The Amazon of Milwaukee
The Amazon was a Milwaukee Feminist publication that started in May 1972 and continued until early 1984. It began with a humble, 4 page issue done on purple ditto with two hundred copies produced. It called itself "the first attempt to meet the needs of women to communicate with eachother city-wide", and "The hope is that eventually the paper will move off the campus and become representative of Milwaukee's womens' movement."
But why am I talking about a feminist paper for Pride Month? Well, let me quote issue 6 of Amazon when it debuted its regular feature 'Between Closets': "In future issues of the Amazon, lesbians will write on role playing, coming out, not coming out, myths and stereotypes, other gay issues and of course the joy and satisfaction of being a lesbian. The Amazon will not deal with gay oppression separately from women's oppression - for we, women, are all fighting for liberation."
The Amazon would go on to cover trans women as well, being open to all narratives of all women. This is an important slice of local history, and we're very thankful to have most of the run of The Amazon in our reference collection at the downtown Central Library. If you'd like to browse a gallery of all the covers, you can do that over at the Wisconsin LGBT History Project. And if you can't make it to the library, well, I've got good news for you - you can see the entire run online at Independent Voices.