Audiocassette player required to access taped interviews.
The Hera Oral History Project was spearheaded by Dr. Valerie Quinney of the History Department of the University of Rhode Island in the summer of 1988.
The Hera Gallery was founded in 1974 in Wakefield, Rhode Island as a small non-profit arts organization to serve as a venue for women artists, who were often under-represented at the time in commercial galleries. The founding of the gallery in the early mid-1970s, however, was also viewed as a political statement that reflected the feminist social movement of the time. Even the name, Hera, which comes from the Greek, refers to a wife who makes things uncomfortable, can be seen as a reflection of the feminist movement among the woman artists of South County.
For the founding members of the Hera Gallery, however, the gallery was meant to be a safe place to gather and create art. The difficulty women artists faced when searching for a sponsoring gallery, the lack of training in commercial art for women, and their treatment in the art world contributed to the feeling among women artists living in South County that they needed a cooperative art gallery in which to display their work. The gallery also served as a place where its members could engage in conscious-raising as a group, organize poetry readings and conduct classes in different art forms, such as printmaking.
Open for research.
Terms governing use and reproduction: Photocopying and scanning of materials is a fee based service available in the repository and is allowed at the discretion of the Archivist when in compliance to the Unit's policy on copyright and publication.
Hera Gallery Oral History Project, Mss. Gr. 64, University of Rhode Island Special Collections.
The interviews in this collection represent not only the recollections about the Hera Gallery, but also a personal history of the feminist movement among women artists in the South County of Rhode Island during the 1970s and 80s.
Each audiocassette tape is accompanied by release forms and an abbreviated transcript that also provides a general topic overview of the interview, a biographical sketch of the interviewee, and interviewer’s comments.
After processing, the records were organized into one series as follows:
Open for research.
The collection was transferred by Valerie Quinney of the University of Rhode Island History Department on October 10, 1988.
The collection was previously held by Valerie Quinney.
The collection was processed by Kevin J. Logan in 1988.
Terms governing use and reproduction: Photocopying and scanning of materials is a fee based service available in the repository and is allowed at the discretion of the Archivist when in compliance to the Unit's policy on copyright and publication.
There are no known related materials.
No materials were separated during processing.
This series contains audiocassette taped interviews accompanied by release forms and abbreviated transcripts. The transcripts provide a general topic overviews, biographical sketches of the interviewees, and interviewer’s comments. An index of terms frequently used is at the beginning of this series.
The series is arranged in alphabetical order by interviewee and each folder contains tapes, transcripts, and release forms.