Item Data

Ruth Storm

written by on February 9, 2018

 

 

Ruth Huntington Storm (1888-1981) was a New York  City schoolteacher who filmed friends, lovers, and places she visited from the mid-1930s until the mid-1960s with a 16mm Model K Cine Kodak. She spent many summers in Corea, Maine where she had a cabin built & ultimately retired.  In retirement she edited her Maine, Greater NY footage, & vacation footage into titled reels & outtakes.  In New York & Maine, her friends included many artists and intellectuals.  Several appear in the footage, including painter Marsden Hartley, Maine writer Miriam Colwell, writer, sculptor & violinist Chenoweth Hall, and filmmaker Jean Oser.   She had two screens in the cabin, one portable, designed to sit on a desk or a table, one standing, as well as an RCA projector.  Her last partner Almeda “Meda” Benoit joined Ruth in Maine upon her own retirement.

Categories:
  • Title: Ruth Storm
  • Date Range: 1937-1964
  • Collection Summary: The collection consists of consists of 18 reels of silent black and white and color 16 mm film. The films are amateur films shot by Ruth Storm in Greater New York particularly highways and sites associated with Robert Moses as well as in Corea, Maine, and environs. Storm herself edited the footage into these 18 reels. She kept 17 reels in her Maine cabin and mailed one, Reel 18, to her last partner's childhood friend.
  • Description: Ruth Huntington Storm (1888-1981) was a New York City schoolteacher who filmed friends, lovers, and places she visited from the mid-1930s until the mid-1960s with a 16mm Model K Cine Kodak. She spent many summers in Corea, Maine where she had a cabin built & ultimately retired. In retirement she edited her Maine, Greater NY footage, & vacation footage into titled reels & outtakes. In New York & Maine, her friends included many artists and intellectuals. Several appear in the footage, including painter Marsden Hartley, Maine writer Miriam Colwell, writer, sculptor & violinist Chenoweth Hall, and filmmaker Jean Oser. She had two screens in the cabin, one portable, designed to sit on a desk or a table, one standing, as well as an RCA projector. Her last partner Almeda "Meda" Benoit joined Ruth in Maine upon her own retirement.
  • Biographical/Historical Note: Ruth Huntington Storm (1888-1981) was born in Peekskill, NY, and attended the Normal College of the City of New York, now Hunter College. Decades later, she told a young lover that her first woman lover was one of her teachers there. Upon graduation, she joined the English faculty of a then excellent school, Evander Childs High School, Bronx, NY, where she taught for most of her career. (At some point, perhaps after retiring from Evander Childs, she also taught in Queens Village, NY.) In the mid-1930s, about the same time she began to put down roots in Maine, she acquired a Ciné Kodak Model B and began to film friends and places she loved. The collection focuses on Maine and New York, documents relationships between her dearest friends, particularly the Maine writer Miriam Colwell and her life partner Dorothy (Chenoweth or Chennie) Hall, and the lively urbane social life of Corea, Maine, in the 1930s and 40s. The collection includes cameos of such Corea luminaries as painter Marsden Hartley, filmmaker Jean Oser, and others.

    When Storm retired to Maine, she edited her footage into 17 reels, which she screened for friends on an RCA portable projector. She had two screens in the cabin, one portable, designed to sit on a desk or a table, one standing. Her last partner Almeda "Meda" Benoit joined Ruth in Maine upon her own retirement. An additional reel was found in the home of Sheila McLaughlin's mother in a mailing container, leaving reason to believe that friends received additional reels & more may surface.

    Storm died in Maine in 1981. She's buried next to Meda in Prospect Harbor Cemetary, Maine.
  • Genres: Home Movies, Amateur Films
  • Subjects: Lesbians, Teachers
  • Places: Corea, Maine; Greater NY; Jones Beach, NY; Worlds Fair 1939; Worlds Fair 1964; Tunk Lake, Maine; Trenton, Maine; Smokies; Evander Childs High School, Bronx, NY
  • Creators: Ruth Huntington Storm
  • Collaborators & Participants: Basats
    Almeda "Meda" Benoit (1911-2006)
    Miriam Colwell
    Gwen Colle
    Donis Dondis (1924-1984)
    Dora Gage
    Mabel Griffin
    Dorothy "Chenoweth" Hall
    Marsden Hartley
    Frances & Charles Lord
    John Lord
    Matt Lord
    Margaret Isabell Morris McLaughlin (1913-0000)
    Sheila McLaughlin
    Jean Oser
    Suzi Thompson
    Sarah Wasgut
    Maynard Wasgut
    Allan Workman
    Julia Workman
    Sam Workman
    Joe Young (senior)
    Katie Young d. 1947
    Louise Z. Young
  • Primary Format: 16mm
  • Physical Length: 4,000' +/-
  • Arrangement: Reel 1, Maine I; Reel 2, Maine II; Reel 3, Maine III; Reel 4, Fair I; Reel 5, Fair II; Reel 6, New York; Reel 7, Outtakes, Fair 1; Reel 8, More Outtakes, Fair I; Reel 9, Steeples; Reel 10, Outtakes, 1 Maine Flowers Add to Maine II;
  • Access & Use: Contact Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) info@lesbianhomemovieproject.org. No re-use without permission.
  • Rights: Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) holds all rights.
  • Related Links: Interview with John Lord, while watching Maine I, II, and III together, September 3, 2014.

    Interview, Phone, Sheila McLaughlin, 6-5-2009. Conversation, 2013

    Other interviews Miriam Colwell, Betty Holmes, Marianne New, Dale McCormick, Sheila McLaughlin, Tibby McCormick, Sherman & Ella Merchant, Joe Young, Jr.

    Conversation with Dale McCormick, Miriam Colwell, Sheila McLaughlin, and Joe Westmoreland, 5-31-2009, Corea, Maine. Dale discussed her mother Tibby's affair with Ruth Storm when Tibby was Ruth's student.

    Interview with Tibby McCormick and her daughter Dale McCormick about, in part, Tibby's early life and relationship with Storm, who was her teacher.

    Conversations with Joe Young, Jr., Telephone, June 19, 2009 and at his home, June 23, 2009.

    Interview with Sherman & Ella Merchant, 9-11-13

    Inscription by Ruth Storm to Tibby McCormick of book of poetry, referenced in this conversation.

    More. Contact Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP)

    Property records for Almeda Benoit, Mabel Griffin & Ruth Storm available to view at LHMP.

    "The First Twenty-Five Years: 1913-1938 Silver Anniversary," Evander Childs High School," Bronx, New York. (Ruth Storm is on the present English Faculty list.) Available to view at LHMP.
  • Preferred Citation: Ruth Storm Collection, Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP).
collection data item list