Society of American Archivists
Lesbian and Gay
Archives Roundtable
NEWSLETTER
Supporting collection, preservation, description and research use of archival material documenting lesbians, gay men and their institutions.
Volume 7, Issue 1
August 1996
ANNUAL MEETING AGENDA
This year's annual meeting of the Lesbian & Gay
Archives Roundtable will be held on Thursday,
August 29, from 4:00-6:00 at the Sheraton Hotel
& Marina in San Diego. Check your registration
packet for room location. Tentative agenda items
are:
•Welcome and introductions
•Report of the Directory Committee
•Program proposals for 1997 Meeting
•Election of male co-chair
•New Business/News
In addition, meetings of the Working Group and
the Directory Committee will be arranged: contact
the Co-Chairs in San Diego for times.
The Annual LAGAR Social will be on Sat. Aug.
31 from 6:30-8:00 PM. We will be hosted by the
Gay & Lesbian Historical Society of San Diego.
Refreshments will be served and tours of the Society will be available. At 8 PM, members can go
next door to the San Diego Lesbian & Gay Theater
and catch a performance of a "gay version" of Hair!
(tickets $15).
The Historical Society is at 4545 Park Blvd., Room
205, and is a 10-15 min. cab ride from the convention hotel. For more information come to the Roundtable meeting on Aug. 29 or contact the CoChairs.
SAA TO MEET IN SAN DIEGO
August 25 to September 1 will see archivists from
around the country and the world convene in San
Diego for the 60th Annual Meeting of the Society of
American Archivists. While this year's theme of
diversity does not officially include sexual diversity,
LAGAR members will find several sessions with
lesbigay themes. Among these are:
•14 "Shattering Stereotypes: Archives & the Countering of
Minority Stereotypical Images," Thurs., Aug. 29, 1:30.
•29 "AIDS History Project: Documenting Contemporary
Health Care," Fri., Aug. 30, 8:00 AM. .
•32 "Feminist Research Methodology: Its Force Within
Archives." Fri., Aug. 30, 8:00 AM.
Whole No. 15
#71 SF "The Estate Project: Preserving the Legacy of Writers
& Artists with AIDS," Sat, Aug. 31, 4:00 PM.
#79 "Mining the Motherlode: Non-Traditional Approaches
to Archival Collections," Sun., Sept. 1, 9:00 AM.
Scheduled to speak at these and other sessions are
an impressive number of LAGAR members, including Kathryn Hammond Baker, Mimi Bowling,
Jim Cartwright, Ginny Daley, Andrea Hinding,
Mary Ide, Waverly Lowell, Janet Miller, Stephen
Nonack, Judith Schwarz, John Smith, Craig St.
Clair, Brent Sverdloff, Susan Tucker, and Bill
"Walker" Walker. Not only are we everywhere we're all over SAA!
And don't forget, our very own Brenda Banks,
SAA President for the past year, will give the Annual Address at the Opening Banquet, Thursday,
Aug. 29, at 6:30. We hope to see you there!
MESSAGE FROM THE CO-CHAIR
by Paula Jabloner
It's been a tremendously active year for LAGAR. I'm
especially enthused about the progress made on the
directory of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered archives and special collections in North
America. After many years, publication is imminent.
The Directory Committee is currently working on
gaining funding for publication with distribution
through SAA. The Directory will also have its own
world wide web site. Thank you to all the members
of the Directory Committee for your time and energy
on the project. Thank you Douglas Haller for
carrying this forward almost single-handedly for such
a long time.
The directory project work will go a long way in
increasing awareness of LAGAR within SAA. To
continue to increase awareness, start thinking about
program proposals for the 1997 meeting. We will
schedule a brainstorming session sometime during the
conference to discuss ideas. In addition, discussion
of how to build on the community contacts made
through the directory will be an important item for
LAGAR to work on after the directory is completed.
(contd. p.3)
LAGAR Newsletter
August 1996
p2
Repository Profile
HUMAN SEXUALITY COLLECTION AT
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
by Brenda Marston
The Human Sexuality Collection (HSC) owes its
existence to the efforts of two men, David
Goodstein, longtime publisher of the Advocate, and
Bruce Voeller, scientist and early leader of the
National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. Sharing an
interest in the cultural and political contexts of
sexuality, they sought an academic library that
would begin collecting and making accessible the
primary sources needed for this research. With the
support of Goodstein and Voeller, and the
institutional backing of the University, the Cornell
University Library established the Human Sexuality
Collection in 1988.
The HSC is interested in how definitions of sexual
identity shift over time and the way in which
personal choices and public discourse about
sexuality evolve. An advisory committee shaped a
collecting policy based on researcher needs, other
institution's collecting policies, the initial strengths
of the HSC, and Cornell's academic programs. With
this in mind, we decided not to collect actively in
areas such as reproductive rights, sex work, sex
education, sexual violence, and religion and
sexuality since other institutions were already
covering these fields and/or they were not particular
strengths at Cornell. We have chosen to seek
materials documenting two large topics: lesbian and
gay lives and politics at the national level; and,
changes in society's attitudes toward erotica and
pornography.
The core of the collection came from the Mariposa
Education & Research Foundation. Voeller, as
President of Mariposa, had organized a bi-coastal
effort in the early 1970s to save materials reflecting
gay life and the gay rights movement in the US since
WW II. Building on this base, Cornell has added
records of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force,
the Association of Gay & Lesbian Psychologists, and
PFLAG. Many men and women have sent material,
such as diaries from the 1930s or files relating to
current political activism, that illustrates their lives as
lesbians and gay men. We have numerous collections
showing the effects of AIDS on both individuals as
well as on the lbgt community as a whole.
The Mariposa Collection documents changes in gay
male erotica since the physique magazines of the
1950s. We have continued to collect samples of
straight, gay and lesbian erotica, and especially
papers of those who either produce erotica or take
public stands about it.
With over 600 cubic feet of manuscripts, 100
international and 900 US periodicals, and 5,000
books, the Human Sexuality Collection continues to
strengthen and diversify its holdings. We want to
add collections documenting the emergence of
transgender and bisexual politics; the range of
feminist views on pornography; political debates
over the definitions of marriage and domestic
partnership; lesbians, bisexual women, and their
health issues; lesbians and gay men with children;
queer and questioning youth; as well as elders in the
lbgt community. We seek more material on Native
Americans, Asian Americans, and other people of
color who choose sexual identities outside the
mainstream. We'll continue to document the impact
of the AIDS crisis as well as the diversity of lbgt
lives, work, humor, and sexuality.
Our ultimate purpose is to encourage research in
this field. All of Mariposa's collections and
subsequent additions are available for research use.
The Human Sexuality Collection is part of Cornell
University Library's Division of Rare and
Manuscript Collections, which is open to the public.
The Curator gives introductory tours, works with
individual researchers, and helps instructors design
projects for their classes to do here.
Reference assistance is available by letter, e-mail or
visit. The reference room is open 9:00-5:00, MonFri, and 1:00-5:00, Sat. Current lists of manuscript
holdings and periodicals, guides to individual
collections, bibliographies, and descriptions of our
book collections are available, some of them on the
web at http://rmc-www.library.cornell.edu/rmchsc/rmc-hsc.html For more information, contact:
Brenda Marston, Curator, Human Sexuality
Collection, Division of Rare and Manuscript
Collections, 2B Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY 14853-5302. Phone:.(607)
255-3530; Fax: (607) 255-9524; e-mail:
bjm4@cornell.edu
LAGAR Newsletter
LESBIAN/GAY LIVES ON DISPLAY AT
BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
May 31st saw the opening of a groundbreaking
exhibition at the Boston Public Library celebrating the
city's queer history. Entitled "Public Faces/Private
Lives: Boston's Lesbian & Gay History," the exhibit
focused primarily on the pre-Stonewall era.
Highlights included a passionate letter from Boston's
founder John Winthrop to his friend William Springe
in 1629 ("my soule is knitt to you, as the soule of
Jonathan to David....") and a newly discovered draft
of 1695 legislation banning cross-dressing by both
men and women found at the Massachusetts Archives.
A series of oral history interviews provided content
for the 1940s-50s period. Professional quality photographs of a WW II private gay men's party of soldiers
and sailors were donated to the project by one
interviewee (photos of the first half of the evening
were used in the exhibit).
August 1996
p3
by a private foundation.
More than 50,000 people saw the exhibit, which was
held over by popular demand until July 6; it is
planned to be shown again in October co-sponsored
by the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian
Youth.
The long-term goal of OBH is to establish a lesbian
and gay archives in Boston. In the meantime, they
are working on publishing an exhibition catalog,
completing work on their website
(http://PlanetQ.com), continuing the oral histories,
locating Boston materials, and designing a post 1970s
exhibit. For more information:
nrichard@lynx.neu.edu or write OBH 46 Pleasant
St., Cambridge, MA 02139. [Nancy Richard, July 1, 1996]
BERUBE WINS "GENIUS AWARD"
Exhibit designer John Kane filled the Library's Great
Hall with about 100 4' x 8' panels, some of which
were single images or quotes. The panels were
attached to four towers rising 24' and 36' high into the
space and were viewed from three floors.
Allan Berube, historian, activist, and long-time
LAGAR member, was recently awarded one of the
coveted MacArthur Foundation "genius" awards. The
prize is a five-year stipend designed to let recipients
pursue their intellectual, artistic or scientific interests
without the burden of financial worries.
The exhibit transformed the most public space at the
BPL into queer space. People returned two and three
times to view it and often stayed for hours at a time.
One viewer wrote of the exhibit, "It's absolutely
stunning -- aside from the high quality of the material
chosen for the exhibition, the design itself is worth
experiencing - perhaps the best job of presenting
library-based materials that I've ever seen. Truly first
rate." The BPL's Executive Director said "it was
definitely the strongest and most interesting exhibit
that I've seen in the library."
Berube, 49, is best-known for "Coming Out Under
Fire," his pathbreaking history of lesbians and gay
men in the military during WW II. He is presently
working on a history of the marine cooks and
stewards union in the 1930s-1950s, a time when it
changed from a largely white union into one that was,
said Berube, "mostly men of color, progressive and
mostly gay." His annual five-year award of $300,000
will allow Berube to finish this research, which
requires him to make frequent trips to New York to
interview former union members.
"Public Faces/Private Lives" was produced by Our
Boston Heritage (OBH), a group dedicated to
unearthing and preserving the Boston area's queer
history. Over the past two years LAGAR members
Libby Bouvier, Stephen Nonack and Nancy Richard,
along with other community members, worked to
bring this exhibition to fruition, raising
approximately $75,000 in grants, donations and inkind contributions (not including the time of the
designer and writer). Additionally, $5,000 toward a
permanent archives was donated
LAGAR congratulates Berube on his welldeserved honor. [San Francisco Chronicle; Los Angeles Times,
June 18, 1996]
MESSAGE FROM THE CO-CHAIR
(cont'd from p. 1)
I look forward to meeting new LAGAR members,
and seeing familiar faces, in San Diego this month.
Special thanks again to all directory committee
members, especially Kim Brookes for all her
perseverance in making sure the directory moves
ahead.
LAGAR Newsletter
NEWS NOTES
August 1996
p4
contact Carol Corbett, (702) 895-3954, UNLV, PO
Box 457037, Las Vegas, NV 89154-7037. [Las Vegas
Sun, May 2, 1996]
The James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center
opened on April 18 as part of the new San
Francisco Public Library. It is the "first center
specifically devoted to the documentation of gay and
lesbian history and culture in a public library,"
according to its Director, author and LAGAR
member Jim Van Buskirk. Among the Center's
collections are the papers of Harvey Milk, Randy
Shilts, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon; early video
footage from documentary filmmakers Rob Epstein
and Peter Adair; and the collection of Naiad Press
founders, Barbara Grier and Donna McBride. In
addition, the SFPL has added 10,000 books on
lesbian & gay subjects in the last five years. Many
of the archival collections are on deposit from the
Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern
California, which will retain ownership.
$2.8 million was raised to pay for the Center and to
establish an endowment of at least $600,000 which
will remain private money under the control of a
board with a strong gay presence. The Center is
named after James C. Hormel, who contributed
$500,000 to the project. [San Francisco Examiner, March
22, 1996; NY Times, March 13, 1996]
Detroit area community activists have formed the
Gay & Lesbian Archives of Southeastern Michigan
(GLASEM) to collect and preserve the records of
lesbian and gay men and their organizations in the
Detroit metropolitan area. GLASEM will be part of
the Archives of Labor & Urban Affairs at the
Walter P. Reuther Library of Wayne State
University in Detroit. For further information
please contact the Library at (313) 577-4003 or the
gay community liaison, Ernie Home at (810) 731-4374.
[Cruise (Royal Oak, MI), Nov. 15, 1995]
MEMBERS IN THE NEWS
Laurie Baty was named a Woman of Distinction by
the women of Gettysburg College for her many
humanities activities, including being a founder of
the Gettysburg GALA; The Queens chapter of
Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE)
honored Rich Wandel for his work as founder and
Archivist of the National Archives of Lesbian & Gay
History at the NYC Community Center.
CHAIRS OF THE ROUNDTABLE
Chicago's Gerber/Hart Gay & Lesbian Library &
Archives is celebrating its 15th Anniversary this
year. Organized in January 1981 and formally
incorporated in November of that year, Gerber/
Hart's mission remains that of educating, of
combating homophobia, and of preserving Midwestern lesbigay life. It boasts a collection of over
8,000 books, 50 periodicals and thousands of
archival items. Gerber/Hart plans a year of special
events to mark this important milestone. [Gerber/Hart
Newsletter, Apr. 1, 1996]
The University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV) is
actively collecting materials relating to the state's
lesbian and gay community. The bulk of the records
in the Gay Archives was collected by local gay
historian Dennis McBride and was deposited by him
at UNLV in the early 1980s. Carol Corbett, Curator
of the Nevada Women's Archives, is overseeing the
Gay Archives and is seeking records such as minutes,
publications, personal papers, photographs and
recordings that document queer life in Nevada.
McBride has also embarked on a series of oral
history interviews. For more information please
Paula Jabloner, 1995-97
Gay & Lesbian Historical Society of
Northern California
973 Market St Suite 400
San Francisco CA 94103
Voice (415) 777-5576
E-mail paulaglhs@aol.com
Mark E Martin, 1994-1996
810 Circle Drive
Lufkin, TX 75901
Voice (409) 829-3543
Fax (409) 829-3523
E-mail: memartin@usa.net
EDITOR OF THE LAGAR NEWSLETTER
Stephen E Novak
The Juilliard School
60 Lincoln Center Plaza
New York NY 10023-6588
Voice (212) 799-5000 x367
Fax (212) 724-0263
E-mail juilli3@metgate.metro.org
The Newsletter is made possible with the financial support of the
New York City Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center. We
thank the Center for its assistance.