closeup of the hancduffed hands of a person patterned as the gay pride flag

Teaching LGBTQ+ History: Queer Women’s Experiences in Prison

This instructional guide is the first in a series of curricular content related to the Reveal Digital American Prison Newspaper collection on JSTOR.
Boston Public Library

Out of the Card Catalog Closet

Librarians gathered in 1970 to challenge Library of Congress classifications and catalog subject headings that aligned homosexuality with deviance. 
Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.28039240

Daughters of Bilitis

The first lesbian rights organization in the United States originated as “a social club for gay girls.”
Katherine Harris Bradley & Edith Emma Cooper

One Name, Two Writers: The Story of Michael Field

Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper worked within the constraints of Victorian society, building a writing career and a relationship under an assumed name.

Liberation on the Dance Floor

Motown’s foray into gay liberation music may have been short-lived, but it made an outsized impact on queer culture.
At La Souris, Madame Palmyre, 1949 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Palmyre’s Belle Époque Lesbian Bar

By providing sexualized entertainment to tourists, the bar owners of Montmartre made visible and even celebrated the quarter’s queer culture.
Film still from a 1960s drag cocktail party, picnic, and pool party, c. 1968-1969

The Battle over Drag in 1960s San Francisco

The organized struggle for rights has been shaped by debates over the relationship between gender presentation and sexuality.
A #buryyourgays hashtag over a black and white drawing of a cemetery

Can Fan Hashtag Campaigns Stop the “Bury Your Gays” Trope?

Organized fan hashtag campaigns put pressure on the entertainment industry to improve their writing for and treatment of LGBTQ+ characters.
Jeannace June Freeman

The Lesbian As Villain or Victim

In Oregon in the 1960s, the debate over capital punishment hinged on shifting interpretations of the gendered female body.
Harvey Milk at Gay Pride, San Jose 1978

Harvey Milk’s Gay Freedom Day Speech: Annotated

Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called on the president of the United States to defend the rights of gay and lesbian Americans.