Gender & Sexualities

LGBTIQA+ in Primary Sources

This is a guide to gender history and women's history in scholarship and primary source collections at Boston College.

This page has a lot on it. You can use the following anchors (links down the page) to jump straight to a relevant box.

Digital Public Library of America
Aggregates digital collections from around the U.S. and offers excellent tools to discover and explore them. Focuses on 17th to 21st centuries.

HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
A digital repository for the nation's research libraries, HathiTrust brings together the digitized book and serial collections of major universities and other partner institutions, a significant portion of which is in the public domain and available full text. Boston College's status as a partner makes it possible for members of the Boston College community to download any of the out-of-copyright items as PDFs.

Library of Congress Digital Collections
Interface in English. Content in English or other languages.
Digitized collections from the Library of Congress, includes manuscripts, books, photos, maps, audio recordings, and more. Strongest between the 17th and 21st centuries. Content dating back to B.C.E.
Open Access.

Digital Transgender Archives
Based in Worcester, Massachusetts at the College of the Holy Cross, the DTA is an international collaboration among more than sixty colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, public libraries, and private collections. Provides an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world.

GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
With titles covering different moments from 1970 to the present, GenderWatch is a repository of important historical perspectives on the evolution of the women's movement, men's studies, the transgender community and the changes in gender roles over the years. Publications include scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, regional publications, books and NGO, government and special reports. A ProQuest collection.

Lesbian Herstory Archives
The Lesbian Herstory Archives is home to the largest collection of materials about lesbians in the world. Our photo collection, which we are now starting to digitize, reflects the growth of the Archives since 1974.
LGBT materials in the New York Public Library
More than 500 facsimiles of photographs, works of art, and more associated with the LGBTQ+ communities in New York from the 1950s onward.
LGBTQ+ Studies Web Archive
The LGBTQ+ Studies Web Archive collects and preserves online content which documents LGBTQ+ history, scholarship, and culture in the United States and around the world. Includes more than 200 archived websites and more. Focuses on 2000 and later.
National Archive of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History
The archive works to preserve our communities' heritage, making it accessible through regular exhibits, publications and scholarly research activities. Founded, and coordinated, in 1990 by volunteer archivist Rich Wandel.

GLBT Historical Society Online Collections
LGBTQ Publications [UTSA Libraries]
The LGBTQ Publications collection includes publications from the holdings of UTSA Libraries Special Collections, as well as the HAPPY Foundation Archives.
ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives (Calisphere)
ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives is the oldest active Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning (LGBTQ) organization in the United States and the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world. Founded in 1952, ONE Archives currently houses over two million archival items, a portion of which have been digitized.
Gay & Lesbian History at the NYPL
Includes Diana Davies photographs ; International Gay Information Center Collection ; Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen gay history papers and photographs.
Goldsmiths, University of London Queer History Podcast
Goldsmiths Queer History brings together students and staff at Goldsmiths and across the University of London. But we also engage with a wider public of community members, activists and heritage professionals who are engaged with questions of the queer past and who promote the value of sexual and gender diversity today. The study of queer history is as much about the present as the past.
London School of Economics
This is just a selection of what the LSE Library hold on LGBT history.

Alt-PressWatch This link opens in a new window
Newspapers, magazines, and academic journals of the alternative press. 1970-present.

Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP)
QZAP was first launched in November 2003 in an effort to preserve queer zines and make them available to other queers, researchers, historians, punks, and anyone else who has an interest DIY publishing and underground queer communities. QZAP is headquartered in Milwaukee.

For historical newspapers and television, visit BC Libraries' Historical News page.

Archives of Lesbian Oral Testimony
Collects and makes available the oral histories of people who presently or at one time identified as same-sex and same-gender attracted women.
LGBTQ Religious Archives Network: Oral Histories
This page provides in-depth interviews with more than 40 early leaders of LGBTQ+ religious movements.

Carmen Vázquez Papers
Carmen Vázquez is an activist and movement leader in causes ranging from immigrant rights to lesbian health. The Carmen Vázquez papers document Vázquez’s activism for gay, lesbian, bi and transgender rights, and include materials pertaining to gay and lesbian health issues, as well as Vázquez's interest and involvement in broader issues of race and class from the late 20th century.
James Baldwin Personal Papers, 1924-1987
A small collection at the NYPL associated with the author James Baldwin. Dating to 1938, this archive of writings and related documents is indispensable to understanding the significance of Baldwin’s career as a writer and an engaged public man of letters.

Gay and lesbian rights movement ephemera collection (Calisphere)
Collection of flyers, brochures, announcements and newsletters from lesbian and gay rights activist groups working in Northern California in the 1970s.
Stonewall and Its Impact on the Gay Liberation Movement
This small, curated collection uses primary sources to explore the events preceding and surrounding the Stonewall Inn riots as well as the aftermath of the riots in the gay liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. These sources demonstrate the continuing influence of Stonewall on America’s LGBTQ community, the civil rights movement, and American politics in general.