UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES 
ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Interview #1105
GOLDWOMON, SUE (Legal Name Goldman, Susan)

GOLDWOMON, Sue (1947- )
Produced & hosted WORT-radio’s women’s music program “Her Infinite Variety” for nearly 30 years; lifetime lesbian cultural worker and philanthropist
At UW: (At Madison 1966- )

Interviewed:	June 14, 2010
Interviewer:	Abbie Hill
Index by:	Abbie Hill
Length:	1 hour and 22 minutes

Abstract:  In her 2010 interview with Abbie Hill, Sue Goldwomon details her life in Madison.  She spoke of growing up in Milwaukee, coming to Madison in the 1960’s, her decades of involvement in women’s music and lesbian culture, her business Lunacy Distributors, her shows on WORT-radio and her relationship with the love of her life, Arlene Zaucha.

Key Words:  (Madison (WI), Dow demonstrations, Black students strike, The Back Door, Arlene Zaucha, Lunacy Distributors, Apple Island, Womonsong, Fallen Women Productions, National Women’s Music Festival, Her Infinite Variety, Her Turn, Women’s Transit Authority, Wisconsin Women’s Land Co-op, Madison Jewish Lesbians, Lois Stauber, Anjelique Kidjo, The Sirens 

Interview Session (June 14, 2010):  Digital File

Time		Keywords

00:00:00	Start of Interview/Interviewer’s Introduction and clip of interview from 1995 where Sue lists all the LGBT organizations she had been involved with since coming to Madison in 1966

00:01:25	Questions:  Where are you from and did you change your name legally?
		Sue discusses her life & family background in Milwaukee.

00:05:15	Question: How did you come to live in Madison? Answer: Sue discusses coming to Madison in the fall of 1966 and how she was not too interested in attending class.  The Dow demonstrations and the Black students strike were more interesting…

00:06:35	“I came out in 1968 when I was a sophomore”…

00:08:51	Sue talks about her first lesbian relationship.  “We sort of lived in a vacuum; there was not even a bar scene for women.”  Lived in Sellery Hall.  Sue’s parents were upset about her alternative life style.  She came out to her parents and was estranged from her father when he died in 1970.

00:14:55	Discusses her present relationship with Arlene Zaucha, that’s lasted over 25 years.  They met at WORT listener sponsored radio in Madison in 1983.  	

00:20:28	Discusses her work in women’s music that started around 1970.  Her business, Lunacy Distributors, sold records of artists in the women’s music movement at Madison stores and in Wisconsin.  She was a member of the national organization, Women’s Independent Label Distributors Network.  Sue wrote for their newsletter.  Sue’s interest in women’s music and culture led her to have shows on WORT and become involved in Apple Island in the 1990’s.

00:25:50	The Rise & Fall of Women’s Music.  Sue was involved in both of Madison’s women’s choirs and was a founding member of Womonsong, the second women’s choir.  
Question: Why the fall of women’s music?  Answer: “Today, only Pleiades, Margie Adam’s label, is the only women’s music label left.  Olivia is in the cruise and resort business…  Most of the women artists are no longer touring…  There are young women who are producing and recording their own music independently and distribute when they come for concerts but it’s not a conscious movement where a community of women is coming together to learn the technology and how to produce, with every facet being done by women… that experience is way gone… and this community was primarily lesbian.  This is something that I don’t think has happened anywhere else in the world, at any other time… Finances, children and other reasons contributed to the downfall.”

00:31:03	Sue stopped distributing through Lunacy in 1981.  Sue lists the places where she distributed and she also sold records at events like the Fallen Women concerts.  
	In 1983 Sue started working for Her Turn, a women’s news program on WORT that runs for ½ hour every week and is produced by a collective of women.  Then she took over Her Infinite Variety, a women and music show, which is a 2 and ½ hour show. Sue was presented the Jane Schliessman Award at the 2009 National Women’s Music Festival to honor her lifetime contribution to women’s music.  “It’s nice to be recognized because much of women’s music centered on the coasts… I spent all this time laboring in a mid-size, midwestern town, where not that much attention was paid to women’s music.”

00:37:02	Question: Out of the 200+ interviews you did with women musicians for Her Infinite Variety, what were some of the most memorable?
Sue mentions Holly Near, Janis Ian and Angelique Kidjo. Sue’s story about working with Arlene on the “Circle Round for Freedom” feature (Linda Hirschhorn’s song)

00:43:05	Discusses her involvement with Madison’s first lesbian organizations-Madison Lesbians in 1971, Women’s Transit Authority or “the lezzy lift”, Wisconsin Women’s Land Co-op with Milwaukee women…

00:48:10	“I never defined myself as a lesbian separatist, although basically, I was… I tried working with gay men…” differences between gay men & lesbians

00:53:10	“I don’t really consider myself a very spiritual person… Madison Jewish Lesbians was more a cultural organization… I’m more political than spiritual…there’s politics involved with everything you do-where you live, what you eat, where you go… Arlene and I share progressive, radical politics… I don’t want a bigger piece of the pie, I want a whole different pie.”

00:58:50	Apple Island was a place started by Lois Stauber where women could perform, have events… it was around the 1990’s. After nearly 3 decades hosting Her Infinite Variety, Sue retired and is training 3 young women to take over the show

01:04:16	As a peace activist, Sue came to Madison in 1965 with the Young Democrats.  They debated with the Young Republicans, who issued a resolution backing the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.  During that event, Sue took their resolution, set it on fire and burned it in a wastebasket in the Wisconsin State Assembly Chambers. Sue has many historic materials from the 60’s on.  She has donated some to College Library and the Campus GLBT Center (UW), some to Outreach and some to Smith College.  Sue has an extensive collection of lesbian pulp fiction that she’s figuring out what to do with.

01:09:21	Today (6/14/10) is the 296th month anniversary of her relationship with Arlene.  We’ve always discussed things, even if they were hard to talk about; shared hard times & good times…

01:14:32	Question: What haven’t we talked about?
Brooks St Women’s Center, the bars (Stop Light, Going My Way, Back Door), the National Lesbian Feminist Organization. Discusses difficult things the Madison lesbian community has had to deal with over the years.  For example, in 1989, when Catherine Rouse murdered her former partner and then committed suicide.  In the 1970’s Joan Roberts was denied tenure and everyone thought it was because she was a lesbian. “Electoral politics has never been my thing… Arlene and I share an understanding of what is political to us and that’s very important.”  Sue says it may be time to leave the Jewish lesbian group because she only cares about seeing her friends there.  She left Womonsong for that reason.  “I cared more about the socializing than the singing.”

01:21:59	End of Interview

		End of Oral History #1105