HomeCollection Guides

Collection Guides

Welcome
Below you can browse all of our available collections guides, including guides to our physical (non-digitized) collections.

What is a finding aid?
Our physical collections stored at The History Project are described in PDF collection guides known as finding aids.

Because many of our collections have not yet been digitized, these finding aids exist to help researchers better understand what we have onsite.

Visit Us
Our physical collections can be viewed in Boston in-person by appointment.

If you are interested in arranging a time to see a collection, email us as info@historyproject.org. Please include which collection materials you are interested in seeing and the date(s) you would like to visit.

Michael Riegle, journalist, gay liberationist and prisoner rights activist, was born in 1943 in Gary, Indiana. The son of a steel mill worker, he attended Knox College where he received his Bachelors Degree; he later received his Doctorate in the

David Scondras was born on January 5, 1946 in Lowell, Massachusetts to first generation Greek- American parents, George and Dorothy. After graduating with honors from Lowell High School, David attended Harvard University where he received his…

The Boston-based weekly Bay Windows was first printed and distributed in 1983. The History Project has an incomplete run dating from March 1983-December 2022.

The AIDS Ephemera Collection consists of materials gathered over time by various members of The History Project, including board member Elizabeth Bouvier. Designed to the eyecatching advertisements for AIDS awareness events, these items were given…

The materials in this collection – compiled by Boston-based activist Sarah Holmes – document the work of several national and local (to Boston, Massachusetts) lesbian and gay rights groups from 1977 to 1993, with the bulk of the materials pertaining…

The Boston Pride Collection consists of papers (some originals and some photocopies), photographs, and ephemera from 1970 to 2008 related to the Boston Pride March and Rally, as well as materials from various celebrations and events during Pride…

Tags: Boston Pride, finding aids, GLBT activism, marches

The variety of materials in this collection speak to the long tradition of activism around the rights and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in Massachusetts, and attest to changing societal attitudes both across the state…

Boston Lesbian and Gays Against the Right (BLAGMAR) and its parent organization, Lavender Resistance, were groups formed in the last half of the 1970s to negotiate between issues relating to the LGBT community and the concerns of leftist politics.…

The Homophile Union of Boston grew out of the Boston chapter of the Mattachine Society and was founded in late 1969 or early 1970. The organization’s leadership was male, but there were also women members. The purpose of HUB was to provide a space…

The Student Homophile League was a self-described “service group organizing social and political action for the college age community” and was active between 1969 and 1980. First organized by MIT student Stan Tillotson in 1969, the organization…

The Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) was a lesbian organization founded in 1955 in San Francisco by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon for the purpose of self-knowledge and self-acceptance, public education, involvement in research, and lobbying to change the…

Published sporadically from 1971 to 1987, Fag Rag was a leading venue for discussions (and oftentimes explicit depictions) of gay male sexuality, gay liberation politics, literature, and history. This collection includes a full run of Fag Rag,…

Tags: Fag Rag, finding aids

Hit Parade was a gay magazine published in Boston from 1978-1980 and New York from 1980-1982. It was founded and edited by Francis Toohey and Bruce Jope.

Like Hit Parade, Esplanade emerged as an alternative to the more serious gay and lesbian publications of the day. Esplanade focused heavily on Boston's gay male community, including regular reports on bars, bartenders, DJs, musicians, etc...

Next was published by Joseph Leo. The History Project has an incomplete run from 1976–1982.

The History Project holds a complete run of Gay Community News (1973-1999), as well as the extensive Gay Community News photograph collection. When Gay Community News began in 1973, it was as a fairly simple local newsletter featuring a calendar of…

Laura McMurry was born in Troy, New York, and grew up in Oklahoma and Idaho, before receiving her undergraduate degree at Reed College in Oregon. She moved to Boston in the mid-sixties to join Harvard’s graduate program in biology, receiving her…

David Peterson came from a conservative family in Indiana. In 1965 Peterson came to the Boston area to attend MIT. One of the first organizations he became involved with was the Homophile Union of Boston (HUB). It was in those years he became friends…

This collection was originally titled the Robert John Quinn AIDS Memorial Books, by the compiler Robert John Quinn. This collection includes more than 7,000 obituaries, many of which specify that individuals died of AIDS or AIDS-related illnesses...

The collection chronicles the lives of Albert Wakefield and Marshall Belmaine from the 1950’s to the 1990’s. There is military information about the service records of both men. Al Wakefield served in Vietnam and was decorated for service. Military…

Rev. Robert P. Wheatly, b. 1919 d. October 31, 2002, was a Gay Unitarian Universalist Minister and social justice pioneer who lived and worked in Massachusetts from 1949 until his death in 2002. He moved to the Boston area to attend Harvard Divinity…

The collection consists of newspaper and magazines articles as well as booklets and pamphlets documenting the road to same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, the bulk of which date from 2003 and 2004, along with files for individual same-sex marriages containing...

The collection consists primarily of photocopied affidavits submitted to KnowTheyNeighbor.org by people who wanted their signatures removed from Petition K, The Constitutional Amendment to Define Marriage...

Janet Dendy’s Lowell High School GSA Collection consists of the records of the Rainbow Connection, including the organization’s constitution, membership rosters, activity flyers and one copy of the summer 1998 edition of The Rainbow Review. …

The Beantown Bowling League began in 1986 and is still in existence today. The documents in the collection cover their early years as an organization from 1987-1992 and show the wide array of tournaments the group participated in, in addition to…

The Howard Berman Collection documents Berman’s participation in the activities of a number of organizations, particularly the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, and the Freedom to Marry Coalition of Massachusetts.

Tags: Boston Jewish Spirit, Howard Berman, Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry

Historically in Massachusetts, and in other states, attempts by same-sex couples to apply for and receive marriage licenses were met with refusals by public officials to grant a license to same-sex couples.

As a response to those attempts a…

Tags: Massachusetts, Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, same-sex marriage

Founded in 1988 at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, MA, Project 10 East was the first school-based program for LGBT youth. As a response to the 1987 suicide of a recent graduate of the high school who had been...

Tags: Al Ferreira, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, Project 10 East

SpeakOut’s roots trace back to 1972, when the Daughters of Bilitis and the Homophile Union of Boston joined forces to create the Gay Speakers Bureau. Since then, the organization has evolved and expanded to reflect the rich diversity of the GLBT…

The Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth (GCGLY) was created by executive order on February 10, 1992 by Governor William Weld, in an effort to support the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth community. The Commission was…

Tags: Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, Paul Cellucci

Dignity Boston was founded in 1972 as a local chapter of Dignity/USA, which started in Los Angeles in 1969, first as a counseling group, then a support group for LGBTQ Catholics. Dignity/USA has been a national independent nonprofit organization…

The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus (BGMC) was founded in 1982 as a 501© not for profit organization. The membership in 2002-2003 was 200 members, 175 signers and 25 non- signers...

Tags: Boston Gay Men's Chorus

Attorney John Ward founded the non-profit legal rights organization, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) in 1978. It grew out of the Boston/Boise Committee, a group organized in December 1977 to defend the rights of gay men arrested in…

The History Project's T-Shirt consists of T-Shirts from a variety of LGBTQ Boston-based groups dating back to 1979.

Tags: t-shirts, The History Project

Boston’s gay subculture developed in tandem with Prohibition, where speakeasies became natural gathering places for gay individuals who were already leading a clandestine life. The History Project’s Improper Bostonians notes, “Bars and other…

In Newsweekly, known as IN Newsweekly or in newsweekly during some of its publication, was a LGBT newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. It began in 1991 as IN Boston and became IN Newsweekly in 1993 when it merged with other publications, and…

The collection consists of publications, promotional material for events, and other documents relating to AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts. The bulk of the collection consists of the publications, which include a pair of early newsletters from…

Tags: AIDS Action Committee, HIV/AIDS

Boston's Other Voice was an LGBTQ-themed radio magazine that ran from February 1981 to November 1989. The show was created by Don Latulippe...

Boston Spirit magazine, launched in 2005, is an LGBT publication focused on the Massachusetts and New England area.

The collection consists of one record carton with materials consisting of GALA Newsletters and flyers. The collection is ongoing as Dorchester GALA is still in existence.

Tags: Dorchester, Dorchester Gay and Lesbian Association

The Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth, (BAGLY) is a youth led, adult supported social support organization, committed to social justice, and creating, programs, policies and services in support of the LGBTQ youth…

The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) was formed in 2001. The organization focused initial efforts on adding a gender identity clause into the City of Boston’s non-discrimination ordinance in 2002. The group expanded to include a…

Tags: Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, transgender

Men of All Colors Together/Boston (BWMT/Boston; MACT/Boston), founded under the name “Black and White Men Together/Boston” in 1980 is the Boston chapter of the National Association of Black and White Men Together (known as the “International…

The collection consists of newspaper clippings and publications gathered during research for the Above + Beyond exhibit. Included are subject files relating to specific topics such as activism and minorities, which contain primarily newspaper…

Tags: ACT UP/Boston, AIDS Action Committee, exhibitions, HIV/AIDS, MAP for Health, Names Project, The History Project

Fenway Community Health Center started in 1971 when a group of students and community activists started a weekly drop-in health clinic serving the diverse population of the Fenway neighborhood: gay men, the elderly, students, and low-income tenants.…

Tags: Fenway Community Health Center

George Chapin Scott was born August 1916 in Heath, Massachusetts, the only child to Myria F. Chapin and John H. Scott. He first contacted The History Project in 2000 to donate a large collection of local lesbian and gay newspapers, i.e. The Guide,…

Tags: Eddie Bernier, George Chapin Scott, Provincetown

The Gender Crash collection consists of one archival box (.5 linear feet). This box contains a series of folders centering on the monthly open mic Gender Crash, Butch Dyke Boy Productions, and the founder of both organizations, Gunner Scott. This…

The International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE), founded in 1987 in Massachusetts, is a leading advocate and educational organization for promoting the self- definition and free expression of individual gender identity. IFGE is not a support…

AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power is an international advocacy group working to improve the lives of people with AIDS. The Boston chapter of Act Up officially formed on January 6, 1988 at their first public meeting held at Boston City Hall...

Tommy’s Connection began in 1980 as Tommy’s New England Magazine, a small free publication with a variety of short-form content and various photographs of nude and semi-nude men.

OLE (an acronym for Older Lesbian Energy) is a social organization for lesbian women over age 40. Founded in 1980 by Toni Schiff and Anita Fast, OLE grew out of Schiff's 1979 master's thesis for Goddard-Cambridge School of Social Change, "The…

Joyce Crowder (September 4, 1935 – April 4, 2010) was a nurse and ordained minister of the United Church of Christ. She worked to protect the rights of gay and lesbian nurses through her membership in the Gay Nurses’ Alliance and as secretary for the…

Charles Shively was born in 1937. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard in 1959, and his PhD in 1969. He began teaching at Boston State College in 1965. In 1982 when BSC closed their doors, UMass Boston agreed to take seven of their thirty…

Tags: Charley Shively

The LGBTQ Religious Archives Collection has been created over the years by The History Project and consist of various letters, flyers, newletters and program books from various queer religious groups. The materials have been collected by board…

One of the oldest bars in Massachusetts, Fran's place had a long and vibrant life in the city of Lynn. John Collin's opened the tavern in sometime in the 1920's (the exact date is not known). In 1940 the business was passed on to John's parents, Fran…

This collection includes digitized copies of the Alliance of Massachusetts Asian Lesbians and Gay Men and Boston Asian Gay Men and Lesbians newsletter.

In February, 1986, Franklin Hummel and John Dumas formed a social group centered originally in Massachusetts but later including New Hampshire, for gay people and their friends who were interested in science fiction and fantasy. The group met…

The Greater Boston Business Council is a non-profit organization which began in 1990 to foster and promote the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) business and professional community in the greater Boston area, thereby contributing to the…

The Gay Men's Domestic Violence Project (LGBTQ-DVP) was founded in 1994, by a victim of domestic violence when he was repeatedly denied services by mainstream domestic violence shelters in his attempt to leave his abusive partner. The organization…

Gays for Patsy (GFP) is a Boston-based, nonprofit, all-volunteer organization made up of Country/Western dance enthusiasts. They mission is to share the joy of country-western dancing while raising funds for groups serving those in need.
Founded in…

The Gay Nurses’ Alliance (GNA) of Boston was founded in 1978 and its history can be traced to the Pennsylvania Nurses’ Association (PNA) which was founded in 1973 in Philadelphia by David Waldron and Carolyn Innes. Waldron and Innes wanted to create…

This collection was given to The History Project by an anonymous donor in April 2017, at an event at Fenway Health. It contains a variety of printed media including newspaper articles (original and photocopied), brochures, flyers, magazines, and photographs highlighting Black gay and lesbian Boston history from 1980 through 2001.