The Three Sapphos of 1900: What Bryn Mawr College Can Teach Us about the Icons Who Put Lesbian Culture on the Map, by Suzanne Stroh and Samantha Pious

This exhibit traces the development of the “Sapho 1900” phenomenon in Paris to three lesbians who came of age in the United States: the performance artist Eva Palmer and the poets Natalie Barney and Renée Vivien. At Bryn Mawr College, they clashed with prominent lesbians who could have been their role models: M. Carey Thomas, the college president, and Mamie Gwinn, the noted literary scholar. But despite their differences, the two generations of women shared an unlikely experience: polyamory. The poetry Barney and Vivien wrote during this period is an early example of queer creatives asking how to live fulfilling lives when pulled in multiple directions by jealousy and desire. The exhibit also shows how they negotiated the reality of blackmail but could not escape its devastating effects. Copyright (c) 2026 by Suzanne Stroh and Samantha Pious. Published originally on OutHistory in May 2026.

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