Series S3 - Labour Activism

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Labour Activism

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CA ON0034 10-117-S3

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18.6 cm of Textual Records
26 Illustrations : b&w

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Gay Bell is a feminist lesbian, prisoners' rights, and labour movement activist and a founding member of the Lesbian Organization of Toronto (LOOT), Canada's first-ever space for lesbian community development. She is also a writer and performance artist, and played a role in numerous queer theatrical events of the 1970s in 80s, both behind the scenes and onstage. In addition to scripting plays an performance, Gay Bell was a frequent contributor to The Body Politic, Canada's first Gay Liberation periodical. As a labour activist, Bell contributed to queer positive initiatives within the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Canadian Labour Congress. As a Prisoners' Rights activist, Bell corresponded with incarcerated women and worked to have their art displayed for the public through her involvement with A Space Gallery in Toronto. Bell was also involved with the Prisoner's Justice Day Committee in Ontario.

In a retrospective missive included with rough notes from her one-women performance piece "I Am Quilty," Bell explains that the play "indicates the internal struggle I was having between joining the Socialist movement, in which there were some very strong women leaders, and working politically and culturally in the lesbian movement (what the Socialists called radical feminism). I wouldn't say I ever came to a final conclusion, but ended up most comfortable in the progressive artists' community. These artists worked around A Space Gallery, FUSE magazine, the artists' union and so on." She adds that "This is the first artistic piece I did so it's very rough and uncertain, but there wasn't really much lesbian art in Toronto at the time so I was kind of a precursor."

Gay Bell's collected material is thus representative of the budding lesbian movement in Toronto, as well as its intersection with other radical artistic and political movements that sought social justice throughout the 1970s and 80s.
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Gay Bell est une lesbienne féministe, une militante des droits des prisonniers et du mouvement syndical, et un membre fondateur de la Lesbian Organization of Toronto (LOOT), le tout premier espace de développement de la communauté lesbienne au Canada. Elle est également écrivain et artiste de performance, et a joué un rôle dans de nombreux événements théâtraux queer des années 1970 et 1980, à la fois dans les coulisses et sur scène. Outre l'écriture de pièces de théâtre et de spectacles, Gay Bell a fréquemment contribué à The Body Politic, le premier périodique de libération gay au Canada. En tant que militant syndical, Bell a contribué à des initiatives queer positives au sein du Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique et du Congrès du travail du Canada. En tant que militante des droits des prisonniers, Bell a correspondu avec des femmes incarcérées et s'est efforcée d'exposer leurs œuvres d'art au public par le biais de sa participation à la A Space Gallery à Toronto. Elle s'est également impliquée dans le comité de la Journée de la justice pour les prisonniers en Ontario.

Dans une missive rétrospective jointe aux notes brutes de sa performance solo "I Am Quilty", Bell explique que la pièce "indique la lutte interne que je menais entre l'adhésion au mouvement socialiste, dans lequel il y avait des femmes dirigeantes très fortes, et le travail politique et culturel dans le mouvement lesbien (ce que les socialistes appelaient le féminisme radical). Je ne dirais pas que je suis arrivée à une conclusion définitive, mais j'ai fini par me sentir plus à l'aise dans la communauté des artistes progressistes. Ces artistes travaillaient autour de la galerie A Space, du magazine FUSE, du syndicat des artistes, etc. Elle ajoute : "C'est la première œuvre artistique que j'ai réalisée, elle est donc très brute et incertaine, mais il n'y avait pas vraiment d'art lesbien à Toronto à l'époque, j'étais donc une sorte de précurseur."

Le matériel recueilli par Gay Bell est donc représentatif du mouvement lesbien naissant à Toronto, ainsi que de son intersection avec d'autres mouvements artistiques et politiques radicaux qui recherchaient la justice sociale dans les années 1970 et 1980.

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This file contains records related to Gay Bell's involvement with LGBTQ+ initiative in the Canadian Union for Public Employees (CUPE) and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), such as the CUPE Pink Triangle Committee. Bell also collected records related to immigrant workers' rights, cleaners' rights, sex workers' rights, and particularly the labour struggles enacted by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). Judging by the records, Bell was particularly concerned with the working conditions of women whose labour was socially devalued, such as office and hotel cleaners, nursing attendants, garment workers, and mothers on welfare. The series also contains records related to skills training for women, ESL, and workplace reproductive hazards.

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