Martha Cone Oral History Interview

Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1947, Dr. Martha Cone, Ph.D. begins her interview by speaking on her early life. Her father was an air traffic controller, a position that required the family to relocate frequently while Dr. Cone was growing up. She attended high school in San Antonio, Texas from 1961-1965; Dr. Cone describes this time in her life as devoid of discussion on LGBTQ issues, explaining many from this community were still in the closet, including herself. After graduation, Cone matriculated at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied microbiology and ultimately earned her doctorate degree. Dr. Cone explains how she was married from the age of 19 until she came out at 27, when she left her marriage and moved to a forested 1900s utopian commune in Delaware. Following this, Dr. Cone moved to California with friends from Philadelphia, where she met some women who owned a big pink bus, “tricked out” with beds and a kitchen, and joined them on their journey to Oregon. Dr. Cone details how this experience brought her to a women’s commune near Estacada. Everything was done by consensus among the women, including farm work and class instruction. Dr. Cone lived at the commune for about a year and a half before coming to Corvallis in search of a job, and eventually accepted a position in the Oregon State University (OSU) Microbiology Department.

Dr. Cone describes how in her time at OSU, she was a part of the ‘book scandal’ in the OSU Women’s Center, wrote a letter to the editor of the Barometer on the subject, and was even involved in a picket march. While working for the College of Science, Dr. Cone was good friends with a gay man and by a mutual agreement, they conceived a child together. The man is still very much involved in their daughter’s life. Dr. Cone commented that when she first came to OSU, the gay communities were closeted and activism was just beginning to take place on campus. She became involved in activism for women’s college sports at the university, which often involved Title IX issues. Dr. Cone admits that her work experience at OSU was somewhat of a "locker room" environment because not many women worked in her department. In part because of this unsupportive environment, and the general discrimination against women prevalent in the science department, Dr. Cone says she decided not to try for tenure. She instead took up a post-doc position working in a lab for 10 years until the professor left, and Dr. Cone was unable to attain grants for the project on her own. After being diagnosed with breast cancer, and ultimately using all of her sick leave, Dr. Cone officially retired. In 2002, she took advantage of an opportunity to learn how to transcribe textbooks into Braille, an activity she actively participates in to this day. At the time of the interview, Dr. Cone shared that she planned to move to Portland to live in a floating home on the Columbia River with her partner.