Item Data

Corky Culver

written by on December 21, 2018

Photo by Marie Steinwachs

Corky Culver is a poet, Thoreau scholar, feminist activist, and pioneer in the early days of lesbian feminism. She is a founder of womyn’s land that has thrived for more than 50 years. Her videography documents women working, building and playing together, activists and activism, family, and a love for the environment.  Culver has a Ph.D. in English & American Literature and she taught over many years at University of Florida, University of North Florida, and Santa Fe College.  She lives with her spouse Marie in a 1935 log cabin on a lake abundant with cranes, eagles, egrets, hawks, herons, owls and other wildlife – a tiny taste of Walden in north Florida.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories:
  • Title: Corky Culver
  • Date Range: 1960-2010
  • Collection Summary: Corky Culver's Collection includes three early super 8mm films and 128 Hi 8 & mini dv tapes, spanning her adult life to date. Her initial intention was to gather material for a single documentary. At this point, her collection includes enough raw material for several. In the early 1990s, she completed one, "Dialogues in the Danger Zone." Her collection includes the raw footage and completed piece. Her videography documents her activism, her rich social life, and her love for the environment.
  • Description: Corky Culver lives in a log cabin on a lake with eagles, egrets, herons, and her cat, Pele. Her mother was an English teacher, her father a poet. Culver has a Ph.D. in English & American Literature and is a specialist in Henry David Thoreau. She taught English at the University of Florida, University of North Florida, and Santa Fe Community College. Active in support of the environment, the arts, feminism and peace, Culver also enjoys camping, hiking, kayaking, dancing and playing music with her friends. She was very active in the womyn's lands movement. Her videography documents her activism, her rich social life, and her love for the environment.


  • Biographical/Historical Note: Kathleen "Corky" Culver was born in Chicago in 1939 and grew up in Kentucky and Alabama, and received a Ph.D. in 1960 from the University of Florida in Gainesville. She started making moving images in New York where she originally shared a camera with Denise Matthews who has won 14 national video production awards. As a young woman, she spent some time in NYC and California, but kept returning to Florida where she ultimatelyn settled. When Corky returned to Florida, she continued to shoot video and her collection includes a broad range of subjects and genres, ranging from extremely personal material to formal documentary work. She was an integral part of the women's land, lgbq, women's health, violence against women, and peace movements, and her work charts historic moments in those movements in the south and as well as very intimate moments -- gay right hearings, marches, housebuildings, dance lessons, birthdays, cronings, deaths, and memorials. She's also a Thoreau specialist and a poet, whose work is collected in The Natural Law of Water (2007). She taught at University of Florida and Santa Fe College, Gainesville, FL. She has published under the names "Corky Culver," "Kathleen Culver," "Kathleen Walsh."


  • Genres: Amateur Films, , Documentary
  • Subjects: Peace movements, Women's Land, Women political activists, Lesbians, Nuclear disarmament, Street actions
  • Places: Gulfport, Florida; Kentucky; Montana; Florida; Gainesville, FL ; Santa Fe College, Gainesville, FL; University of Florida, Gainesville, FL ; Long Leaf, FL
  • Creators: Kathleen "Corky" Culver
  • Collaborators & Participants: Shirley Lasseter, cameraperson
    on "CC-084"
    Sylvia Herbold, editor
    Kate Horsfield, editor
    Sharon Thompson, titles
    Lenox R. Wiese, additional research
    Hundreds of Corky's friends. For names of collaborators & participants, or if you think you might appear in a piece, contact Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) info@lesbianhomemovieproject.org
  • Primary Format: Super 8mm, mini dv, Hi 8,
  • Physical Length:
  • Arrangement: 1st set of #s replicate donor-filmmaker's

  • Access & Use: Contact Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) info@lesbianhomemovieproject.org. No re-use without permission.
  • Rights: See each item.
  • Related Links: The "Sister Orbit" stories she wrote

    Corky Culver, "Our Lands, Our Selves," pp. 13-19, Sinister Wisdom., #98, Fall 2015 eds. Rose Norman, Merril Mushroom, & Kate Ellison

    Corky Culver, "The North Forty: Florida (1972-Present)" pp. 19-24, Sinister Wisdom., #98, Fall 2015 eds. Rose Norman, Merril Mushroom, & Kate Ellison

    Kathleen Culver, "The Natural Law of Water" (Santa Rosa, CA: Burning Bush Publications, 2007).

    Dorothy Allison, https://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/vof/transcripts/Allison.pdf
  • Preferred Citation: Kathleen "Corky" Culver Collection, Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP).
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