Orillia Museum opens first North American exhibit marking Anne Lister

The Stephen Leacock Museum in Orillia is now showcasing one among historical past’s most well-known code-writers.

“Decoding Anne Lister: Historical past’s First Fashionable Lesbian” is an exhibit that examines the lifetime of Anne Lister, a very smart lady born in England throughout the late 1700s.

Lister, a profitable businesswoman and property proprietor in her time, was compelled to hide her sexuality as a lesbian.

Lister documented her romantic life by growing a posh system of code that she put into greater than 5 million phrases in her diaries.

“We’re hoping that folks will see that lesbian and queer individuals have all the time existed,” mentioned Jen Martynyshyn with the Stephen Leacock Museum. “It might have been a secret, however this is not a contemporary, new invention that folks have all the time been in the neighborhood, and it is all the time been a part of historical past.”

The exhibit will proceed on the museum till the beginning of 2024.