Coll. 038: Community Guides and Yellow Pages Collection

Coll. 038: Community Guides and Yellow Pages Collection

1974-2010

Since 1974, various groups have published guides for Boston and New England’s queer communities. These guides include information about area activities, lodging, vacation spots, entertainment venues, bars, health care organizations, a variety of nonprofit and for-profit organizations, and social justice organizations.

In 1974, the Boston newspaper Gay Community News (GCN) published the first such guide for the Boston area, focusing specifically on activities, organizations, and services in Boston and Cambridge. From 1975 to 1977, GCN published guides for activities, organizations, and services throughout New England.

In 1981, area publisher Mary Kennedy and others began producing the publication that would later become The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, & Transgender Communities’ Pink Pages (With All of New England). Like the GCN guides, the Pink Pages began by focusing on information pertaining to the Boston area, and later expanded to represent New England. A number of different guides to activities, organizations, and services have had brief publishing runs in Boston and New England, including DIRECTORY/New England and Private Lives.

Also, since 1993, various groups have published Boston area Yellow Page directories for the queer community.

This collection contains a complete run of the GCN-produced guides, and a near-complete run of Pink Pages. Guides produced by other groups are not complete.