Queer Archives
by Susan Stryker, Director, GLBT Historical Society
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| GLBT Historical Society, San Francisco |
Because queer history typically is not passed down from generation to generation through the schools, the churches, or the biological family, it's incredibly important to preserve the fundamental documentary material on which GLBT historical writing and other forms of cultural production are based. Unfortunately, these valuable cultural resources are vulnerable to being lost forever, as most libraries, archives, and museums do not collect GLBT-related materials.
Although this situation has changed for the better during the 1990s, most of the frontline work involved with preserving queer history has been done by small, underfunded GLBT archives and historical societies. If you are seriously interested in GLBT history, find an archive or historical society in your area and get involved as a volunteer. There's a tremendous amount of work to be done. You're guaranteed to be overwhelmed by the vast discrepancy between the relative scarcity of published historical literature and the treasure trove of GLBT historical materials waiting to be rediscovered and interpreted by a new generation of researchers. You'll also have a lot of fun, as well as a valuable learning experience.
The best single source for locating queer materials in archives is a publication called Lavender Legacies: Guide to North American Sources. It was published in 1998 by LAGAR, the Lesbian and Gay Archivists' Roundtable of the Society of American Archivists, but was no longer available on the Web when I checked recently. Try visiting the SAA Web site for current LAGAR contact information, or for information on obtaining a hard copy of the guide.
If you can't find a copy of Lavender Legacies, never fear. There are a number of wonderful, easily locatable regional queer archives. The archive at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center in New York tries to be national in scope, but it is a relatively small affair -- the queer collections at the New York Public Library are far more extensive. The holdings of the ONE Institute in Los Angeles, now housed along with the International Lesbian and Gay Archives on the University of Southern California campus, are probably the biggest single assemblage of queer historical materials in the United States, but thus far the collection is largely unprocessed and unavailable to researchers. The Canadian Gay Archives, the oldest such institution in North America, is very user-friendly, as is the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn, the Gerber-Hart Library in Chicago, and the GLBT Historical Society of Northern California in San Francisco. There's even a queer archives in North Dakota.
If you're in a hurry, check James Sears' short list of links for the major GLBT archive sites around the world and around the Web. If you have time to browse, the Gay and Lesbian Archives and Libraries list from GLINN (Gay and Lesbian Information and News Network) is a trifle dated, but still useful, and seemingly more accessible than the LAGAR list.
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