LGBT Studies

 

Red & Black Newspapers, Washington & Jefferson College, March 15, 1928, image Courtesy and Copyright The Learned T. Bulman '48 Historic Archives & Museum, Washington & Jefferson College

 

 

An Archive… (With a Capital A!) “is an organization dedicated to preserving the documentary heritage of a particular group: a city, a province or state, a business, a university, or a community.” - The Society of American Archivists definition

 

For example, 

•The National Archives and Records Administration in the United States 

•Archives Carnegie Institution for Science

•The Museum of Modern Art New York

•The New York Times online Archive

are all responsible for the preservation and management of archives. 

 

•

special collection

n. “a cohesive collection of noncirculating research materials held together by provenance or by a thematic focus…,

 

 

Cultural Erasure in Archives

Homosexuality was criminal in the United States until 2003 (Illinois was the first State to decriminalize it in 1962) and because of this Queer Culture was traditionally hidden in the margins of institutional archives before the development of our contemporary Queer Archive institutions.

Historically Archive institutions actively ignored Queer History, books which portrayed homosexuality were banned and between 1934 and 1964 the Hays Code, a self-imposed industry set of guidelines for all the motion pictures, prohibited the portrayal of profanity including homosexuality and suggestive nudity  – effectively erasing Queer Culture from main stream cinema to the margins of larger archival institutions. - Source Museum of Film Culture – accessed Nov 2024