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Labrys

Established in 1976, Labrys was "the first feminist student newspaper at Rutgers College." Its faculty advisor was Adrienne Rich, who was then an English professor at Douglass College.

Labrys Logo

Labrys Introduction

Labrys was established in 1976 at Rutgers as an alternative campus newspaper--an outlet for feminist thought, creativity and as an organizing tool for political action around feminist issues. Rutgers College admitted its first class of women in 1972, only four years prior. The other main campus newspapers at the time were the Targum (Rutgers College) and the Caellian (Douglass College). Adrienne Rich served as Labrys's faculty advisor. Labrys lasted a short time from 1976-1977, as its core editors graduated in 1977. These materials were donated to Rutgers by Sondra Korman, a Rutgers College alumna, Class of 1977 and a member of Labrys founding collective, who held on to them for decades. Korman's email describing her involvement in Labrys and introducing the materials is displayed below. We thank Sondra Korman for her valuable revisions and also for giving us permission to include this email in this research guide.

Email from Sondra Korman 

A labrys is an Ancient Greek double-headed axe (depicted in the Labrys logo above) and was a symbol of lesbianism and women's empowerment in the 1970s. It was associated with the Amazons (tribe of warrior women) and various female goddesses. It later fell out of fashion due to its association with second-wave feminism and trans exclusionary radical feminists, although some have reclaimed the symbol to be trans inclusive. 

Access to physical copies of Labrys will be available through Special Collections at Alexander Library. The newspapers are available digitally in the box below. 

Labrys PDFs