Cornell Acquires the Archives of Musician Gretchen Phillips

Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, has acquired the archives of musician Gretchen Phillips, co-founder of the band Two Nice Girls. The collection includes video recordings of the group’s performances, reviews, fan mail, photographs, and news articles.

The archive will become part of the Human Sexuality Collection in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections of Cornell University Libraries. Brenda Marston, curator of the Human Sexuality Collection, stated: “Imagine a time long before Ellen DeGeneres came out, when hearing a woman sing a love song using the pronouns ‘she’and ‘her’ was a big deal. While many women were looking for subtle clues that lesbians existed, Gretchen and her bandmates were outrageous and emphatic, not coy, about lesbian love. Their lyrics opened doors for people, and their audiences discovered community at their performances.”

Phillips’ archive will add to the library’s growing collections on queer and other human rights movements, along with significant collections on music-based cultures such as hip-hop and punk, said rare books and manuscripts curator Katherine Reagan. “We are preserving the collections of underground and marginalized peoples,” Reagan said.