Emerson College Library: Pride Month: LGBTQIA+ Museums and History

Boston History Books

Improper Bostonians by The History Project
Surprising, fun, and magnificently illustrated, Improper Bostonians is the first book to depict the last three centuries of gay and lesbian life in Boston - the American city with the longest recognized history of gay and lesbian life - and is the most comprehensive and meticulously researched gay city history ever written.
Provincetown by Karen Christel Krahulik
Provincetown tells the story of this beguiling coastal town, from its early history as a mid-nineteenth century colonial village to its current stature as a bustling gay tourist destination. It details the many cultures and groups—Yankee artists, Portuguese fishermen, tourists—that have comprised and influenced Provincetown, and explains how all of them, in conjunction with larger economic and political forces, come together to create a gay and lesbian mecca.
An Army of Ex-Lovers by Amy Hoffman
Provocative, informative, inspiring, and absurd, with a small circulation but a huge influence, Gay Community News produced a generation of leaders, writers, and friends. In addition to capturing the heady atmosphere of the times - the victories, controversies, and tragedies - Hoffman's memoir is also her personal story, written with wit and insight, of growing up in a political movement; of her deepening relationships with charismatic, talented, and sometimes utterly weird coworkers; and of trying to explain it all to her large Jewish family.

Museums, Archives, and Foundations

Digital Transgender Archive
The purpose of the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) is to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world. Based in Boston, Massachusetts at Northeastern University, the DTA is an international collaboration among more than sixty colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, public libraries, and private collections
Gilbert Baker Foundation
The purpose of the Gilbert Baker foundation is to protect and extend the legacy of Gilbert Baker, the creator of the LGBTQ Rainbow Flag, as an activist, artist and educator.
GLBT Historical Society
The GLBT Historical Society collects, preserves, exhibits and makes accessible to the public materials and knowledge to support and promote understanding of LGBTQ history, culture and arts in all their diversity.
ONE Archives at the USC Libraries
ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries is the largest repository of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) materials in the world.
The History Project
The History Project is the only organization focused exclusively on documenting and preserving the history of New England’s LGBTQ communities and sharing that history with LGBTQ individuals, organizations, allies, and the public.
The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art
The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art is the only dedicated LGBTQ+ art museum in the world with a mission to exhibit and preserve LGBTQ+ art and foster the artists who create it.

Encyclopedias and General Histories

Bodies of Evidence by Nan Alamilla Boyd and Horacio N. Roque Ramírez (Editors)
Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History is the first book to provide serious scholarly insight into the methodological practices that shape lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer oral histories. Each chapter pairs an oral history excerpt with an essay in which the oral historian addresses his or her methods and practices. With an afterword by John D'Emilio, this collection enables readers to examine the role memory, desire, sexuality, and gender play in documenting LGBTQ communities and cultures.
Global encyclopedia of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) history [electronic resource] by Howard Chiang (Editor in Chief)
This encyclopedia covers LGBTQ topics in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East, as well as North America, and takes an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, using film, literature, human rights, politics, landmark legislation, activism, the arts, language, sports, and historical events as points of entry into the content.
Queer: a Graphic History by Meg-John Barker; illustrated by Julia Scheele
Activist-academic Meg John Barker and cartoonist Julia Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this groundbreaking non-fiction graphic novel. From identity politics and gender roles to privilege and exclusion, Queer explores how we came to view sex, gender and sexuality in the ways that we do; how these ideas get tangled up with our culture and our understanding of biology, psychology and sexology; and how these views have been disputed and challenged.
Queer America by Vicki L. Eaklor
Perhaps no topic today is politically more divisive than homosexuality, particularly when it is coupled with the deeply rooted concept of civil rights. This work focuses on 20th/21st- century U. S. history as it pertains to GLBT history. Major issues and events such as the Stonewall riot, Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the military, same-sex marriage, gay rights, gay pride, organizations and alliances, AIDS, and legal battles and court cases are discussed. Also included are sidebars highlighting major debates, legal landmarks and key individuals.
A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski
Winner of a 2012 Stonewall Book Award in nonfiction. A Queer History of the United States is groundbreaking and accessible. It looks at how American culture has shaped the LGBT, or queer, experience, while simultaneously arguing that LGBT people not only shaped but were pivotal in creating our country. Using numerous primary documents and literature, as well as social histories, Bronski's book takes the reader through the centuries--from Columbus' arrival and the brutal treatment the Native peoples received, through the American Revolution's radical challenging of sex and gender roles--to the violent, and liberating, 19th century--and the transformative social justice movements of the 20th.
The SAGE Handbook of Global Sexualities by Zowie Davy, Ana Cristina Santos, Chiara Bertone, Ryan Thoreson and Saskia E. Wieringa (Editors)
This Handbook provides a major thematic overview of global sexualities, spanning each of the continents, and its study, which is both reflective and prospective, and includes traditional approaches and emerging themes.
Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution by Susan Stryker
A timely second edition of the classic text on transgender history, with a new introduction and updated material throughout. Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events.