LGBTQ History in the United States: Scholarship
Although long considered a "niche" of historical scholarship, the history of LGBTQ people in the U.S. is today a well-researched and well-respected subfield of American history. Here are some seminal and some newer titles that offer starting points for further study:
In addition to these books, also check the following databases for journal articles, documentaries, etc.:
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America: History and Life (Harvard Login)Covers historical scholarship on the United States and Canada from prehistoric times to the present.
Note: For world history, use AHL's companion database, Historical Abstracts. -
GenderWatch (Harvard Login)Comprehensive, interdisciplinary database of articles on all aspects of gender studies; draws on both scholarly and non-academic publications.
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LGBTQ+ Source (Harvard Login)Contains abstracts for magazines, academic journals, news sources, gray literature, and books on all aspects of the LGBTQ+ community.
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LGBT Studies in Video (Harvard Login)Collection of documentaries and other non-fiction film on LGBT topics, both current and historical.
Primary Sources for LGBTQ History
To dig into primary sources, try some of the following digital archives and collections:
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Archives of Sexuality and Gender: Community and Identity in North America (Harvard Login)Includes historical primary source material that "detail how identities developed in different social conditions, and how communities grew around dedicated, sometimes courageous, individuals."
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Digital Transgender ArchiveAn international collaboration among more than twenty colleges, universities, nonprofit organizations, and private collections, the Digital Transgender Archive (DTA) makes available digitally a wide range of trans-related materials. The purpose of the 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.
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Gender: Identity and Social Change (Harvard Login)Compiles materials from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia that document changing attitudes to gender roles and relations, women's rights, etc., from the 19th century.
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Independent VoicesEclectic selection of alternative publications by various U.S. activist, minority, and counterculture groups from the 1950s onward; includes digitized versions of several feminist and LGBT magazines.
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LGBT Thought and Culture (Harvard Login)Contains books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social, and cultural movements from the twentieth century to the present. The collection includes letters, speeches, interviews, and ephemera covering the political evolution of gay rights, as well as memoirs, biographies, poetry, letters and works of fiction that illuminate the lives of LGBT individuals and the community.
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LGBT Magazine Archive (Harvard Login)Digitized collection of LGBTQ magazines from the U.S. and Great Britain from the second half of the 20th century.
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Making Gay History: The PodcastBased on oral history interviews author Eric Marcus conducted for his 1992 book Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990 (Print Only) (reissued and updated in 2002 as Making Gay History: The Half-Century Struggle for Lesbian and Gay Rights (Print Only), this podcast profiles LGBTQ activists from the post-World War II era to the present.
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Queer Pasts (Harvard Login)Contains primary sources on queer history, broadly speaking (i.e., not only "traditional" LGBT history but sources encompassing sexual minority experiences broadly).
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Sex & Sexuality (Harvard Login)Collection of primary source documents from the collections of the Kinsey Institute, supplemented with documents from several other libraries, that document attitudes toward sex and sexuality among sex researchers, activists, social reformers, and others, primarily in the 20th century.