New York University’s Fales Library & Special Collections is pleased to announce the addition of the Mark Andersen/Positive Force DC archive to its Riot Grrrl Collection. The Riot Grrrl Collection documents the evolution of the feminist youth movement Riot Grrrl, particularly in the years between 1989 and 1996.

New York University’s Fales Library & Special Collections is pleased to announce the addition of the Mark Andersen/Positive Force DC archive to its Riot Grrrl Collection. The Riot Grrrl Collection documents the evolution of the feminist youth movement Riot Grrrl, particularly in the years between 1989 and 1996.

Positive Force is a Washington, DC-based activist collective seeking radical social change, personal growth, and youth empowerment. The collective emerged from Washington’s punk scene in 1985, and the Positive Force House served as a key meeting and organizational space for Riot Grrrl in the 1990s.

“Riot Grrrl’s first public meetings took place at PF House, starting in July 1991,” Mark Andersen, Positive Force co-founder, recalls. “When the group dwindled and then stopped meeting in the mid-1990s, their filing cabinet was left behind. I knew their files were important, so I decided to safeguard them ‘til someone came back for them. As it happened, no one ever did.”

Although Riot Grrrl, which originated in Washington, DC and Olympia, Washington, was intended to be decentralized and fluid, the DC chapter became a de facto headquarters in the early 1990s. The archive documents the group’s organizational efforts, including press clippings and notes. The bulk of the collection, however, consists of hundreds of letters sent by teenagers and young adults expressing interest and support, and asking for information on how they could organize chapters in their own towns.

Dischord Records’ Ian MacKaye served as the intermediary for the donation of the archive to Fales. “The decision to hang on to ephemera connected to underground culture is to acknowledge evidence of a community that worked in the shadows to create light,” said MacKaye. “Mark and I both recognized the importance of the Riot Grrrl DC collection and thought it made perfect sense to have it become part of what we reckon to be the definitive Riot Grrrl collection at Fales.”

“In addition to documenting the Riot Grrrl movement and punk and feminist activism, the archive provides a fascinating glimpse of youth activism and networking in the moment right before the Internet radically changed how we communicate,” noted Lisa Darms, Fales senior archivist, who founded the Riot Grrrl Collection in 2009.

The Mark Andersen/Positive Force DC Riot Grrrl Collection joins 22 other archives in the Fales Riot Grrrl Collection, including those of Kathleen Hanna, Molly Neuman, and Tammy Rae Carland.

In part, Mark Andersen has donated the archive to Fales to help support the work of grassroots non-profit We Are Family DC (wearefamilydc.org), a senior outreach and advocacy network based in the greater Washington, DC area.

“In its way, We Are Family continues the empowering punk-feminist outreach of Riot Grrrl, bringing services, advocacy and companionship into the homes of low-income seniors—most of whom are women of color—in Washington DC’s inner city,” said Andersen. “We are volunteer-driven, grounded in grassroots senior leadership, and encourage folks to help by donating time and/or money!”

“We are immensely grateful to Mark and Ian for their vision and foresight to have kept the DC riot grrrl material for over two decades,” said Darms. “Now, students and scholars have access to a rich collection of first-person narratives of young women across North America who were seeking inspiration and building their own feminist communities in the mid-90s.”

 

About Fales Library and Special Collections:
The Fales Library, comprising nearly 358,000 volumes and over 11,000 linear feet of archive and manuscript materials, houses the Fales Collection of rare books and manuscripts in English and American literature, the Downtown Collection, the Marion Nestle Food Studies Collection, and the general special collections of the NYU Libraries. The Fales Collection was given to NYU in 1957 by DeCoursey Fales in memory of his father, Haliburton Fales. It is especially strong in English literature from the middle of the 18th century to the present, documenting developments in the novel. The Downtown Collection, founded in 1993, documents the downtown New York art, performance, and literary scenes from 1975 to the present and is extremely rich in archival holdings, including extensive film and video. The goal of the Downtown Collection is to comprehensively collect the full range of artistic practices and output of the Downtown scene, regardless of format. This research collection, built on a documentary strategy, supports the research of students and scholars interested in the intersection of the contemporary arts and other forms of cultural and artistic expression.

The NYU Division of Libraries is a global system comprising five libraries in Manhattan and one each in Brooklyn, Abu Dhabi and Shanghai. Its flagship, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library on Washington Square, receives 2.6 million visits annually. For more information about the NYU Libraries, please visit http://library.nyu.edu


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