Barbara Allen was interviewed by Tori Currier on April 1, 2022.

Narrator:
Barbara Allen was born on October 9, 1952 in Buffalo, New York. When she was 8 years old her family moved next to a military base in southern Arizona where her father worked as a civilian. The youngest of 4 children, she was an artistic and athletic child who grew up riding her bike
through the desert. She felt she had an additional family when an artistic couple from New York moved to town and encouraged her pursuits in theater. Throughout her life, Allen has run a chiropractic practice, has worked in women’s concert production, at Sisterhood Bookstore in LA, and has made a documentary film about the Young at Heart chorus which was shown at the Northampton Film Festival. She moved to Northampton in 1992 because it was a safe place for her and her partner to raise their children. They were the second couple in California to cross-adopt each other’s biological children, and then were one of the first two-mom households in Northampton. While in LA, she led a fight against the Briggs Initiative. She was the chair of the Safe Schools Task Force at Hampshire Regional High School, where her work was attacked by the religious right, before becoming co-chair of Northampton pride in the early 2000’s. She has been affiliated with the Unitarian Society in the city and her family was featured in the book, Love Makes a Family, for having been one of the few families with two moms. Allen has since moved back to LA, where she now lives with her two beloved dogs, hikes with the Gay and Lesbian Sierra Club, and continues her activism with the Unitarian Society.

Interviewer:
Tori Currier is an undergraduate student at Smith College, class of 2023. She is an Art History major focused on LGBTQ+ art.

Abstract:
In this interview, Barbara Allen reflects upon her experiences living in Northampton as a two-mom household, and having been a co-chair of Northampton Pride in the early 2000’s. She discusses her work in 1970’s women’s concert production, and at a women’s bookstore and
information center in LA called Sisterhood Bookstore. Allen traces her personal history with pride marches, as well as talks about her political activism against the Briggs Initiative, which would have made it illegal for LGBTQ+ people to become schoolteachers, and how she and her
partner pushed the legal system to cross-adopt each other’s biological children.

Format:
Interview recorded on the Zoom conferencing application.

Transcript not working : https://images.forbeslibrary.org/items/show/5772