Meet the 1940's secretary who used office time to produce the first lesbian magazine
The first lesbian magazine in the United States, Vice Versa, was started in 1947 by Edythe Eyde, aka Lisa Ben, a secretary for RKO Radio Pictures in L.A.
In 1947, Edythe Eyde was a secretary working at RKO Radio Pictures in Los Angeles. A speedy typist who often completed work ahead of schedule, her boss told her: “Well, I don’t care what you do if you get through with your work, but … don’t sit and read a magazine or knit. I want you to look busy.”
The literary-minded lesbian saw an opportunity. Gay culture was largely underground, and it was difficult for “the third sex” to meet like-minded others. Using a Royal manual typewriter and carbon paper, making six copies at a time, the 25-year-old launched Vice Versa — “a magazine dedicated, in all seriousness, to those of us who will never quite be able to adapt ourselves to the iron-bound rules of Convention.”
“During those days I didn’t really know many girls,” she told the lesbian magazine Visibilities in a 1990 interview. “But I thought, well, I’ll just keep turning out these magazines and maybe I’ll meet some!”
It worked. By Issue 4, the writer was awakened one night by readers tapping at her window. “Their enthusiasm was gratifying indeed,” she wrote.
Edythe Eyde eating an ice cream bar in the 1940s.Courtesy ONE Archives at the USC LibrariesVice Versa featured original poems, short stories and reviews of books, films and plays; any dramatic work with the slightest undertone of attraction between women was fair game. Her “Watchama-Column” was a catch-all for her musings, and she invited others to sharpen their pencils and contribute.
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