These primary and secondary resources have been compiled to help you learn more about the history of Boston’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. This list will be continually updated as we continue our research and as we hear from you.

The History Project maintains research files on Boston LGBT history from the Colonial Period to the present. These files, representing over 20 years of research, have provided the basis for our exhibits and our book Improper Bostonians.

Information in the files has been collected from a variety of national and local primary and secondary sources. Added to this resource is an index of Gay Community News from 1973-1990.

The History Project special collections consist of materials that have been donated by individuals and organizations that document Boston's LGBT communities. In collaboration with Northeastern University, we assist in identifying LGBT collections that may be transferred to their Archives and Special Collections— a secure, environmentally controlled space for the materials that provides access to researchers.

Collections include:

• Records of the Boston area organizing effort for the 1987 March on
  Washington
• A. Nolder Gay Collection
• Bill Conrad Boston bar Collection
• Drew Bartley Scondras (Boston City Councillor) Collection
• Laura McMurry Collection

Questions, inquiries and donations for THP’s special collections and archives can be addressed to The History Project / 46 Pleasant Street / Cambridge, MA / 02139, tel: (617) 641-8609. Or, contact us via the web.

Bibliography of books and periodicals set in Boston and/or by Boston based authors prepared by Martha Stone and Michael Wofsey, members of HQ76.3/New England, the LGBT library professional association.

Photographers with extensive photo collections of Boston’s LGBT community:

Craig Bailey: Photographer of Boston cultural events with special focus on African American gay and lesbian community. 1990-present.

Marilyn Humphries: Photographer of greater Boston political and cultural events with special focus on feminism activism, and the lesbian and gay community. 1990-present.

Ellen Shub: Photographer of greater Boston political and cultural events with special focus on feminism, activism, and the lesbian and gay community. 1974-present.

Boston area repositories with holdings containing significant LGBT collections or collections with significant LGBT content.

Boston Athenaeum Library
10_ Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108
617 227-0270
617 227-0270 FAX

Contact: Stephen Z. Nonack

Collections: Papers of The Anthology Society (Buckminster, Shaw, Walter), Richard Cowen, Elizabeth Brewster Ely (Tomboy Spinsters), David M.K. McKibbin, Stewart Mitchell; Print Room Collection (prints and photographs); rare books, broadsides.

Contact: Aaron Schmidt

Papers of Nathan Appleton Jr., Esther Edwards Burr/Sarah Prince, Joseph Dennie; photographs.

National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC)
Founded in 1999, the longest-running civil rights group devoted specifically to the Transgender Community, providing a clear and independent voice for transgenders nationwide.

ONE Institute & Archives
This Los Angeles-based organization has materials pertaining to Boston,
including copies of the Demophil Society (a 1960s publication) and some
other early 70s materials.

Historic New England
(formerly the Society for the Preservation of
New England Antiquities)
141 Cambridge St.
Boston, MA 02114
617 227-3956
617 227-9204
Contact: Lorna Condon

Collections: Codman Family Papers, A. Piatt Andrew Archive (on deposit); photographs.

Northeastern University Libraries Archives
and Special Collections Department
Snell Library
Room 92
Boston, MA 02115
(617) 373-5218

Records of Boston area community grassroots lesbian and gay organizations.

Collections: AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, Bromfield St. Educational Foundation (Gay Community News, OutWrite Writer’s Conference, Prisoner Project), Gay and Lesbian Labor Activists Network (GALLAN), Men of All Colors Together (formerly Black and White Men Together–Boston branch), Women’s Center Archives, and a collection of early 1970s homophile organization records collected by William Canfield and other activists. Northeastern has an ongoing collecting focus in the area of Boston LGBT community organizations.

Wellesley College Archives
Wellesley, MA
Contact: Jean Nielsen Berry, Archivist

Women’s Center Archives and Library
46 Pleasant St.
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 354-8807

Contact: Libby Bouvier

Records include reference files, flyers, brochures, print materials, and publications documenting the feminist and lesbian and gay community in Boston and Cambridge from 1970 to the present. Women’s Center Archives collections are also at Northeastern University Archives.