Forms part of the Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest (GLAPN)
Collection is open for research.
Gift of Pat Young, May 2002 (Lib. Acc. 24728).
Holly Hart was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1947. In 1964, she came to Portland, Oregon, to attend Reed College. After graduating from Reed in 1968, she came out as a lesbian and was a gay rights activist. In 1975, she graduated from law school at the University of California at Berkeley. She then returned to Portland to practice law. In the late 1970s she served on a panel commissioned by Oregon Governor Bob Straub to compile a report for the Task Force on Sexual Preference. In 1980, she opened the Old Wives' Tales restaurant on East Burnside in Portland. She chose to be a single mother and had one child. The restaurant closed when Hart retired in 2014.
Forms part of the Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest (GLAPN).
Oral history interview with Holly Hart, by Winter Drews and James Loos, SR 4145, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Oral history interview with Holly Hart, by Margot Faegre, SR 6318, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This oral history interview with Holly Hart was conducted by Winter Drews and James Loos at Hart's home in Portland, Oregon, on November 14, 2000. Drews and Loos conducted the interview for the Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest as part of Professor Ann Mussey's senior capstone class on LGBTQ history at Portland State University. The interview transcript includes a written introduction by George Nicola.
In this interview, Hart discusses her experience at Reed College in Portland during the 1960s, including her experience as a closeted lesbian and her political and civil rights activism. She talks about working for the Willamette Bridge newspaper, her involvement in the gay liberation movement, and coming out as a lesbian. She briefly talks about her experience studying law at the University of California at Berkeley, then discusses practicing law in Portland. She talks about cases she worked on, lawyers she worked with, and her focus on civil rights cases, particularly gay rights. She discusses serving on the Task Force on Sexual Preference and describes the report of recommendations she authored for the governor. She talks about her dissatisfaction with practicing law and her decision to instead open a restaurant, Old Wives' Tales; describes the process of opening the restaurant; and talks about her original plan to also open a bookstore. She speaks at length about running the restaurant and its role in the Portland community. She then discusses having a child via artificial insemination and talks about raising her daughter. She also discusses her involvement in Portland's Jewish community. She then revisits the topic of her restaurant and talks about the diversity of its clientele; discusses how social conditions for LGBTQ people have changed in Portland; and talks about her experience as a lesbian and a mother in Portland's Jewish community. She closes the interview by revisiting the topic of her work at the Willamette Bridge newspaper, describing instances of harassment she has experienced, and talking about her hopes for the future of gay rights.
Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA,