Archives In Rainbow

To close the celebration of Black History Month we would like to dedicate AIR#07 post to the life and work of Audre Lorde. Audre Geraldine Lorde (Harlem, NYC, Feb. 18, 1934 - Saint Croix, US Virgin Islands, Nov. 17, 1992) was a self-described "Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, mother, warrior, poet", but she went far beyond as a philosopher, writer, librarian, professor, a person with disabilites and an activist. Her life was a succession of stages through philosophical knowledge and political activity that led her to become a ineludible reference in American culture and philosophy during the second half of the 20th century. The archival legacy of Lorde is spread through different institutions. The majority of Lorde's documents is at the Spelman College Archives in Atlanta, as stated by the writer before prematurely passing away in 1992. As per the finding aid , the collection includes books, correspondence, poetry, prose, periodical contributions, manuscripts, diari...

The Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) in New York are celebrating 50 years since their foundation in 1974. The institution is one of the oldest LGBTQIA+ archives in the country and even in the world. But they are more than an archive about the Lesbian community. They have become a global reference in the documentation of Lesbian women lives and experiences; a museum; and a center of activism and intersectional solidarity and sisterhood that gather women of different ages and origins but with the same objective: to recover and to be inspired by the lives of the women that love and desire other women. We can consider LHA as the first LGBTQIA+ archives with the explicit aim of documenting the reality of the community, especially from the past, but not exclusively. The initiative arises from the evidence of the passivity, if not negligence, of institutional archives when it comes to document and to preserve the memory of Lesbian women. It is the first time that an archive dedicated to th...

To commemorate December 1st as the International Day of the Fight Against HIV/AIDS, today we will approach three archival experiences that try to recover the memory of the disease from its beginning in 1981 to the present day. First of all we visit the  HIV/AIDS Archive of the National Library of Medicine (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland). Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the health crisis, the NLM launched three years ago a virtual tour of the historical collections and related resources they keep. The website offers an extraordinary perspective about the first years of the pandemic, focused mainly on the medic and scientific aspects of the topic. The resources include a video with declarations by Dr. Fauci in 1984, and two virtual exhibitions: Surviving and Thriving: AIDS, Politics and Culture , and Against the Odds: Making a Difference in Global Health . The second proposal is the  Philadelphia AIDS Oral History Project . This project  is a co...

Are you working with LGBTQ archives and documents? Do you identify yourself as an LGBTQ+ archivist? Are you interested in LGBTQ+ archives & archivists research? Do you have any projects related to the subject? The SAA-DSGS Steering Committee is pleased to invite you to share the initiative leaded by colleague and Section’s member Kate Burns to work on a panel proposal for ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2025 conference trying to answer some of these questions: 1-What LGBTQ+ collections are you working to collect, process, and make accessible? 2-What challenges and benefits are you finding? 3-Do you have institutional support or are you working under the radar? 4-Have recent conservative anti-DEIA or anti-LGBTQ initiatives created a chilling effect on your projects? 5-How do you keep motivated and innovative? Why should we keep fighting the good fight to amplify LGBTQ+ voices? (Radical Women , Sponsor/Advertiser. A New Era for Women Workers, Minority Women and Lesbians. Washington State Washington...

The NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project invites us to a virtual session about LGBTQ+ presence at St. Patrick's Day Parade . The St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Fifth Avenue is the most significant expression of Irish culture and celebration in New York City. But for 25 years, beginning in 1991, the fight for LGBTQ participation was met with “high levels of madness.” This intergenerational talk will feature  historian Emma Quinn  and  activist Brendan Fay , who will discuss this decades-long campaign and the importance of Irish LGBTQ visibility in St. Patrick’s Day celebrations around the city. Amanda Davis from the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project will moderate and there will be time for Q&A from the audience. The session will be next October, 29th, at 6:30 pm EDT, and you can register at  NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project website .                            This free virtual program is part of the NYC L...

October 3rd, 1994. A group of University of Missouri-Saint Louis (UMSL) students joined at Lucas Hall to attend the first of four sessions dedicated to LGBTQ+-themed movies. That Monday, they could see a double program with two non-fiction films: Before Stonewall (Greta Schiller & Robert Rosenberg, 1984) and Word Is Out (Nancy Adair, Andrew Brown & Rob Epstein, 1977). It was an activity driven by Rodney Wilson, a high school teacher, to celebrate a National LGBT History Month, similar to other National Heritage & History Months, and especially inspired by Black History Month, the precursor of all of them. Rodney Wilson tried October because public schools are in session, and October the 11th was stablished as the National Coming Out Day. Probably nor Rodney Wilson neither the session attendees thought then thirty years after that day the National LGBTQ+ History Month will be so alive. Here we have the session flier, kept in Wilson's personal archive and published at L...