A historical marker erected in Dayton, Ohio's Cooper Park near the downtown library is the state's first to indicate a person's sexual orientation, the Dayton Daily News reports:
"She may be the most famous Daytonian unknown to Daytonians, but now Natalie Barney — literary patron and lesbian author who lived most of her life in Paris — has her own Ohio Historical Marker near the downtown library. The marker was unveiled Sunday, Oct. 25, in a ceremony at Cooper Park attended by city commissioners, Ohio Historical Society officials and members of state and Dayton area gay rights organizations, which led the effort to recognize Barney for both her place in history and her pioneering openness about her sexuality...Barney’s writings supported feminism, paganism and pacifism. In 1900, she published her first book of lesbian love poems, “Quelques Portraits-Sonnets de Femmes,” all copies of which her disapproving father purchased and destroyed. That same year, she began holding literary salons in her apartment on the Left Bank.
During the next 60 years, many of the greatest writers and artists of the 20th century were frequent guests there, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Elliot, Isadora Duncan, Sinclair Lewis and Truman Capote. She used her wealth to promote many of them.
Dayton librarian and Dayton historian Leon Bey speaks about the marker and its installation at its unveiling over the weekend, AFTER THE JUMP...
I hope they had to good sense to install a video surveillance camera aimed at the marker. As with the Matthew Sheppard bench, I wonder how long it will take for this to get trashed by some Neo-nazi wing-nut.
Posted by: Rad | Oct 26, 2009 11:22:12 AM
I was also born in Dayton and am a retired school librarian. What does the actual text of the marker say?
Posted by: Gayle Keresey | Oct 26, 2009 4:56:07 PM
Technicality: other markers that mention heterosexual spouses do state, if implicitly, the sexual orientation of the subjects. It's really great the way Ohio is openly recognizing such important aspects of her life.
Posted by: JT | Oct 26, 2009 8:28:56 PM
the sign reads:
natalie clifford barney was born in dayton on october 31, 1876. her family was wealthy and industrious, including her great grandfather who founded the dayton academy, cooper female seminary, and dayton car works. natalie, who knew that she was a lesbian by age twelve, lived an outspoken and independent life unusual for a woman of this time period. her openness and pride about her sexuality, without shame, was at least one hundred years ahead of its time. she published 'some portrait-sonnets of women,' a book of love poems to women under her own name in 1900. american painter romaine brooks was barney's partner and companion for fifty years.
Posted by: zach | Oct 27, 2009 4:47:51 PM