Dignity for All
The University of Dayton’s mission as a Catholic and Marianist institution is rooted in the belief that every human being is created in the image and likeness of God and has a fundamental dignity that transcends faith, nationality, race, social status and identity. As such, the University is committed to being a place of welcome, respect and intellectual inquiry. By shedding light on hidden and incomplete histories, this blog post validates the dignity, agency and authorship of people and cultures underrepresented in libraries and curricula. Read more about UD’s mission.
A Dayton native who became a prominent figure in LGBTQ+ history in the early 1900s will be the first subject in a yearlong series of campus salons — small assemblies of intellectuals, artists and other cultural authorities for dialogue and discussion.
Born in Dayton in 1876, Natalie Clifford Barney spent her adulthood in Paris as a poet, memoirist, lesbian and socialite, hosting regular salons with intellectuals, tastemakers and cultural icons including Isadora Duncan, Rabindranath Tagore, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, the French novelist Colette, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Andre Gide and Truman Capote.
In addition to commemorating national LGBT history month and Barney’s 150th birthday — cake included — the Oct. 30 event will kick off “In the Same Room,” a year of programming inspired by the salon tradition. Sam Dorf, UD professor of musicology and Alumni Chair in Humanities, designed the series as both historical subject and living practice, aiming “to do what Barney’s salon did best — put people from different disciplines and different backgrounds in the same room and see what happens.”
The first salon includes an exhibition of works from the Dayton Metro Library’s Natalie Clifford Barney collection and readings by Suzanne Stroh and Samantha Pious of their recent translations of Barney works.
Selected Library Resources By and About Natalie Clifford Barney
- Actes et entr'actes, by Natalie Clifford Barney (1910)
- Nouvelles pensées de l'Amazone, by Natalie Clifford Barney (1939)
- The Amazon and the Page: Natalie Clifford Barney and Renee Vivien, by Karla Jay (1988)
- Wild Girls: Paris, Sappho and Art; The Lives and Loves of Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks, by Diana Souhami (2004)
- Performing Antiquity: Ancient Greek Music and Dance From Paris to Delphi, 1890-1930, by Samuel N. Dorf (2019)
The Lavish and Turbulent Life of the Barney family
The late Dayton Daily News columnist Roz Young chronicled Barney’s family in a series of op-ed pieces in 1995. They reveal the family wealth that made Barney’s Parisian lifestyle possible. Her father, Albert Clifford Barney, was the son of Eliam Barney, who left his role as the inaugural head of the elite Dayton girls’ school Cooper Female Seminary in 1850 to become a partner in the Barney and Smith Car Co., a Dayton manufacturer of railroad cars. Her mother, Alice Pike Barney, was the daughter of a millionaire whiskey magnate from Cincinnati.
Young’s columns, which touch upon Natalie Clifford Barney’s parents’ sentiments about her sexuality, are accessible to people at the University of Dayton through the Libraries’ subscription to ProQuest Historical Newspapers; the database has issues of the Dayton Daily News from 1898 to the present.
- “Barney Name Means More Than a Dinosaur to Dayton.” Dayton Daily News. January 28, 1995, p. 9A.
- “Unopened Letters Earn Stamp of Disapproval.” Dayton Daily News. February 4, 1995, p. 11A.
- “A Heart Is Broken; A Hearth Falls Into Disrepair.” Dayton Daily News. February 11, 1995, p. 11A.
- “Book Ends Women’s Idyllic Life.” Dayton Daily News. February 18, 1995, p. 13A.
- “Slurs, Reported Art Attack Lead to Health Problems.” Dayton Daily News. February 25, 1995, p. 19A.
- “Mourning Becomes Her: After Albert’s Death, Alice Finds New Worlds To Conquer.” Dayton Daily News. March 4, 1995, p. 13A.
- “Alice Finds Love, But Will It Last?” Dayton Daily News. March 11, 1995, p. 11A.
- “Finally, a National Theater: Alice Pushes, and Gets What She Wants.” Dayton Daily News. March 18, 1995, p. 13A.
- “After Failed Marriage, New Worlds To Conquer.” Dayton Daily News. March 25, 1995, p. 11A.
—Maureen Schlangen is the digital publishing and scholarly communications manager in the University Libraries.