This online resource is a research supplement to Marc Stein, The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History (New York: New York University Press, 2019). It provides references for primary documents related to the materials reprinted in The Stonewall…
An essay and primary source exhibit on the 1951 correspondence between Henry Gerber, an early U.S. gay rights leader, and Jim Egan, an early Canadian gay rights advocate. Published originally on OutHistory in 2023.
A chronology of references to same-sex desire and sexual activity in the life of Walt Whitman and in the works of Whitman's biographers and critics. This timeline is a collaborative work-in-progress. Some of the language used and concepts…
An essay, originally published in The Advocate in 1989, about U.S. President Grover Cleveland's sister Rose and her partner.
A resolution introduced by a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Black History Month in February 2021.
This exhibit features notes from an anonymous OutHistory contributor about a Civil War officer and biographer of U.S. President Ulysses Grant.
An introduction to more than 600 LGBT direct action demonstrations and protests in the United States from 1965 to 1973, with an overview report, annotations, bibliographic references, and tags. Published originally by OutHistory and Queer Pasts in…
OutHistory is pleased to publish an original essay by historian Douglas M. Charles discussing the research for his 2015 book Hoover’s War on Gays: Exposing the FBI’s “Sex Deviates” Program (University Press of Kansas).
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.
An exhibit about the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's surveillance of African American writer and activist James Baldwin in the 1960s and 1970s. First published on OutHistory in 2014.
A collection of biographies to celebrate Black History Month, first published on OutHistory on January 23, 2014.
Profiles of ten LGBT social justice activists by Rich Wilson. First published December 10, 2013. Last edited: May 28, 2017.
President John F. Kennedy was famous for his vivid, and some might say almost compulsive, heterosexuality. But straight men can have a gay side, and JFK’s life was filled with prominent gay men. First published on OutHistory in 2013.
This proud moment in civil rights activism is also a moment to reflect on how LGBT civil rights strategies have overlapped with, drawn strength from, and patterned themselves on a century and a half of anti-racist struggle in the United States.
The Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C., is the oldest continuously active gay rights organization in the United States. Founded on April 20, 1971, as the Gay Activists Alliance, the group dedicated itself to securing the…
An overview of the history of a lesbian parenting advocacy group founded in Seattle. Published originally on OutHistory in 2013.
Highlights of LGBT history in Seattle, drawn from the History Project members’ collective research conducted over fifteen years. An overview of the early history of taverns in Pioneer Square, the formation of early organizations that led to the…
"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…