Nett Hart

Audio Interview online at Duke

Nett is outdoors wielding a shovel. — Nett Hart doing foundation work a few years ago.

Nett Hart was for twenty-five years the administrator of Lesbian Natural Resources, a charitable organization that has funded lesbian land groups all over North America since 1992, including many in Southern states, which is why we interviewed her.

Nett Hart grew up in south St. Paul, Minnesota, a community where many different languages were spoken in the homes, and where the economy was dominated by meat packing plants.

Nett came out as a lesbian while attending Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, as a Regents Scholar. She transferred to Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota, midway through college, in order to be part of the student activism, strikes, and the Free University that sprang from resistance to the war on Vietnam.

Nett taught art in junior high school in Minneapolis for four and a half years. She loved working with youth, leading a 400-member, American Youth Hostel group as an after-school activity.

Nett decided to attend graduate school in theology at Luther Seminary at the same time that she was participating in early feminist, consciousness-raising groups with women. She worked in original languages to see what was really there, and to liberate women from the grip that religions have over us. After three successful years, her lesbianism prevented her from being awarded the Master of Divinity degree. Instead, she wrote her thesis for the Master of Arts degree in systematic theology. The following winter, she taught the first, graduate-level class in feminist ethics and women’s spirituality at United Seminary with her friend, Martha Winslow.

Nett had been doing graphic design to support herself through school. She continued this livelihood for approximately nineteen years. She designed theatre flyers, posters, and illustrations for all kinds of groups, working almost exclusively for lesbians and lesbian organizations, including women’s carpentry groups and outdoor groups; and she did some counseling. During this time, she became interested in women’s land, visiting some early women’s land communities.

Nett Hart bought land in north-central Minnesota, in 1980, with Lee Lanning, naming it The Web. She has resided at The Web ever since then. She hosts lesbian events and traveling lesbians. She likes growing her own food, continuing to do graphic design, and doing residencies teaching art. In 1997, she started a community-supported agriculture (CSA) group with Indigo Tamarack. She is now involved in organic agriculture for her livelihood. She teaches courses in introduction to market farming.

Nett Hart’s feminist activism has included food security and food justice issues, which mostly affect women and children. Activism runs through her whole life, beginning with antiracism work in high school, through active involvement in the feminist movement, to her social justice work in general.

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