LGBT Alliances: Collections
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Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance Archives, ca. 1972-1994
The Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (ALFA) was founded in 1972 by a group of supportive women that splintered from the Women’s Liberation Center of Atlanta and the LGBTQ liberation movement to focus and promote specifically on issues of concern to homosexual feminists.
This collection is distinguished by its comprehensive library of periodicals. The entire run of Atlanta can be found here alongside hundreds of other newsletters, newspapers, and magazines covering bisexual, LGBTQ, feminist, transgender, and progressive issues. Themes include politics, social justice, women’s issues, and religious and spiritual interests. Titles range from widely distributed monthlies to obscure and ephemeral grassroots newsletters.
ALFA offers a uniquely southeastern perspective on the community and feminist movements in the last decades of the twentieth century. The breadth of the archive renders it pertinent to cultural historians as well as researchers and students studying political history.
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Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives
The ALGA is the only community group in Australia that actively collects and preserves LGBTIQ material from across the country and makes it readily accessible. The collections include material of national or international scope, but the heart of the Archives’ work is the collection and preservation of the historical life of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities of Australia. From the time of the Gold Rush to the battles against AIDS, the collections save the rich and diverse histories for current and future generations. Gale has digitized a portion of the rich ALGA periodicals collection, providing a window to Australia’s LGBTIQ community and a huge boost for the study of Australian LGBTIQ history and culture.
The ALGA periodicals provide coverage on a national level, such as OutRage and Gayzette, as well as state level, such as CAMP NSW Newsletter and Speaking Volumes (Adelaide). There are titles specific to the large metropolitan centers such as Capital Q (Sydney) and Now in Melbourne, and titles covering issues and organizations such as AIDS Action (Canberra) and Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Guide.
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Gay Activists Alliance 1970-1983
This collection of records gives an overview of the militant American homophile movement (the LGBTQ rights movement including LGBT people and their allies) from 1970 to 1983, taken from the now-disbanded, nonprofit Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) members. The GAA was founded in response to the Stonewall riots of 1969, and it was intended to be a militant yet nonviolent organization assembled to promote civil and social rights for LGBT people and the community. It focused on attaining fair employment and housing; fought against laws specifically targeted at gays, bisexuals, and transgender people; and attempted to reduce police harassment.
The collection itself is composed of four distinct categories: committee files, topical files, printed ephemera, and international lists of LGBT organizations and publications. The committee files are composed of records from various committees working within the GAA. The topical files include miscellaneous documents of internal record, such as meeting minutes, by-laws, and election questionnaires as well as documents related to the GAA’s LGBT studies research project. The printed ephemera is comprised of articles and press releases issued by the GAA and other homophile committees.
These records document a key period in the community's attempt to obtain better LGBT civil and social rights. Because the GAA was formed as a direct consequence of the Stonewall riots, the collection of these materials offers essential information of the homophile movement’s shift away from the passive education espoused by preexisting organizations like the Mattachine Society.
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Gay and Lesbian Alliance at Stanford University Records
The information in Gay and Lesbian Alliance at Stanford University Records comprises one of sixteen collections from the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, the world’s largest repository of LGBT materials. These files document the lives of community members and school students from 1940 to 2012, the organizations they founded, the discrimination they faced, and the devastation brought on by HIV and AIDS. Most of the items concern individuals, school students, or group members from California.
Founded in 1972 as the Gay People’s Union, a gay alliance, formed to advocate and provide support for school students, faculty, and staff at the Stanford campus, the LGBT community as a whole, and those affected by the HIV and AIDS epidemic.
This collection is a vital resource for school students, educators, and anyone researching the many facets of LGBT life for students in California, and other parts of the United States, in the second half of the twentieth century.
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Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action
GALA is a center for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and questioning (LGBTIQ) culture and education in southern Africa. Their mission is to act as a catalyst for the production, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge on the history, culture and contemporary experiences of LGBTIQ people. GALA was set up to address the erasure of the stories and experiences of LGBTIQ people from official archives, histories and other spaces in South Africa. From their archives, Gale has digitized 25 collections covering numerous aspects of LGBTIQ life in southern Africa.
Highlights include:
- The papers of Simon Tseko Nkoli - Nkoli was a prominent South African anti-apartheid, gay and lesbian rights and HIV/AIDS activist. His high profile helped change the attitude of the ANC towards gay rights.
- The papers of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) –SMUG is a non-profit umbrella organization for LGBTIQ advocacy groups in Uganda. Founded in 2004, SMUG offers counseling and health services to the LGBTIQ community, as well as highlighting and fighting persecution in Uganda.
- Exit newspaper – South Africa’s longest-running monthly LGBTIQ publication.
- The papers of LEGATRA – Established in 1997, LEGATRA is the Alliance for the Defense of Lesbians, Gays and Transgender Persons' Basic Human Rights in Zambia. Due to institutional harassment, LEGATRA was short-lived, with most members fleeing Zambia’s borders.
- The Papers of Joy Wellbeloved - Joy (James) Wellbeloved started the Phoenix Society in 1985 which provided a way for (white) men who dressed in women’s clothing to connect.
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Lesbian Herstory Archives
From the LHA’s Statement of Purpose: The Lesbian Herstory Archives exists to gather and preserve records of Lesbian lives and activities so that future generations will have ready access to materials relevant to their lives. The process of gathering this material will uncover and collect our herstory denied to us previously by patriarchal historians in the interests of the culture which they serve. We will be able to analyze and reevaluate the Lesbian experience; we also hope the existence of the Archives will encourage Lesbians to record their experiences in order to formulate our living herstory. Gale has digitized the Organization Files and Geographic Files from the Lesbian Herstory Archives, providing coverage of issues in activism and culture with a global scope.
- Organization Files – These files include materials from or related to around 1,600 groups in the LGBT community that focus on lesbian issues, as well as other women’s groups which include a lesbian focus or have lesbian participation. They range from small groups like the Black Lesbian Study Group (NY), to community centers such as the Lesbian Resource Center (Seattle, WA).
- Geographic Files – These files include an assortment of material ranging from local “lesbian/gay maps” and guides, to flyers of events, listings of bars, newspaper clippings and local newsletters.
