Ruth Peter Worth, originally Ruth Wertheimer, was a Jewish Holocaust survivor, a U.S. immigrant, a lesbian, and a long-time home owner in Cherry Grove, Fire Island, New York.  Worth's inclusion of the male name “Peter” on her U.S. "Certificate of Naturalization" was an act of resistance that asserted the naturalness and goodness of her lesbian desire and identity.

Thanks to Ron Van Cleef for major research assistance, German translations, photographs, written summaries, and the Ruth Peter Worth Chronology. 

Published originally on OutHistory on October 31, 2011. Updated in 2025.

An exhibit on the life of Sara Josephine Baker, a pioneering figure in the history of public health. Published originally on OutHistory in 2014.

This exhibit explores the letters of Toronto-based British student Harold W. Curtis to U.S. gay writer Henry Blake Fuller, which included comments about queer life in several Canadian cities in the 1890s. Published originally on OutHistory in February 2026.

The growth of gossip magazines and tabloids during the first half of the twentieth century was partially fueled by the industry's embrace of sensational topics such as murder, violence, crime, and corruption. But no subject seemed to attract more attention than sexuality, especially sexual practices constructed as "abnormal" by the publications' authors and editors. As a result, gossip magazines and tabloids became a cultural spotlight that helped expose a variety of sexual identities, practices, and subcultures previously hidden from public view. First published on OutHistory in 2017.

An exhibit featuring the texts of state laws, beginning with a California statute adopted in 2011, that mandate LGBT history education in public schools. Published originally, with the research assistance of Sara Slager, on OutHistory in 2023. Updated in 2024.

To honor the 40th anniversary celebration of the Stonewall Riots in June 2009, OutHistory for the first time published nine pages of New York City Police Department records created early on the morning of the rebellion’s starting date, June 28, 1969. These were obtained by Jonathan Ned Katz via a New York Freedom of Information Law request. In June 2019, Tim Fitzsimmons, a reporter for NBC News, published one completely new and other old but differently redacted documents based on a FOIL request for Stonewall police reports. They are all republished here.

This essay, which reflects on teaching gay and lesbian history at San Francisco State University and Santa Clara University, was first published in The Journal of American History 93, no. 4 (March 2007): 1192-1199. Copyright Organization of American Historians. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

This exhibit is a collection of stories contributed by OutHistory users. To be included in the exhibit, send your story to marcs@sfsu.edu.

During Black History Month in 2016, OutHistory presented original research discoveries about parties organized by cross-dressed African American men in Washington, D.C., in the 1880s and 1890s.

Explore fifteen years of the New York City Pride Parade through Suzanne Poli's exceptional photographs. Published originally on OutHistory in 2009.