Papers of Deanna Booher, 1970-2017

SERIES I, BIOGRAPHICAL AND PERSONAL, 1972-2017 (#1.1-4.16, F+D.1, E.1), includes clippings; articles; correspondence; wrestling programs, business cards and other ephemera; personal advertisements; a journal; astrological readings; etc. Draft and published personal advertisements are included in this series through which Booher as Queen Adrena advertised slave training services, sold fetish products, etc. The bulk of the correspondence consists of letters from fans of Queen Adrena, many of them responding to personal advertisements in local and national fetish magazines, and sending money to purchase photograph sets or fetish audio recordings, requesting personal telephone calls and/or personal meetings, and price lists. Many of these letters include drawings of Booher and fetish sex scenes drawn by fans. Many of the articles by and about Booher and published interviews also document her fetish work. Other articles and a small amount of programs and business cards document her time wrestling with Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling and wresting in other venues. Also included are Booher's web sites, which are being captured periodically as part of Schlesinger Library's web archiving program. A list of periodical titles removed from teh collection and cataloged separately can be found in #3.10.

While very little about Booher's personal life is revealed in these papers, several letters between Booher and her husband reveal a rocky relationship and episodes of jealousy in their open marriage. A single journal documents Booher's struggle with depression; her rocky relationship with her husband and thoughts about leaving him; problems with her weight, and physical problems as a result of her career in wrestling and her slam-a-gram appearances. This journal is also peppered with psychic and tarot card readings. Folder titles were created by the archivist. The series is arranged alphabetically.

SERIES II, PHOTOGRAPHS AND AUDIOVISUAL, 1970-2006 (#PD.1-PD.64, Vt-312.1-Vt-312.39, DVD-142.1-DVD-142.50), includes photographs, photograph albums, video cassettes and DVDs. The bulk of the photographs document Booher's fetish work as the dominatrix Circe/Queen Adrena with men and occasionally women, who acted as her slaves and engaged in wrestling, spanking, foot worship, crushing, smothering, water sports, humiliation, transvestite training, light torture, whipping, etc., and were available through advertisements in local and national fetish publications. A smaller number of photographs document her work with Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling and other types of wresting appearances both in the United States and the United Kingdom and her time in roller derby. Several photographs of Booher and her husband are also included. Video cassettes and DVDs document the span of her fetish work and include recordings from the late 1970s through 2005. These recordings include Queen Adrena as well as several other dominant mistresses as well as a number of men who appeared as slaves in her videos. A number of these videos include Booher giving direction to other performers in the videos and well as instructing them in how to perform crushing and body walking without causing injury, particularly broken bones. These videos were first marketed in fetish publications, later being sold on several of Booher's websites. Many of them are still available online. Material is arranged by format and thence chronologically. Folder titles for photographs were created by the archivist. Photograph album, video, and DVD titles were created by Booher.

Most of the photographs in this collection are or will be digitized and available online.