30 Facts About Madeline Davis

Madeline Davis was an American LGBT activist and historian.

Madeline Davis participated in the founding of the HAG Theatre Company, the first all-lesbian theater company in the US, in 1994.

Madeline Davis was born in Buffalo, New York, on July 7,1940, to a factory worker at Ford Motor plant and a homemaker, Harriet, who had attended nursing school.

Madeline Davis was the oldest of three children and described a loving, affectionate upbringing in Buffalo's East Side, with parents she compared to the 1950s sitcom family Ozzie and Harriet and describing herself as a "nice Jewish girl".

Madeline Davis had an early love of books and libraries, fascinated with University at Buffalo's Lockwood Memorial Library, and at 16 got a job at the North Jefferson branch of the public library.

Madeline Davis graduated from Bennett High School in 1958 and earned a college scholarship, where she got a job working as a page at Lockwood.

Around this time, Madeline Davis became a regular at Buffalo's beatnik coffeehouses and began singing in them.

Madeline Davis was a founder of the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier in 1970 and eventually became president of the organization.

Madeline Davis began by organizing a library for the group but, lacking publications, she and other members ended up creating Fifth Freedom, the earliest magazine for the LGBT community in western New York.

Madeline Davis marched and spoke at the first gay rights rally at the New York State Capitol in 1971, and participated in the original effort to lobby that state's legislature on behalf of the gay rights movement.

At the DNC, Madeline Davis was the first lesbian to urge the party to include gay rights as part of the 1972 platform of the Democratic Party, speaking late into the night with a call to recognize "basic civil rights".

Madeline Davis became a member of the Democratic Committee, and worked within the party for the acceptance of gays and lesbians.

Madeline Davis taught a renamed version of the course, "Woman + Woman", in 1978, with a focus on lesbian history.

In 1973, Madeline Davis organized a Pride workshop for friends and families of gays and lesbians, which later became the local PFLAG chapter and continued to chair yearly Pride workshops on GLBT history and culture.

In 1993, with Elizabeth L Kennedy, Davis co-authored Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community, gathering 14 years of research into the history of gay women in Buffalo from the 1930s to the 1960s.

In 2001, Madeline Davis founded the Buffalo Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Archives, which collects and preserves the history of Buffalo and western New York's gay communities.

In 2009, Davis was the subject of the documentary film Swimming with Lesbians, directed by David B Marshall.

The film won the Mary Elizabeth Knight Award at the 2009 ImageOUT film festival in Rochester, New York, and both Marshall and Madeline Davis were present at the screening at the George Eastman House's Dryden Theatre.

In 2012, Madeline Davis was named as an inductee of The Advocate magazine's Hall of Fame.

Madeline Davis was the inductee representing 1972, the year she became the first openly gay delegate to a major party's national convention.

Madeline Davis continued to be involved in politics, and served as the vice president for community liaison for Stonewall Democrats.

Madeline Davis continued to perform womyn's music throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Madeline Davis organized and performed benefit concerts for the gay community in Buffalo.

Additionally, in 1994, Madeline Davis co-founded Black Triangle Women's Percussion Ensemble.

In 1971 Madeline Davis wrote, directed and produced Liberella, a feminist comedy reimagining Cinderella ran away with the fairy godmother.

Madeline Davis was a founding member of HAG Theatre, the first all lesbian theater company in the US In 1988, she became a member of Buffalo United Artists.

Madeline Davis knew of her relationships with women but they ultimately divorced after a year and a half for other reasons.

In 1990, Madeline Davis moved to Kenmore, New York, to care for her aging mother.

Madeline Davis was a reiki master, with a specialty in animal healing.

Madeline Davis suffered a stroke in January 2021 and died on April 28,2021, in her home in Amherst.