Description
Jean “Shewolf” Boudreaux is a significant figure in lesbian-feminism in the 20th century and played a crucial role in building communication networks among lesbians living in land-based communities. Jean Boudreaux, better known as Shewolf in lesbian communities, was born March 19, 1932, on Desire Street in New Orleans and was raised there with her two brothers. Shewolf identified deeply with her Southern roots and loved to tell stories about what it was like in the 1930s and ‘40s in Louisiana. She went to college at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, then to graduate school in West Virginia where she earned a master’s degree in Education, Psychology, and Speech. She earned her doctorate in Speech Pathology at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, OH on an assistantship, after which she began her career at the University of Arizona in Tucson as a Professor of Speech Therapy, where she earned national recognition in the field. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette eventually recruited her for an open position. This is when she began her feminist lesbian political life.
Shewolf immediately found and started organizing the women professors of ULL to get equal pay and equal tenure. At that time, male professors made forty percent more than women professors. They also found inconsistencies concerning the promotions of female professors, with men getting tenured more quickly than their female counterparts. Her group was able to investigate this and prove these discrepancies, and shortly thereafter the university raised women's salaries and changed the system of promotions.
Shewolf knew no one when she first moved to Lafayette around 1970. She soon began searching for and organizing lesbians in Lafayette. Visiting a newcomers’ group, she discovered that the group leader was a lesbian. They decided to start a potluck group for lesbians. This woman knew three or four lesbians and they talked to each other, and by the time the weekly potluck began they were a group of fifteen.
Shewolf left for California after retiring in 1985 and traveled back and forth across the country many times. She began doing research to find and stay with lesbians on the road, at their homes, or on lesbian land, before leaving. One of her sources for finding places was Joyce Cheney’s Lesbian Land. Each lesbian home she came upon inspired the next stop in her travels. She realized she was compiling current information that she wished to share by printing her own directory of women’s lands. Shewolf’s Directory of Wimmin’s Lands and Lesbian Communities was subsequently published six times (first in 1993), and her travel stories fostered connections between like-minded women. She photographed, made slides, and spread the word about women’s lands. Her work inspired new lesbian lands, like Lake Annie Womonspace near Melrose, Louisiana, and the Carefree Community near Fort Myers, Florida. Her own Woman World was a place where women, though invited to stay long term, came primarily for workshops, camping retreats, and short stays.
Kate Ellison described Shewolf as “our troubadour, carrying the news from one place to the next, singing the praises of what each community was accomplishing. Our lands were so remote, and we didn’t know the other dykes who lived remotely too. She knew us all, and she sat in on all the meetings. She was careful not to spill the beans, not to gossip or tear down any of the communities she visited. She was as likely to say, ‘Why, what did you hear?’ To seemingly agree without adding to the question of someone’s mistake or misbehavior. Her job was to bring women together on the land, to invite and connect. She called, wrote, cajoled and persisted to get all the lesbian land groups to write their entries in the book, Shewolf’s Directory of Wimmin’s Lands and Lesbian Communities. The first one was published in 1993, and she kept up her networking through the 6th edition in 2016. Other than Lesbian Connection, which occasionally published a listing, there was no other way to find our communities.”
Shewolf bought a house among the “village community” of lesbians in Melrose, Florida in 2002 and moved there in 2004. Though not living on the same piece of land, the community had regular outings (that Shewolf called “Friday Fillies”) as well as potlucks and card parties and organized mutual help with work projects. She began searching for gay-friendly retirement communities as independent living became increasingly challenging, with the desire to bring her wealth of woodworking tools wherever she moved. She settled in Sun City Center, FL, where she lived for three and a half years until her death on April 24, 2020, at the age of 88.
The Jean "Shewolf" Boudreaux digital collection consists of 500 photographs that provide vital documentation of Boudreaux’s life and lesbian life during the 20th century. The Jean "Shewolf" Boudreaux papers include documents recording the work conducted by Jean “Shewolf” Boudreaux in creating Shewolf’s Directory of Wimmin’s Lands and Lesbian Communities, as well as documents that capture Boudreaux’s life as an activist, publisher, and furniture maker/woodworker.
Community Documentation Project
Did you know Jean Shewolf Boudreaux? Were you around lesbian land communities in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s? Are you willing to spend time looking at snapshots and providing additional information about them? If so, Sinister Wisdom and the Newcomb Archives would love your help providing richer descriptions of a trove of snapshots left by Jean Shewolf Boudreaux. If you have any information you'd like to share regarding these photographs, please complete this form: (https://bit.ly/3hNptL2) or email newcombarchives@tulane.edu
For more information, please refer to the resources below:
"An Invitation to Participate in the Preservation of the Legacy of Jean Shewolf Boudreaux": (https://newcomb.saas.dgicloud.com/islandora/object/navlsc%3A2756).
Cronewrite, B. L. (2015). Shewolf's Womonworld, South Louisiana. Sinister Wisdom, 98, 115-120. (print copy available in the Newcomb Archives reading room)
Barbara Esrig and Kate Ellison interview with Shewolf, February 19, 2013, Southern Lesbian-Feminist Activist Herstory Project: (https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4bz65p23).
