An archival tidbit for 26 June 2013

Gay wedding ceremony, Philadelphia, ca. 1957. The grooms never got to see the above photograph or any of the twenty other pictures that one of the guests took: the photo shop that processed the film deemed the images inappropriate and never returned them to the customer who dropped off the film. The photos somehow made their way into the collections of the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, which has digitized six of them and made the resulting surrogates available online.

SAA 2009: Sleeping with the Enemy: Hate Collections in Catholic, Masonic, and LGBTQ Collections (Session 303)

Pride flag, downtown Austin, Texas, evening of 13 August 2009.

This 60-minute session (why did SAA insist on shortening today’s first timeslot?) focused on three repositories that collect materials documenting both the history of organizations and social groups and the history of opposition to them. It drove home the importance of collecting “hate” materials, archivists’ ethical obligations to researchers, and, if possible, reaching out to creators of such materials. I came away convinced that those of us who develop documentation strategies focusing on social groups need to devote at least some attention to identifying and collecting that materials created by the group's detractors and persecutors.

Jeffrey Croteau of the National Heritage Museum, an American history museum with a special focus on Freemasonry and fraternal life, asserted that his institution collects anti-Masonic materials because they are essential to our understanding of Masonry and American history itself. Anti-Masonry has been around for a long time and at times has had a profound impact on American social and political history, and it’s thus important to document. Moreover, the anti-Masonic materials in its collections help to document the persistence of 19th-century conspiracy theories linking Freemasonry, Catholicism, and Baphomet, the goat-demon Masons were accused of worshiping.

James Miller of the University of Western Ontario’s Pride Library stated that he collects homophobic materials because of his professorial commitment to leading students toward truth and because the LGBTQ community’s enemies are indeed known by their published and archival works. The library holds “exposes” of gay life from the 1960s, materials asserting that AIDS was a punishment for homosexuality, and books and manuscripts documenting religious, political, and other expressions of homophobia. The Pride Library’s collecting policy simultaneously sanctions the celebration of all forms of anti-homophobic activity, sanctions (in a negative sense) homophobic material, and demonstrates commitment to freedom of expression and inquiry.

William Kevin Crawley of the University of Notre Dame Archives, which seeks to document the history of the Catholic Church in the United States, noted that anti-Catholicism is an important part of this history. American anti-Catholicism is rooted in the arguments of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, but it was also shaped by nativist opposition to Irish and German Catholic immigration and the belief that one’s primary loyalty should rest with one’s country. Conspiracy theories asserting that the Pope wanted to undermine the United States and that Catholics were secretly doing the Pope’s bidding abounded.

During the discussion session, the question of whether researchers have ever used these materials in order to perpetuate anti-Masonic, homophobic, or anti-Catholic sentiments arose. Miller indicated that he hasn’t gotten any reference requests of this nature, perhaps in part because he requires every researcher to submit a research proposal. Crawley indicated that he had never gotten such requests in person, but suspected that several mailed requests for photocopies were submitted with this purpose in mind. Crawley, who provided the requested photocopies, and Miller both stressed that their commitment to freedom of inquiry would lead them to handle such reference requests as they would any other.

The issue of how the creators of such materials respond to repositories’ collecting activity also arose. Croteau stated that he suspected that many anti-Masonic activists are happy to have their materials added to the National Heritage Museum’s collections because they hope that future researchers will be persuaded by it. Miller noted that one author of a book in the Pride Library’s holdings objected to his work being classified as a “homophobic classic, and the creator of a series of religious pamphlets condemning homosexuality (and Catholicism and Freemasonry!) refused to allow Miller to reproduce his work because he was convinced that universities were under the spell of Satan.

The session ended before we could fully discuss the last question that arose: whether collecting “hate” materials has ever produced backlash from funders or the communities they document. However, Crawley noted that other collecting decisions have been controversial. Notre Dame's conservative student paper published an article condemning an archives exhibit focusing on leftist Catholic groups; the thought that documenting these groups might make it easier to critique them apparently didn’t cross the author’s mind. Moreover, other members of the university community have, to Crawley's dismay, discouraged use of the archives’ anti-Catholic materials: several graduate students have told Crawley that their advisers suggested that they avoid focusing on the unpleasant history of Catholic-Protestant relations.

ArchivesNext Movers and Shakers

Last week, Kate T. over at ArchivesNext announced the winners of the 2009 Movers and Shakers in Archives Awards. Kate invites archivists to nominate individuals and organizations whose creativity and innovative approaches are enriching the profession and inspiring their colleagues, and a panel of judges selects the winners. Congratulations to Lisa Cohen of the Pacific Northwest Lesbian Archives, the Council of State Archivists (CoSA), Brenda Gunn of the University of Texas at Austin's Center for American History, and Mark Matienzo of the New York Public Library!

All of this year's winners are fantastic, but I'm particularly thrilled about Cohen and CoSA.

Cohen's desire to ensure that the lives of lesbians in her region are reflected in the historical record spurred her to enroll in a graduate-level archival education program and to build a community-based archives from the ground up. She's found a permanent home for its collections, and is steadily moving to expand its scope and reach.

Those of us who are active in SAA's Lesbian and Gay Archives Roundtable have always been keenly appreciative of the pioneering role of community-based archivists in documenting LGBT people and communities. Community-based archivists collected important materials long before academic and other research institutions exhibited any interest in doing so, and community-based archives are still the repositories of choice for many donors. It's good to see the broader archival community recognize the first-rate, visionary work that archivists such as Cohen are doing!

Margaret Mead once asserted: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." CoSA keeps proving her right. It may be the smallest of the national archival professional organizations, but it's also the most tightly knit and the most agile. Whether it's addressing the need for emergency preparedness and response training, pushing for the Partnership for the American Historical Record, assessing and addressing continuing archival education needs, or assessing state archives and records management programs, CoSA hits the ground running and gets stuff done.

I have the privilege of working for a state archives, and as a result I've gotten to see CoSA's work up close. It really is everything that Kate T. and its anonymous nominator say it is.

Stonewall wrap-up

The Stonewall riots erupted in the early morning of 28 July 1969 and continued throughout the next three days. The 40th anniversary of the riots has attracted a lot of media attention, and some of this coverage is of interest to archivists and historians documenting the history of the LGBT community:

• Franklin Robinson of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History assembled a prominently placed exhibit, "Stonewall: Fortieth Anniversary," highlighting the Smithsonian Archives Center's LGBT holdings. This exhibit will remain up until 2 August of this year.

• The Chair and the Maiden Art Gallery held an exhibit featuring the work of Suzanne Poli, who photographed the riots themselves and LGBT marches and parades that were held in the years that followed. Poli is donating her photographs to the New York Public Library.
  

• The BBC interviews Martin Royce, who was at the Stonewall Inn when the New York City Police Department raided it and recalls how the riots started.

Stonewall miscellany

This past weekend marked the 40th anniversary of start of the Stonewall riots, which erupted in the wee hours of 28 June 1969 and ultimately became a key symbol of the LGBT civil rights movement.

The mass media has been covering the anniversary quite extensively. In doing so, it has highlighted the existence of relevant historical records and -- created some records of its own. Among the highlights:

• As I noted a few days ago, eminent historian Jonathan Ned Katz has created an online exhibit featuring New York City Police Department records concerning the riots. The exhibit includes an interview with Raymond Castro, one of the individuals whose arrest is documented in the records. Over the weekend, MSBNC.com published a feature article highlighting Castro's memories of gay life in New York in the 1960s, his views on the LGBT civil rights movement, and the quiet, pleasant life he now leads in suburban Florida.

• Bay Windows features the recollections of David Bermudez, who was at the Stonewall Inn when the police raided the bar.

• The New York Daily News interviews Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt, Ellen Shumsky, and Jerry Hoose, all of whom participated in the protests that followed the raid.

• WNYC-FM's The Brian Lehrer Show interviews Danny Garvin and Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt, who took part in the Stonewall riots, historian David Carter, and Seymour Pine, the New York City Police Department official who authorized the raid. Pine still defends the raid, stating that it took place not because the bar was a gathering place for gay people but because it was controlled by the Mafia, served drinks in dirty glasses, and allowed patrons to violate prevailing standards of dress.

• Democracy Now! interviews historian David Carter and airs a 1989 documentary, Remembering Stonewall, in which several people who took part in the riots share their recollections.

In addition, a couple of articles highlight the work of archivists seeking to document the history of the LGBT community:

• David Williams, the community-based LGBT archivist who collected the materials that now comprise the Williams-Nichols Collection at the University of Louisville, discusses LGBT activism in Kentucky and the roots of his archival work.

• Rich Wandel, the archivist at New York City's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, recently gave a talk about the Stonewall riots and their aftermath.

Kudos to both!

Stonewall riot police reports available online

This month, OutHistory.org features a new online exhibit that was made possible by the New York State Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).

The Stonewall riots, a series of spontaneous demonstrations that erupted after police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar and became the founding symbol of the modern gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights movement, erupted during the wee hours of 28 June 1969. In honor of the fortieth anniversary of this event, Jonathan Ned Katz, the pioneering scholar of LGBT history, has created an online exhibit that features digital images and transcriptions of nine New York City Police Department (NYPD) records documenting the protests.

With the assistance of historian David Carter, Katz obtained copies of seven of the documents by submitting a FOIL request to the NYPD in May 2009. When responding to his request, the NYPD opted not to redact the names of the people who were arrested in connection with the Stonewall riots. As Katz notes, these records identify protesters and police officers whose involvement has not been documented in other sources and suggest avenues for further research.

They also highlight how the NYPD's attitudes have changed as time has passed (or, perhaps, because time has passed): the other two documents at the center of the exhibit were released in 1988 to another researcher who filed a FOIL request (and ultimately sued the NYPD), and at that time, the NYPD blacked out the names of arrestees.

Although I visit OutHistory.org from time to time, I learned about the addition of these records to the site via a New York Times City Room blog post highlighting the new exhibit. This post also includes a brief interview with David Carter, whose 2004 account of Stonewall and its immediate aftermath is widely regarded as definitive.

GLBT Historical Society photos in new Milk bio

Five photographs held by the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco are featured in Milk, the new film chronicling the life of Harvey Milk, who was one of the nation's first openly gay elected officials. In addition, producers carefully combed through numerous archival collections held by the repository and created replicas of Milk's chair, dining table, and suit, all of which are also held the repository, for use in the film.

The GLBT Historical Society, which graciously hosted the 2008 annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists' Lesbian and Gay Archives Roundtable a few months ago, is also putting the finishing touches on an exhibit, Passionate Struggle, that will be housed in its new display space on Castro Street.

Kudos to Rebekah and all the other hardworking folks at the GLBT Historical Society!

Del Martin, R.I.P.

Shortly after the LAGAR meeting ended, I learned that Del Martin, the pioneering San Francisco lesbian activist, had died earlier that day. Martin and Phyllis Lyon, her partner of almost sixty years, were the founders the Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian advocacy group in the United States.

Martin and Lyon were married in San Francisco in 2004, were plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led the California Supreme Court to overturn the same-sex marriage ban, and they were the first same-sex couple to be married in San Francisco after the court's ruling took effect.

My heart goes out to Lyon.

The Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin Papers are held by the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco.

SAA: LAGAR meeting

Today was a work day. I spent the morning doing some stuff that I didn't have the chance to finish before leaving for San Francisco and the afternoon helping to run the annual meeting of the Lesbian and Gay Archives Roundtable (LAGAR) of the Society of American Archivists (SAA).

As usual, we met away from the conference hotel and at a local LGBT Archives. The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society, which is located a few blocks away from the conference hotel, was an incredibly gracious host, and we all appreciated being able to see its exhibits on the Folsom Street Fair and GLBT people who served in the military from World War II to the Iraq War.

The meeting followed its usual format, which meant that we had a little time to socialize, then introduced ourselves, and got down to the business of electing a new male co-chair. Congrats go to (newlywed!) Jim Cartwright, who was just elected, and profound thanks go to Steve Novak, who just stepped down.

We then listened to reports concerning LAGAR's newsletter, Web site, online manual for community-based archivists who lack library/archives/information science backgrounds and revised our bylaws so that they conform to recent changes in SAA regulations concerning roundtable leadership; SAA now mandates that roundtable chairs serve no more than two consecutive years.

In addition, we got an update from Ben Primer, who just finished his term as SAA Council liaison and let us know that Council is planning on phasing out every roundtable that has less than fifty official members (i.e., dues-paying SAA members who indicate on their membership renewal forms that wish to be a member of the roundtable). To make matters worse, SAA now allows each member to join only two roundtables; at one point, one could join as many roundtables as one wanted.

LAGAR currently has fewer than fifty official members, but our bylaws allow non-SAA members to join our roundtable: we try very hard to bridge the gap between archivists who have academic credentials and professional positions and the community-based practitioners who began preserving LGBT archival materials long before research repositories took an interest in LGBT history. We also have some SAA dues-paying members who haven't indicated on their renewal forms that they wish to be official LAGAR members.

What a mess. I understand that roundtables consume a certain amount of SAA's resources and that there are a few roundtables that are not particularly well-run, but this policy is a disaster in the making. SAA has gotten so big during the past few years, and it's hard for newbies to get to know one another. Roundtables, which tend to be small, allow people to get to know one another and to take on their first SAA leadership roles.

Moreover, SAA is currently trying to promote diversity within the profession. Its new roundtable policy, which will likely have a negative impact not only upon LAGAR but also upon the Archivists and Archives of Color Roundtable, the Latin American and Caribbean Cultural Heritage Roundtable, and other roundtables that seek to make this profession more inclusive, isn't going to do much to make SAA more diverse.

No one at the meeting was happy about this new policy. In the coming weeks, LAGAR's Steering Committee is going to have to figure out how to respond to Council's directive. We discussed a few ideas at the meeting, but we need to flesh them out.

LAGAR was founded in 1988, and in honor of our anniversary, we then moved on to an informal panel discussion on LGBT archives. Ron Grantz of the Lavender Library, Archives and Cultural Exchange of Sacramento, Karen Sundheim of the San Francisco Public Library's Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center, and Greg Williams of the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives talked about their repositories' history and holdings.

I wish we had had more time (I always wish that), but I'm glad for the time that we did have. Everyone had lots of great stories about their holdings (Ron Grantz's story about the papers of Jerry Sloan, a gay ex-minister who won a legal battle against Jerry Falwell, was particularly delightful), and it's apparent, at least to me, that those of us seeking to document LGBT history face some challenges that didn't exist twenty years ago:

• As Greg Williams so aptly put it, a lot of community-based LGBT archives (i.e., archives that were started by LGBT activists and are not affiliated with academic institutions or other research entities) have gotten too big to manage properly or to die a peaceful death. What's going to happen to these archives when the current generation of community-based archivists passes from the scene? Will they simply be absorbed by research institutions? If so, what will it mean for LGBT people?
• Staffing, funding, and space are real concerns for everyone. However, as Steve Novak noted, these are concerns that all kinds of community-based archives (i.e., local historical societies) face. The fact that we've encountered them is in some ways a sign that we've joined the archival mainstream.
• Lots of people at the meeting expressed a need for a national network of LGBT archives and archivists. LAGAR has a guide to repositories holding LGBT materials on its Web site and encourages non-SAA members to join, but it's plain that the need is greater. Just how much LAGAR, an all-volunteer organization, can do to build such a network isn't clear, but the Steering Committee needs to do some brainstorming.

Thanks to Ron, Karen, and Greg for being such great panelists!