Before Stonewall Summary: Charlotte Cooper Clip 3 of 4

From the collection of

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton collects, preserves, catalogues and provides public access to its collection of films and magic lantern slides. The collection charts the rise of screen culture in the region and the nation and captures many aspects of life, work and creativity in the South East from the late 19th century to the present day. It is available for research, screenings, creative re-use and commercial access.

Before Stonewall Summary: Charlotte Cooper Clip 3 of 4

Screen Archive South East at the University of Brighton
2003-07-31
Sound

Now asked to say what she learned from 'Before Stonewall', Charlotte admits that the diversity of voices and experiences could be overwhelming.

In this extract, Charlotte Cooper reflects on what she learned while working on GLAM's 'Before Stonewall' oral history project.

Entering into people's homes required a respectful attitude as well as a lot of travelling, and Charlotte mentions that she picked up a lot of social skills along the way. Many of the stories that she heard left her humbled and amazed at the ability of ordinary people to survive a variety of desperate hardships and terrible situations or events, and such moving accounts, some reducing her to tears, were matched by other life - stories that were joyously ribald, hilarious and surprising at the same time.

Charlotte greatly appreciated the bravery of the participants when speaking explicitly about sex and she admits that she learned a lot from the men, especially realising how important the 'cottaging' scene was to many of the participants in an era when other legitimate meeting places were lacking.

She also made it clear to the participants that she was not a 'gay crusader' and indeed felt pretty cynical about the concept of a 'gay community', further commenting that the so - called and nowadays highly commercialised 'gay lifestyle' is not all that it's cracked up to be. For Charlotte, being offered that short window into other people's lives was both a humbling and life - affirming experience

GLAM: Before Stonewall (2003-2004) was an oral history project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to document the life experiences of older gay men and women from all regions of the UK.

The project was organised and run by the Gay and Lesbian Arts and Media, or GLAM, who hired and trained a team of volunteers to record over one hundred interviews with participants aged 55 and older.

The aim of the project was to create a visual and oral record of the experiences of gay men and women – moving gradually from the days of oppression, criminalisation and punishment towards the liberalisation enjoyed today.

GLAM was a Brighton-based arts and media organisation that offered a wide range of services, classes and activities to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities until its closure in 2004 due to funding issues.

GLAM Before Stonewall: LGBT Oral History Project

This fascinating and important collection, recorded onto videotape, contains the testimonies, in the form of interviews, from individuals of varying ages, backgrounds and ethnicities from across the LGBT community.

‘Before Stonewall: An Oral History of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community’ was a Heritage Lottery Funded project organised in 2003 by a Brighton-based organisation 'Gay and Lesbian Arts and Media', otherwise known as GLAM. The project sought to record for posterity the first-hand recollections of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from across the United Kingdom and beyond, of a time before the events in New York’s Greenwich Village which culminated in the Stonewall Riots of 1969. This was a time which was very different, and in many respects more oppressive for homosexual and transgender people, than the one we’re familiar with today. This fascinating and important collection, recorded onto videotape, contains the testimonies, in the form of interviews, of over one-hundred individuals of varying ages, backgrounds and ethnicities from across the LGBT community. With recollections that reach back as far as the 1920s, what all of the interviews describe and reveal is the whole gamut of human experience, from the deeply tragic to the exhilaratingly joyous - all from the perspectives of a section of society that has often been considered to be ‘different from the others’. Journalist Charlotte Cooper, who worked for the gay press at the time, co-ordinated the project’s video-recording with volunteers and conducted many of the interviews herself. Charlotte describes her time on the project as both a revelatory and profoundly moving experience. Screen Archive South East has made available from across this collection a total of eighty four extracts from thirty individual interviews. Together they give an insightful and first-hand account of what life was like for LGBT people, both in the United Kingdom and abroad, and in both the years before Stonewall and after.

75 videos in this collection

Before Stonewall Summary: Charlotte Cooper Clip 1 of 4

2003-07-31

Before Stonewall Summary: Charlotte Cooper Clip 2 of 4

2003-07-31