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Cain, Shannon, November 3, 2004
Scope and Contents
This interview was conducted by Tamar Carroll over the telephone on November 3, 2004 with Shannon Cain. Carroll made notes but the interview was not recorded. Cain discusses her background in feminism and activism, her introduction to Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!), and her experiences as a member of WHAM!. She explains that she learned about WHAM! in 1991 and describes her experience at WHAM!'s Chain of Fools action in Columbus Circle. She describes the energy of the WHAM! meetings and the different types of people she met. She discusses the way in which WHAM! meetings worked, her work as treasurer for a year, specific direct actions created by WHAM!, and her work with abortion clinic defense. She also discusses her work with Action Tours, an affinity group formed with WHAM! and AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) members.
Biographical Note
Shannon Cain, born 1964, is an activist, writer, and visual artist. She lived in New York City between 1988 and 1995 and was a member of Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!) from 1991 to 1994.
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Curtis, Diane, July 19, 2004
Scope and Contents
This interview was conducted by Tamar Carroll on July 19, 2004 at an unspecified location. The interview was recorded in a crowded location and is often hard to understand, as there is a lot of background noise. The interview covers Diane Curtis's membership and participation in the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and the Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!). Curtis discusses her introduction to activism in the early 1980s when she came out as a lesbian and became involved in gay rights issues, first in California and then after her move to New York City (NYC) in 1985, and the way in which ACT UP's use of the Silence=Death posters led her to join the organization. She discusses the way in which the Webster v. Reproductive Health Services Supreme Court decision in 1989 crystallized for her how abortion rights were not safe and that this decision led her to join the Reproductive Rights Coalition (RRC). She discusses the differences between members of the RRC who belonged to more conservative organizations and younger members coming from ACT UP, and how this led to the creation of WHAM!. She explains the way WHAM! meetings worked, the fact that they used Robert's Rules of Order to run the meetings, and the ways in which this made it difficult for people to hijack meetings and made it easier for more shy people to participate. Other topics include WHAM! agendas apart from abortion access, the similarities between ACT UP and WHAM!, and the way in which WHAM! affected the later careers of its members, including Curtis.
Biographical Note
Diane Curtis is a professor of legal studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She was a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and a member and co-founder of the Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!). She graduated from New York University and received her law degree from New York University School of Law.
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Davis, Susan, March 3, 2004
Scope and Contents
This interview was conducted by Tamar Carroll on March 3, 2004 at an unspecified location. The interview follows Susan Davis's involvement with the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (CESA), which later became the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse (CARASA). Lastly, the interview details her time with the Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!).
Davis explains that she became politically active because of the Vietnam War, discussing the ways in which protests enlivened her historical, sociological, and feminist ideals and propelled her to participate in women's health causes. She discusses her membership in the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (CESA) and her role as a founding member of the successor to CESA, the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse (CARASA) in 1977. She explains how both CARASA and CESA were instrumental in bringing about federal sterilization guidelines in 1979. Davis also discusses her participation in the founding of WHAM! in 1989, direct actions in which she participated during her membership in WHAM!.
An electronic transcript of this interview is also available by request.
Biographical Note
Susan Davis was born in Rochester, New York and was raised by her mother. Davis grew up surrounded by feminist ideology. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts in 1964. She was a member of the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (CESA), a founding member of the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse (CARASA), and a member of Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!).
Conditions Governing Use
By agreement, use of this interview is restricted for scholarly purposes only and only in the interests of advancing women's reproductive rights. It may not be used to denigrate or malign women or their struggle for reproductive freedom.
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de Mause, Neil and Mindy Nass, October 15, 2005
Scope and Contents
This interview was conducted by Tamar Carroll on October 15, 2005 at an unspecified location. The interview focuses on Mindy Nass and Neil de Mause's activism in the late 1980s into the late 1990s centered around Brooklyn, New York and their work with Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!) on reproductive freedoms and rights. In the interview, Nass and de Mause discuss how they got into activism, how they met, what committees they worked on, individual experiences within WHAM! among other activist organizations, and other people they worked with in the scope of their activism.
The audio of the interviews degrades at certain points and there is substantive background noise throughout the interview.
Biographical Note
Neil de Mause was a political activist who was primarily involved in reproductive freedom activism in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. de Mause attended Wesleyan University and became involved in civil disobedience in 1989. He lived in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York and it was there he was introduced to the activist group Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!). He was an early member of the Reproductive Rights Coalition and was heavily involved in the production of the WHAM! Newsletter.
Mindy Nass was a political activist in the late 1980s and 1990s in Brooklyn. Nass received her undergraduate degree from the State University of New York at Albany and entered the Graduate School at Hunter College in 1992. She became involved in reproductive rights activism during her time as an undergraduate. She joined the National Organization for Women (NOW), and took a course at the Learning Alliance on Women's Activism. After college, she became involved in WHAM! serving on the Newsletter Committee for WHAM!. Nass met de Mause, whom she later married.
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Dorow, Heidi, April 13, 2004
Scope and Contents
This interview was conducted by Tamar Carroll on April 13, 2004 at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan, New York. In this interview, Heidi Dorrow begins by describing her move to New York City from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts in order to become involved with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Dorrow goes on to describe her involvement in demonstrations and educational events planned by ACT UP in New York City and in the eastern United States, her eventual split with ACT UP over ideological differences related to the scope of the organization's activism and its relationship to other reproductive health and reproductive justice issues, and her involvement in early activism by Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!).
An electronic transcript of this interview is also available by request.
Biographical Note
Heidi Dorow attended school at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts until she relocated to New York City in the summer of 1988. She was involved in AIDS activism and civil disobedience through the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!).
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Griffin, Brian, March 16, 2004
Scope and Contents Note
This interview was conducted by Tamar Carroll on March 16, 2004 at an unspecified location. In the interview, Brian Griffin discusses his involvement with Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!), the group's activities, and its dissipation. Griffin also discusses the gay community during the AIDS crisis and his involvement with AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). Much of the interview concerns the Church Ladies for Choice, a group of gay activists who dressed in drag and counter protested anti-abortion demonstrations, including their formation and specific activities.
An electronic transcript of this interview is also available by request.
Biographical Note
Brian Griffin is a gay rights and women's rights activist. After receiving a graduate degree in mixed media art from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989, Griffin moved to New York City. There, he became involved in the activist organizations AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!). He was a central member of the Church Ladies for Choice in the early 1990s, an organization that he continued to be involved with through the taping of this interview.
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Kaltman, Elizabeth -- Interview Notes, August 31, 2004
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Luciano, Dana -- Transcript, September 20, 2004
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Matuschka, July 19, 2005
Scope and Contents
This interview was conducted at Matuschka's apartment by Tamar Carroll on July 19, 2005. The interview covers Matuschka's introduction to activism, her experiences with breast cancer and how it led to her joining Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!), and her experiences with WHAM!. Matuschka discusses her breast cancer diagnosis in 1991, her malpractice suit against her doctor, and the art and articles she created as a result. She relates her experiences with different breast cancer and women's organizations in New York City, including SHARE, 1 in 9, the National Organization for Women (NOW), National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations (NABCO), and WHAM!. She describes her artwork and the direct actions she helped create at WHAM!, all designed around focusing on bringing people's attention to the realities of breast cancer and educating women from diverse racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds about breast cancer. Matuschka discusses her decision to focus on WHAM! and the differences between WHAM! and SHARE, in particular, including the issues on which each focused and the way each organization functioned.
An electronic transcript of this interview is also available by request.
Biographical Note
Matuschka, born Joanne Motichka in 1957, is a photographer and former member of Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!). In 1991, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy. While in chemotherapy, she learned that a lumpectomy could have been performed but that her doctor did not inform her of this option. She brought a medical malpractice suit against her doctor and became involved with a number of breast cancer and women's organizations, including SHARE, 1 in 9, the National Organization for Women (NOW), National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations (NABCO), and WHAM!.
Conditions Governing Use
This interview is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the interview in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the Matushka or her estate.
By agreement, any usage of Matushka's works/words whereby commercial gain is applied, or will be derived, her estate, or she must be compensated, notified, and are to receive copies of the published work.
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Meixell, Elizabeth, January 24, 2004
Scope and Contents
This interview was conducted by Tamar Carroll on January 24, 2004 at an unspecified location. The interview details Elizabeth Meixell's involvement with Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!) and allied organizations AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and the Church Ladies for Choice, the latter being especially important to WHAM!'s activism. Meixell explains that despite being a Roman Catholic and lifelong Republican, she became a pro-choice activist after moving to New York City in the 1980s. She explains that her awareness of left-leaning activism began in the 1970s, as a college student in her 30s at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where she took courses in gender and labor history. Meixell discusses the challenges of organizing demonstrations in New York City and of interacting with law enforcement during protests. She also recalls counterprotests from pro-life organizations, including Lesbians for Life (later the Pro-Life Alliance for Gays and Lesbians).
This interview contains an anti-Black epithet; it appears on page 16 of the transcript and at 20:32 in the audio.
An electronic transcript of this interview is also available by request.
Biographical Note
Elizabeth Meixell was born in 1945, the oldest of seven children. She attended the State University of New York at Buffalo and moved to New York City in the 1980s. She was a member of Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!).
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Morgan, Tracy, April 5, 2004
Scope and Contents
This interview was conducted by Tamar Carroll on April 5, 2004 at an unspecified location. The interview covers Tracy Morgan's involvement in the creation of Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!) in 1989, differences in women's rights activism between different generations of activists, how WHAM! solidified the abortion rights movement into the reproductive rights movement, and Morgan's work with AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), which intertwined with the work being done by WHAM!. Morgan discusses the ways in which WHAM! aimed to have a new activist identity for a younger generation of women's reproductive health activists and WHAM!'s focus on eye-catching demonstrations that used activists's bodies as sites of protest, at times causing arrest. She explains that being involved with ACT UP led her to become an activist for reproductive and sexual health for all, not just for women.
An electronic transcript of this interview is also available by request.
Biographical Note
Tracy Morgan was a founding member of Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!) and AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP).
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Ramspacher, Karen, March 5, 2004
Scope and Contents
This interview was conducted by Tamar Carroll on March 5, 2004 at an unspecified location. The interview largely focuses on Karen Ramspacher's work as a reproductive rights activist in New York City from 1988 to 1994. Ramspacher's interview revolves around her time as a member of Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!), as well as her association with other New York-based activist groups such as AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP), Church Ladies For Choice, Community Health Project, National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), Reproductive Rights Coalition (RRC), and Treatment Action Group (TAG). She discusses beginning her involvement in activist movements shortly after graduating college in 1987, joining ACT UP, and participating in their meetings and actions over the next several years. She explains how inspired by the direct action techniques of ACT UP, she joined the RRC and subsequently became a member of WHAM! in 1989. Ramspacher recounts participating in clinic escorting and defending, but explains that her main focus with WHAM! was organizing public protests and advocating for and performing self-help gynecology. She discusses how her participation in direct activism lessened after 1993, when her time shifted to providing direct care for friends with AIDS. Topics discussed in detail include New York's activist environment in the 1980s and 1990s; social, gender, and generational dynamics within WHAM!; WHAM! actions and organizational structure; and the role of radical politics in activist groups and society.
An electronic transcript of this interview is also available by request.
Biographical Note
Karen Ramspacher is a reproductive rights activist in New York City. She was an active member of the Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!) from 1989-1993, and was also a member of the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP), the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), Treatment Action Group (TAG), the Reproductive Rights Coalition (RRC), and the Community Health Project. At the time of the interview, Ramspacher worked in the television industry.
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Shaw, Susan, July 26, 2004
Scope and Contents
This interview was conducted by Tamar Carroll in Northampton, MA on July 26, 2004. The interview covers Susan Shaw's involvement in Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!) and the women's health issues that were of interest to her during her involvement in WHAM!. Shaw describes the way in which she became interested in activism, beginning in high school during Ronald Reagan's presidency and her focus on the United States' involvement in Central America and the movement to end apartheid in South Africa. She describes her introduction to WHAM! in 1991 or 1992, after she finished college and moved to New York City. She relates the excitement she felt at the way WHAM! was focusing on different issues of women's health, particularly because she was not interested in the clinic defense movement and was glad to have other topics to focus on, in particular sterilization abuses, women with AIDS, and health issues faced by women of color. She discusses the fact that WHAM! was mainly white, college-educated people, many of whom were lesbians, that they wanted to form coalitions with groups that reflected them but Shaw wanted to broaden the coalitions to groups of different races and classes. She also discusses her work on the New Member Packet for WHAM!, in the interest of making the organization easier for people to join and understand. Other topics include Shaw's work at the People with AIDS Coalition and the skills she learned at WHAM! and how she still used them in her work at the time of the interview.
An electronic transcript of this interview is also available by request.
Biographical Note
Susan Shaw is a former member of Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!) and the People with AIDS Coalition. At the time of the interview, she lived in Michigan.
Conditions Governing Use
By agreement, any names mentioned in the interview of WHAM! members are to be transcribed anonymously.
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WHAM! Group Interview, December 16, 2005
Scope and Contents
This interview was conducted by Tamar Carroll at an unspecified location on December 16, 2005. The interview was recorded on video. Charles K. Alexander II, Mark Jacquinot, and Mary Anne Staniszewski discuss their backgrounds, what drew them to Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!), and their experiences in WHAM!. All three were involved in the Reproductive Rights Coalition (RRC) and were members of WHAM! from its beginning. Alexander and Staniszewski describe the beginnings of WHAM! as the direct action committee of RRC and how it eventually separated to become its own organization. They discuss the differences between the two organizations and their preference for WHAM! and its philosophy. Jacquinot and Alexander discuss their work in abortion clinic defense and protests in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s.
Biographical Note
Charles K. Alexander II is labor leader, socialist, feminist, and women's rights activist. He is a former member of Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!), Freedom Socialist Party, Radical Women, Reproductive Rights Coalition. In the 1980s, he was a shop steward in an unspecified labor union at New York University.
Mark Jacquinot is a lawyer and former member of WHAM!. Jacquinot lived in Iowa in the 1970s and was a founder and secretary-treasurer of Crisis in Iowa, a member of the Ames Pro-Choice Coalition, before moving to Buffalo, NY in 1984 to attend law school and moving to New York City in 1988.
Mary Anne Staniszewski is an art and cultural historian, and former member of WHAM! and the Reproductive Rights Coalition. She was a member of the media wing of WHAM!.
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WHAM! Reunion, October 15, 2005
Scope and Contents
The Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!) Reunion was recorded on video on October 15, 2005. The event is opened by former head of Tamiment Michael H. Nash who discusses the relationship between Tamiment and WHAM!, Carroll's dissertation project, and the work of the Tamiment Library. Levin shares a slideshow of images from WHAM! events and direct actions. Carroll discusses her dissertation topic and her relationship with the former members of WHAM! with whom she conducted oral histories. The bulk of the reunion focuses on the presentations of Staniszewski, Tepper, Cole, Wolf, and Levin who each discuss how they became active in WHAM! and the importance of WHAM!'s work. They focus on what made WHAM! special; the coalitions WHAM! formed with other activist groups, especially ACT-UP and the Reproductive Rights Coalition; and the ways in which WHAM! impacted each of them individually. The remainder of the recording includes people from the audience sharing their experiences with WHAM!.
Historical Note
The Women's Health Action and Mobilization (WHAM!) Reunion took place at the Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives on October 15, 2005. The event included presentations by a panel of former WHAM! members and Tamar Carroll, followed by comments and questions from former WHAM! members in the audience. The panel included Mary Anne Staniszewski, Michele Tepper, Marian Cole, Leslie Wolf, Meryl Levin, and Carroll.