Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Queer Studies
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A guide to resources and research in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Queer (LGBTQ+) Studies
Collections
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Robert A. Wilson collection of Gertrude Stein materialsThis collection was compiled by Robert A. Wilson and centers topically on materials created by or related to Gertrude Stein. The collection includes letters, photographs, audiovisual materials, paper ephemera, souvenir objects, sheet music, literary works at various stages prior to publication (handwritten, typed, drafts, proofs).
Significantly, after Stein, items relating to her partner Alice B. Toklas make up the bulk of the collection. Notable creators in this collection also include photographer Carl Van Vechten and composer Virgil Thomson, both of whom worked with or included Stein and Toklas as subjects in their works. Additionally, the collection includes some of Wilson's day-to-day records of his Phoenix Book Shop business that have connections to his collecting of Gertrude Stein materials.
The collection also includes some of Wilson's own personal papers, such as letters from organizations or other Stein enthusiasts to him, his notes on the author, and his reference photographs of Stein and Toklas' memorials and gravestones. This collection spans in time from 1874 to 2011.
The Homophile Movement refers to the local, national and international social-political movement for gay and lesbian rights which emerged following World War II. Many consider the birth of the homophile movement to be sometime around 1950/1951, a date that corresponds to the founding of the Mattachine Society, and then eventually, to ONE Inc., and the Daughters of Bilitis. U.S. gay rights organizations that pre-date the Mattachine Society include the Chicago Society for Human Rights, founded by Henry Gerber in 1924 and the Veterans Benevolent Association founded in New York in 1945.
Before Stonewall, there were by conservative estimates at least 60 homophile or gay rights groups operating. According to NACHO, in 1970 there were 143 "homosexual or gay groups" operating in the United States and Canada. After Stonewall, the number of LGBTQIA+ groups proliferated so rapidly it becomes difficult to keep track. However, just a year after Stonewall, there were upwards of 1500-2000 LGBT+ liberation groups in the United States, and many more internationally. While the term "homophile" eventually fell out of use, there were notably a number of organizations who continued to employ this term even into the 1980s. - For more information, consult Library of Congress' LGBTQIA+ Studies: A Resource Guide
In addition to the publications we have a number of queer publications available in Online Archives and Special Collections.
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Citizen's news1964-1967. San Francisco. Citizens News began as LCE News in 1961, the organ of Strait’s political group, League for Civil Education, and was the first gay newspaper in San Francisco. Although it was originally intended to circulate only in the Bay Area, it expanded to include national and international news on police repression, politics, gay history, social action, and the gay scene.
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Der Kreis = Le cercle1943 - 1967. Zurich, Switzerland. Der Kreis (The Circle) was a Swiss gay magazine. Founded as the lesbian magazine Freundschaftsbanner in 1932 it turned into a male-only magazine in 1942 under the name Der Kreis. It was trilingual and distributed internationally.
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Hellas1953-1954. Hamburg, Germany. The magazine Hellas was one of several post-World War II German langauge homophile publications.
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The Ladder1956-1972. San Francisco. The Ladder was the first nationally distributed lesbian publication in the United States. The Ladder was the primary monthly publication and method of communication for the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian organization in the US. It was supported by ONE, Inc. and the Mattachine Society, with whom the DOB retained friendly relations. The name of the magazine was derived from the artwork on its first cover, simple line drawings showing figures moving towards a ladder that disappeared into the clouds.
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Mattachine review1955-1966. Los Angeles. The Mattachine Review was published by Mattachine Society which began as a secret organization in Los Angeles in 1950. The group was founded by Communist organizer Harry Hay and borrowed the initial structure of the organization from the Communist Party.
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ONE Magazine1953-1972. Los Angeles. ONE Magazine was a nationally-distributed publication put out by ONE, Incorported, a homophile organization based in Los Angeles. The magazine was published from 1952 to 1967, surviving threats from the police and federal government to provide news, essays, fiction, and more to gay and lesbians across the United States.
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Vanguard1965-1966. San Francisco. From August 1965 until December 1966 Vanguard was a seventeen month old independent gay youth organization formed and originally organized by the adult Adrian Ravarour who was a Mormon priest and full-time staff member at Intersection Center for [Religion and] the Arts.
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Vector1964-1976. San Francisco: Society for Individual Rights, an important homophile organization in the 1960s-70s. The magazine started as a newsletter in 1964. By the late 1960s content was focused on local and national news of interest to gay men. In the 1970s the magazine morphed into a standard gay men's magazine.
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Uncataloged queer magazinesWe also have a series of primarily homophile publications that are currently being processed. Please reach out if you would like to consult any of these!
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The John Addington Symonds Project (JASP)The John Addington Symonds Project (JASP) aims to investigate the life and work of Victorian scholar and writer John Addington Symonds (1840–1893). Among his many works, Symonds wrote and privately printed two essays: A Problem in Greek Ethics (1883), one of the first modern studies of Ancient Greek sexuality, and A Problem in Modern Ethics (1891), which brought the word “homosexual,” recently coined in German, into English-language print for the very first time. Both essays had a significant influence on the emerging movement for gay rights.
As part of the Classics Research Lab (CRL) at Johns Hopkins University, the John Addington Symonds Project aims to examine Symonds’s studies of classical antiquity and his pioneering work on sexuality. Like other CRL projects, JASP also seeks to provide a model for collaborative research between students and faculty in the humanities. -
John Addington Symonds collectionThis collection contains three letters and a photograph associated with John Addington Symonds, a queer English poet and literary critic.
Two letters are written from Symonds to his friend Charles Kains Jackson, dated November 16, 1891 and September 15, 1892. The 1891 letter, of which there is the original letter and a typewritten copy, discusses matters of mutual interest, including Michelangelo, Edward Cracroft Lefroy, The Artist magazine, and Antinous. The 1892 letter extends Symonds's sympathy on the death of Jackson's mother and mentions their recent visit in Falmouth harbour where Jackson was telling him about his "home life with Cecil," a reference to Jackson's cousin Cecil Castle with whom Jackson had been romantically involved.
One letter is written by Robert L. Peters to Donald Weeks on February 28, 1964 about Charles Kains Jackson and John Addington Symonds, asking for information on their work and personal lives.
The cabinet card photograph of Symonds dates from 1886 and shows him sitting backwards on a chair, reading a book and smoking a pipe.
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Diseased Pariah News1990-1999. Diseased Pariah News (DPN) was a zine published "by, for and about" people with HIV and AIDS in the 1990s.
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GenderFail press2015-2023. This is the full archive of the output of the independent press, GenderFail, which was founded by Be Oakley in 2015 and publishes projects from an intersectional, queer perspective. The archive features the work of important queer, trans and gender nonconforming artists and designers like Alok Vaid-Menon, Nicole Killian, Lex Brown, Johanna Hedva and Demian DinéYazhi. If you would like to consult individual volumes, please see the related GenderFail Collection in Catalyst.
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Lesbian Connection Magazine1976-1978 (holdings). Lesbian Connections an American grassroots network forum publication "for, by and about lesbians". Founded in 1974 by the lesbian-feminist collective Ambitious Amazons, it is the longest-running periodical for lesbians in the United States.
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Anthony Eikenbary illustration: "Support Gay Power. Bring Out A Cop"Derived from dealer description: Original artwork created by Anthony Eikenbary in approximately 1970 for Gay Power, considered New York's first gay newspaper. The piece features a black and white illustration of a police officer wearing a scarf and an unbuttoned shirt, captioned "Support Gay Power. Bring Out A Cop." The Gay Power logo is in the lower left corner; however, it is unclear whether the artwork was done as part of a campaign or for a newspaper cover. "Nefarious Ark Studio" is written in the upper right corner. The back of the piece features the artist's signature, "Tony Eikenbary."
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Corbett Reynolds Rudely Elegant and Red Party photo album and ephemera1970 - 2000. This collection contains a photo album, clothing, and accessories associated with Corbett Reynolds' Columbus, OH gay nightclub he owned, named Rudely Elegant, and the circuit parties, which he called Red Parties, that Reynolds held after Rudely Elegant closed in 1985.
The photo album appears to slightly predate the opening of Rudely Elegant, as the earliest photos are labeled as early 1970s at a party at "The Barn" on Neil Ave. While Reynolds is the subject of the album, the creator appears to be an unidentified close friend of Reynolds', based on the reminiscing text within the album. The photos show Reynolds with friends and partners at various parties over the years, Reynolds' artwork, and a parade, as well as buttons and other ephemera associated with Rudely Elegant and several Red Parties.
The box of ephemera includes two necklaces with a smiling Man in the Moon image on their front and two tank top e-shirts, circa 2000, with six e-shirt devices with the Man in the Moon image pasted as a sticker over the peace sign on five of the six light-up portions of the included devices. The light-up section would be slotted through a buttonhole-style slit in the tank tops and connected to a wired device beneath the shirt. One necklace is branded "Rudely Elegant" and dated 1992, while the other is undated. -
Ella Shields collectionElla Shields was a music hall entertainer known for her male impersonator performances. Her most popular performance was "Burlington Bertie from Bow," written by her then-husband William Hargreaves. This collection contains sheet music for "You Oughta See My Baby" and "Why Did I Kiss That Girl," both editions featuring Ella Shields on the cover, as well as a playbill for a 1949 showing of the nostalgia music hall show "Thanks for the Memory," and five photographs of Ella Shields from various points in her career.
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Queer Identity and Experience EphemeraSeveral collections of ephemera, including Queer gender expression photographs (1900-1960), ADHEOS periodicals and brochures (French, 2017-2019), Amnesty International France periodicals and ephemera on LGBTI rights (French, 2017-2019), Finocchio's Club ephemera (1945-1999), OUTrans brochures (French), several zines and more.
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Male and female impersonator postcardsThis collection contains a series of six black-and-white photo postcards depicting a Paris city scene in which a woman dressed as a young man with a bicycle approaches a young woman and persuades her to let him teach her how to ride his bicycle. The text, in French, provides flirtatious snippets of dialogue. The creator is unknown. 1900-1924.
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Cake walk postcardsThis collection contains black-and-white French postcards of cake walk performers between 1902 and 1905. All but one set portray dancing duos in which one performer is cross-dressing. Two sets of performers are Black, and the rest are white. 1902-1905.