New Exhibition at SF GLBT Historical Society Honors the Lesbian Business Owners Who Sustained a Community
| On View March 12 | The Museum |
| Opening this month: Directory of Dreams: Bay Area Lesbian Economies and Radical Care, 1970–1995. This new exhibition, curated and co-presented by the Bay Area Lesbian Archives (BALA), traces the everyday efforts of Bay Area lesbians who refused erasure and built community networks rooted in care, solidarity, and economic self-determination. From women-run cafés and bookstores to credit unions and service businesses, these were more than small enterprises — they became networks of mutual aid sustaining entire communities. Grassroots tools made these worlds visible to one another: self-published directories, maps, flyers, menus, and ephemera connecting people to jobs, housing, political spaces, and affirming services, in a society that often denied them all. Directory of Dreams invites visitors to reflect on how these networks of radical care shaped lesbian life in the Bay Area — and what it means to build and sustain shared systems of care today. |