13 Facts About Ruth Mountaingrove

Ruth Mountaingrove was an American radical lesbian feminist photographer, poet and musician, known for her photography documenting the lesbian land movement in Southern Oregon.

Ruth Mountaingrove was born Ruth Shook on February 21,1923, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Edith Shelling and Herbert Daniel Shook.

Ruth Mountaingrove earned a Bachelor of Science in Education degree from Kutztown State Teacher's College in 1945, majoring in science with minors in English and Spanish.

Ruth Mountaingrove helped found Women in Transition by writing for the newspaper, assisting battered women, and helped facilitate the first lesbian group in the city.

Ruth Mountaingrove took the pictures included in the materials Phillis Lyon and Del Martin collected for their magazine called Lesbian Love and Liberation.

The Mountaingroves purchased land in 1978, called Rootworks, where Ruth Mountaingrove published the book Turned on Woman's Songbook and a book of poetry, For Those Who Cannot Sleep.

Between 1974 and 1986, Ruth Mountaingrove spent a 12-year period photographing women in the lesbian community in Oregon and other parts of the United States.

Ruth Mountaingrove photographed meetings of the Oregon Women's Land Trust, documenting their lives at OWL Farm, a southern Oregon lesbian land community providing "access to rural land in order to be able to live outside of mainstream patriarchal culture".

Ruth Mountaingrove made this original one, organized by other women, and women hired by her turned into the musical notation.

Ruth Mountaingrove talked about the processes of these songs are created in the book like about inspirations.

Ruth Mountaingrove picked up small events that occur in everyday life and turned into the songs.

Ruth Mountaingrove's photography was exhibited in California, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington, and she held solo exhibits at three venues: Northcoast Internet, SHNEngineering, and The Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgendered Center.

Ruth Mountaingrove died on December 18,2016, at age 93 at Ida Emmerson Hospice House in Eureka.