Riot Grrrl, part 1: Archives

In a three part series I’ll explore my personal experience with riot grrrl, the mid 90’s American punk feminist movement. In this part I’m digging into the dusty boxes and overstuffed filing cabinets of riot grrrl and feminist punk zine archives around the world, including a digitized version of a scrapbook I put together back in 1996.

Riot Grrrl Archives

Fales Library Riot Grrrl Collection
Kathleen Hanna made big news when she donated her collection of riot grrrl related papers to the Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University in early 2010. Here she is on GRITtv in February 2010 talking about the collection.

Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture
Sarah Dyer, publisher of Action Girl newsletter and comics, donated her collection of almost 1900+ zines to the Duke University Library in North Carolina in 2000, accompanied by an essay about her life in zines. Sarah’s generous donation was followed by contributions from other former grrrl zinesters including Arielle Greenberg, Amy Mariaskin, Ailecia Ruskin and Sarah Wood. The entire zine collection also includes issues of Bitch, Bust and Rockrgirl.

Sophia Smith Collection
Tinúviel, of Kill Rock Stars Records and Villa Villakula Records, donated her collection of grrrl zines, a copy of every KRS or VV record she helped to produce, various correspondence and other papers to the Smith College Women’s History Archives in 2005.  The Sophia Smith collection also boasts a Girl Zine Collection started by a donation from Tristan Taormino, author of A Girl’s Guide to Taking Over the World, in 1999.

The Sarah and Jen Wolfe Collection
The Sarah and Jen Wolfe Collection of Riot Grrrl and Underground Music Zines is housed at the University of Iowa Library and features grrrl zines and comics from ca. 1991 – 2003.

Barnard Zine Library
The Barnard College Zine Library in New York City features donations by Sara Jaffe, Yumi Lee, Lauren Jade Martin, and Celia Perez.

The Women’s Library Zine Collection
The Women’s Library at London Metropolitan University in London features an ever growing collection of girl zines started by a donation from the Ladyfest London team in 2002.

Riot Grrrl Retrospective
The Experience Music Project with headquarters in Seattle, Washington, is host to this online exhibition of riot grrrl featuring the history of the movement told through text, interviews, audio and video.