LGBTQIA2S+ History

In 1987, ACT UP emerged not only with the determination to end the AIDS crisis through non-violent civil disobedience, but also with a knowledge and understanding of the mass media that enabled a small group of people to utterly change America's view of AIDS. In 8 years, the lesbian and gay movement had gone from deathly fear to master manipulator of the media.

The magazine, established in 1967,[3] is the oldest and largest LGBT publication in the United States and the only surviving one of its kind that was founded before the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan.

(Books, Manuscripts, Magazines, and Newspapers)
The Archives of Sexuality and Gender program provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas. This growing archival program offers rich research opportunities across a wide span of human history.

Archives in this library include:

      LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II

      Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century

      International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture

The Bay Area Reporter is the oldest continuously published lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer weekly newspaper in the United States and is the highest circulation publication serving the LGBTQ communities of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world. Based in Boston, Massachusetts at Northeastern University, the DTA is an international collaboration among more than sixty colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, public libraries, and private collections. By digitally localizing a wide range of trans-related materials, the DTA expands access to trans history for academics and independent researchers alike in order to foster education and dialog concerning trans history.

The Gay Peoples Union (GPU) was the most important gay and lesbian rights organization in Milwaukee during the 1970s. Beginning as a student organization at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the group gradually became a resource for the entire Milwaukee community. Taking distance from the radical politics of the New Left, GPU adopted a politically moderate approach to social change, emphasizing education and legal reform. It actively embraced mainstream and alternative media outlets in order to educate the general public about homosexuality. GPU also took a leadership role in building an infrastructure for the emerging local gay and lesbian community. It established Milwaukee's first gay and lesbian community center, operated a telephone counseling service and a venereal disease examination center, and organized a legal defense committee to assist gays and lesbians with paying for legal representation. The organization faded in importance by the early 1980s, although it continues to exist today.

For 37 years the GLBT Historical Society has been committed to preserving and sharing LGBTQ history. We have grown significantly since 1985, from a living room full of boxes to professionally managed archive. With more than 1,000 archival collections and over 26,000 museum visitors each year, the society is now an international leader in the field of LGBTQ history, and one of the most important queer cultural institutions in the world.

"Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century." --- JSTOR (REVEAL DIGITAL)

"The LGBT collection contains 25 publications that chronicle the birth of the Gay and Lesbian movements in the United States. The gay liberation movement of the 1970s saw political action explode through the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Human Rights Campaign, the election of openly gay and lesbian representatives, and the first march on Washington for gay rights in 1979. Frustrated with the male leadership of most gay liberation groups and influenced by the feminist movement of the 1970s, lesbians formed their own collectives, music festivals, newspapers, bookstores, and publishing houses and called for lesbian rights in mainstream feminist groups like the National Organization for Women (NOW)." --- JSTOR

Voices of LHA is an oral history recording that documents the history and legacy of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. In this recording, members of LHA recite the Lesbian Herstory Archives Statement of Purpose from 1974. This is followed by the reading of quotes (with multiple, unidentified readers) from appreciative visitors of LHA.

LGBTQ digital oral history is an emerging field built by dedicated activists, historians, and archivists across the web. This hub acts as a growing resource for oral histories practitioners and the public.

A research guide to primary and secondary sources for LGBTQ history. Many of the sources listed on this LibGuide are open access.

Making Gay History (MGH) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that addresses the absence of substantive, in-depth LGBTQ-inclusive American history from the public discourse and the classroom by providing a window into that history through the stories of the people who helped a despised minority take its rightful place in society as full and equal citizens. In so doing, MGH aims to encourage connection, pride, and solidarity within the LGBTQ community and to provide an entry point for both allies and the general public to its largely hidden history.

The Making Gay History podcast mines Eric Marcus’s decades-old audio archive of rare interviews—conducted for his award-winning oral history of the LGBTQ civil rights movement—to create intimate, personal portraits of both known and long-forgotten champions, heroes, and witnesses to history.

The Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) was first launched in November 2003 in an effort to preserve queer zines and make them available to other queers, researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest DIY publishing and underground queer communities. (Contains over 30 zines from 1974-2000)

StoryCorps OutLoud launched in 2014 on the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. Dedicated to documenting and sharing stories from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people from across the United States, OutLoud is an extension of our longstanding commitment to preserving LGBTQ stories in a time of profound change in social attitudes about sexuality and gender identity in our country.

To honor the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, in 2019, StoryCorps asked people across the country to pick up their mobile devices and use the StoryCorps App to record the stories of people within the LGBTQ community who were born before the Stonewall Riots. Each of these interviews become a permanent part of American history at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

The Village Voice is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the Voice began as a platform for the creative community of New York City

There are thousands of publicly available digital archives that could contain useful primary source material for your project. Focused searches using powerful Google commands can locate digital collections based on the descriptions of archives.