Eileen McCarthy Rakouskas is a personal historian and the
founder of Mosaic Memoirs, a service that assists people in recording, editing, and
producing oral histories, memoirs, and other family stories. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Holyoke Community College, she has been particularly interested in recording "ordinary lives" and lives connected with social justice struggles.
On May 17, 2004, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that it was unconstitutional to prohibit same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. On the first day of legalized same-sex marriage, Rakouskas conducted interviews with couples waiting in line to apply for marriage licenses, city clerks, and others.
Her collection also includes an assortment of other materials documenting the first day of full marriage equality.
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Eileen McCarthy Rakouskas is a personal historian and the founder of Mosaic Memoirs, a service that assists people in recording, editing, and producing oral histories, memoirs, and other family stories. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Holyoke Community College, she has been particularly interested in recording "ordinary lives" and lives connected with social justice struggles.
On May 17, 2004, the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts ruled in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that it was unconstitutional to prohibit same-sex marriage. Active in promoting marriage equality, Rakouskas conducted interviews and collected other materials documenting the first day of legal same sex marriage in the Commonwealth. The cheering heard often in the background during the interviews occurred when couples exited city hall with their licenses.
The Nortonsmiths were one of six couples who sued the state of Massachusetts for the right to marry.
Re: support for marriage equality; distribution of project.
Materials on the struggle for marriage in Massachusetts. Includes some ephemera relating to marriage equality, including Northamton Pride vistor and resource guide, equal marriage stickers.
The collection is open for research.
Gift of Eileen McCarthy Rakouskas, June 2018 (2018-100).
With one exception, the interviews have been digitized and may be heard online through SCUA's digital repository, Credo.
Processed by I. Eliot Wentworth, April 2019.
Cite as: Eileen McCarthy Rakouskas Collection (MS 1045). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.
