Harriet Stein: A Fan of Fans

Harriet (Left) and friends at Ohiopyle, June 10th 1985

This Old Punk draws from the collection of Harriet Stein, a local Pittsburgher who preserved posters and photographs from a bygone era in local music and film. On June 2nd, 2015, [30 years to the month that the picture to the left was taken] Harriet Stein and Harrison Apple (Pittsburgh Queer History Project) sat down to record an interview about her life as a queer punk while digitizing her poster collection to share with her fellow fans.

Her stories weave around Oakland, across the Bloomfield Bridge, through Swissvale, to Homestead and back following bands like The Five, The Cardboards, Thin White Lines, The Cynics, The Wake, and others - all the while expressing her love not only for the bands or their music but for the fans (herself included). Harriet quotes Marlon Brando in The Wild One to sum up her experience of fandom. What if felt like to be there.

"Whaddya got, daddy-o, I'm against it."

Punk was more than a fad, it was illustrating the feelings of Pittsburghers through deregulation, deindustrialization, outmigration, and collapse. What's not to be against? She's also the first to tell you that there is no singular perspective, mission, or statement -more to the point, the feeling she captures in her collection and what fuels her passion to preserve it is how disorganized, contradictory, and revolting (in everysense of the word) the scene could be.

"It sometimes wasn't even that fun. Going out was almost about more about the endurance."

A digital copy of Harriet's collection is included in the PQHP's archives because it demonstrates different trajectories of sexual counter-culture in the city. Part-way through her interview, Harriet brought out a postcard from Bloomers [previously the Wild Sisters Co-op] tying her politics to the work of other lesbian feminists who were challenging patriarchal inequality from sexual harassment, and union discrimination, to pay inequity, and access to reproductive health care. Despite the abundance of softer folk music at Bloomers (which Harriet politely described as nice, but not for her) it shared a significant stake in revolting against the norm simultaneously taking place in venues like The Electric Banana, The Lions Walk, The Decade, and Charlie's 10c Saloon. Not only in shows but in day to day life, queer punks often stood side by side in some sort of symbiosis. Though now demolished, a punk crash pad "the Krishna House" neighbored The Holiday, one of Pittsburgh's longest running gay bars (1967-2007), and is included in the seminal documentation of the music scene "Debt Begins at 20."

In time for Repunk 3 (July 2016) - a reunion of Pittsburgh's Punk Bands with live concerts and screenings of artist films from the era - the collection has been uploaded to the PQHP's new online server and is our first public online exhibit. Over time, comments, new items, and new exhibits will overlay this collection, adding to an ever detailed recollection of Pittsburgh's queer cultural history.