. She graduated from Bennett High School in 1958 and earned a college scholarship, where she got a job working as a page at Lockwood Memorial Library. In the 1960s Davis graduated with a degree in English and a Master of Library and Science degree from the University at Buffalo. Around this time, Davis also began singing regularly at Buffalo's beatnik coffeehouses and.

Politics and research

Davis was a founder of the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier in 1970 and eventually became president of the organization. She began by organizing a library for the group but, lacking publications, she and other members created Fifth Freedom, the earliest magazine for the LGBT community in western New York. In the 1970s, Davis organized "Legislative Night", at which local candidates for public office, for the first time in Buffalo political history, answered questions and sought endorsements. Davis marched and spoke at the first gay rights rally at the New York State Capitol in 1971, and participated in the original effort to lobby that state's legislature on behalf of the gay rights movement. As part of the Political Action Committee of Mattachine, she confronted the Buffalo Vice Squad on the issue of entrapment and gay bar raids.

In 1972, she became the first openly lesbian delegate in a major political convention when she was elected as a George McGovern delegate for New York's 37th Congressional district to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Miami, Florida. At the DNC, Davis was the first lesbian to urge the party to include gay rights as part of the 1972 platform of the Democratic Party. Davis became a member of the Democratic Committee, and worked within the party for the acceptance of gays and lesbians.

In 1972, while studying for a master's degree in women's history, Davis, with Margaret Small, taught the first course on lesbianism in the United States: "Lesbianism 101" in the American studies department at the University of Buffalo. About 20 students enrolled and up to another 20 audited the course. Davis taught a renamed version of the course, "Woman + Woman", in 1978, with a focus on lesbian history. The interview tapes from this course's final project were used as a foundation for the Buffalo Women's Oral History Project, begun in 1978, seeking to document the lives of older lesbians.

In 1973, Davis organized a Pride workshop for friends and families of gays and lesbians, which later became the local PFLAG chapter and continued to chair yearly Pride workshops on GLBT history and culture. The day before the 1976 DNC, she spoke at a protest near Madison Square Garden about the criminalization of homosexuality.

In 1988, she addressed the American Library Association's 95th conference, on AIDS in the workplace. Davis lectured on women's history, sex, and gender issues at a number of universities.

In 1993, with Elizabeth L. Kennedy, Davis co-authored Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community, gathering 14 years of research into the history of gay women in Buffalo from the 1930s to the 1960s. Based on oral histories of 45 women, the book won awards from the American Sociological Association, the American Anthropological Association and the Lambda Literary Foundation, and was reprinted on its 20th anniversary. Davis published numerous journal and magazine articles on sexuality and women's history, as well as short stories and poetry.

In 2001, Davis founded the Buffalo Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Archives, which collects and preserves the history of Buffalo and western New York's gay communities. The archives were moved to the E. H. Butler Library at Buffalo State College in 2009 and called the Dr. Madeline Davis LGBTQ Archive of Western New York. The archives house the largest collection of LGBTQ+ documents in the region. Retired in 1995 from her day job as a chief conservator and head of preservation in the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library System, Davis worked as a writer, archivist, historian, political activist, and director of the archives.

In 2009, Davis was the subject of the documentary film Swimming with Lesbians, directed by David B. Marshall. The documentary outlined her work with the archives as well as her personal life and that of her close friends. The film won the Mary Elizabeth Knight Award (a juried award for best local film) at the 2009 ImageOUT film festival in Rochester, New York.