A Thin Bright Line

Lucybelle grew up on a farm in Arkansas. She left when she went to college in New York in the mid-1950s, where she lived in the Village. When her partner surprises her with the information that she is getting married to a man (a man who knows about them) Lucybelle agrees to a job in Chicago.

Working at the Geological Society of America as an assistant editor, she is recruited to work at the Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment (SPIRE) as the head editor. Their goal is to drill into the ice in Greenland to find out about the global climate – a radical idea at the time.

Her new boss knows about Lucybelle’s leanings (i,e. lesbianism) and uses it both to give her some freedom and to threaten her with exposure if she does not stay in line – somehow still an improvement over what she is leaving.

Bledsoe has written this book about her own aunt. It is a true story of a woman she grew up wondering about and was surprised to find a lot of information on as one of the first women working in this field of science. This is a look at a lesbian in the 1950s living during the Civil Right Movement. Read this book!

Bledsoe, Lucy Jane. (2016). A Thin Bright Line. Madison: The University of Wisconsin.