In 1864, John William Sterling graduated from Yale College. About 1870, in his mid-twenties, Sterling met James Orville Bloss, who was three years younger. The two formed a relationship of almost 50 years and lived together in New York City for most…
On April 6, 1976, two gay liberation organizations "zapped" (demonstrated at) the New York Academy of Medicine, in New York City, which was hosting a panel on homosexuality sponsored by the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine, and…
For Women's History Month in 2016, OutHistory republished an interview by Jonathan Ned Katz with Alma Routsong. On January 20, 1975, the author of Patience and Sarah spoke to Katz about discovering her lesbianism and her development as a…
An essay by Elly Bulkin about Jo Sinclair, pen name of Ruth Seid (1913-1995), a working-class Jewish lesbian writer. Sinclair's positive portrayals of 1940s lesbians and norm-breaking teen, her fictional explorations of Jewish identity, and her…
This features collects essays by and work about Jonathan Ned Katz,
An introduction to artist Mary Ann Willson and her farmer partner Miss Brundage, who lived together in Greenville, New York. Their relationship became the basis of the novel Patience and Sarah by Alma Routsong/Isabel Miller. First published on…
The Stone Wall, the autobiography of Ruth Fuller Field, was published under the name "Mary Casal" in Chicago in 1930. The text presents the extraordinarily frank sexual and affectional life history of an American lesbian. OutHistory…
OutHistory presented the first public showing of a documentary film about long-time gay activist Randy Wicker. The 50 minute film, produced and directed by Michael Kasino, uses interviews, movies, and still photos to detail the life of this ornery,…
Barbara Gittings interviewed by Jonathan Ned Katz in 1974 about her development as a Lesbian, and about the founding and early history of the New York Daughters of Bilitis.
Larry Kramer's The American People, Volume I, Search for My Heart, A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015) is a fictional meditation on history, especially on gay and lesbian history. Kramer and other activists founded the AIDS Coalition to…
An introduction to the 1937 case history of “Mary Jones,” who scholars have identified as African American actress Edna Thomas. First published on OutHistory in 2015.
An interview with a documentary filmmaker who received a National Endowement for the Humanities grant in support of the first full-length documentary feature on Lorraine Hansberry. The interview was conducted by a consulting humanities scholar on the…
An exploration of the brief but significant life of African American educator Juliette Derricotte.
An exhibit on the life of Sara Josephine Baker, a pioneering figure in the history of public health. Published originally on OutHistory in 2014.
A collection of biographies to celebrate Black History Month, first published on OutHistory on January 23, 2014.
The proselytizing of one of the earliest U.S. homosexual emancipation activists, the Rev. Carl Schlegel, was documented for the first time and published June 1, 2019, on OutHistory to honor the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. Last edit:…
An exhibit focusing on the strains of activism that dominated the LGBT political scene in New York City and across the country from 1969 to 1973.
Profiles of ten LGBT social justice activists by Rich Wilson. First published December 10, 2013. Last edited: May 28, 2017.
An exhibit on the queer intersectionality of African American writer Lorraine Hansberry, focusing on a 2013-2014 museum exhibit, an overview of Hansberry's life and work, and copies of Hansberry's correspondence with The Ladder.
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. Published originally on OutHistory in 2011.