Browse material on the OutHistory website by place.
On the publication of Jen Manion’s book Liberty's Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), OutHistory featured an original essay by Manion. It discusses how sex between men in early Philadelphia…
This exhibit was originally published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the demonstrations for gay and lesbian rights that began at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on July 4, 1965, and continued as Annual Reminders on July 4 in 1966, 1967,…
A collection of love letters to Emma Goldman, the anarchist leader, vividly conveys the emotions and varied life experience of Almeda Sperry, their complex author. The letters detail and evoke Sperry's tender-brutal relationship with her husband…
In 1965 Drum magazine called it “the first sit-in of its kind in the history of the United States.” To honor the fiftieth anniversary of this major act of LGBT resistance, Marc Stein presented reports of the sit-in at Dewey’s restaurant in Center…
Profiles of ten LGBT social justice activists by Rich Wilson. First published December 10, 2013. Last edited: May 28, 2017.
A French lawyer and politcian, Moreau de Saint Méry, who lived in the United States from 1793 to 1798, mostly in Philadelphia, provided one of the earliest comments on sex between women in the new American nation. First published on OutHistory in…
The author of this feature on LGBTQ life at Penn State asked to remain anonymous. Published October 23, 2013.
The years from 1607 to 1783 constitute the founding era of what became the United States. In the early years of this era, in these American colonies, the penalty for sodomy was death, and a number of executions are documented. Sodomy was usually…
"Lesbians in the Twentieth Century" was created by Professor Esther Newton and the graduate and undergraduate students in the seminar on "Lesbian History" that she taught in fall of 2006 at the University of Michigan. Newton and…
A survey, through black and white portraits and texts, of many pioneering openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender individuals elected to public office in the United States beginning in the 1970s. For information on a touring exhibit version of…
This exhibit focuses on LGBTQ+ activism on college and high school campuses and representations of queer youth in the media. The project was researched by Bryn Mawr and Haverford students for a class on the history of sexuality in America, taught by…
Transcripts of interviews on Philadelphia LGBT history from the 1940s to the 1970s, along with an introduction by the interviewer, who completed much of this work as part of his Ph.D. dissertation research at the University of Pennsylvania. The…