>> Megan Metcalf: Welcome, and thank you so much for joining us this evening. Raise your hand if you're in town for ALA. Oh! Welcome! So [laughs], so I'll start with introducing myself. My name is Meg Metcalf. I'm the Women's Gender and LGBTQ+ Studies Librarian here at the Library of Congress. I am also the chair of LC GLOBE, which is our employee organization for LGBTQ+ staff and allies. So we are going to start tonight. I'm going to let folks introduce themselves and briefly tell us about their background, how they come to this topic of LGBTQ activism. And then we're going to have questions and answers when that part is over, so just keep in mind we are recording. So if you do ask a question, you will be captured on film. So without further ado, welcome to Stonewall 50. Would you like to introduce yourself? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Oh, certainly. Franklin Robinson, and I am with the National Museum of American History, and I work in the Archives Center, and I have been there since well, I volunteered from 1992, been there on salary since 2000. In addition to LGBTQ, I collect for agriculture, popular entertainment, motion pictures, theater, colonial religion-- . I know, it's a mixed bag. [Laughter] How I got into this is I saw a lack of my community within the museum's archives, and I decided to try to fix that as best I could. >> Lisa Warwick: Hi, I'm Lisa Warwick. I come from D.C. Public Library, our Special Collections. My job title is Library Coordinator for Reference and Events. It's a job that I just started one year ago, I think, in July. So our special collections are trying to collect more unheard D.C. history, so that is why we're here and trying to collect more in this area. We do have some collections, but we're trying to get more over time, so I'm really happy to be here. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: Also, we are all named Lisa on the panel [laughter]. Catch up, people. So you can either call me Lisa or if that's confusing, you can call me, my name is Shawnta Smith-Cruz, you can call me Shawn. And I'm here from New York City, which you can imagine right now is filled with "hersteria" over Stonewall 50. So the fact that I got here was amazing, but I work with the Lesbian Herstory Archives there which is-- who here has, who here has heard of the Lesbian Herstory Archives? [Cheering] But if you haven't, then I'll give you some introduction as to why it's amazing. So we are the longest-running, so oldest lesbian, collectively-run, volunteer-run, largest lesbian archive in the world. And it's based in Brooklyn, New York, so I've been a collective member there for 15 years, 20 years, depending on, you know, the start date. And I'm also the co-chair for the Center for LGBTQ Studies which is at the CUNY Graduate Center at the City University of New York, and that is the oldest and first LGBT academic research center, which is, was started by Martin Duberman. There is, started in the, well-- long history of his beginning, but I guess you could say it started in the early '90s, late '80s, sometime around that time. LHA started in 1974, and what I'm sort of doing a lot of promotion for in the last couple of years is the acquisition of the Salsa Soul Sisters collection which is the first lesbian of color organization in the country, primarily African ancestral lesbian, so black and Latino lesbians, although I can answer questions that have to do with the Lesbian Herstory Archives collections in general. And I'm also a librarian. At the CUNY Graduate Center, I'm the head of reference and then the system professor there, so I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me, Meg. And I have lots to say, lots to answer. Not that much to say about Stonewall, but like you know, I'm from New York, so I have to represent so I can like do my best. >> Jake Newsome: Absolutely, great! And my name is Jake Newsome, and I manage the College Student Leadership Initiatives at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. So in that capacity, I work with college students across the country to study not only the history of the Holocaust, but also its contemporary lessons for today's life. But when in, in my other, wearing my other hat, I am a scholar of LGBT history of American and German LGBT history. And so my work focuses on the experiences of the LGBT community during the Holocaust, but also in Germany after the Holocaust. And then its essentially, its tie-in with the inspiration of Holocaust history and Holocaust memories, and the role that it played in gay rights activism. And so I, I guess I'm the only one on here that's not a librarian or an archivist, but that is, yeah, that's how I'll be able to contribute to this conversation is connecting the history of the Holocaust with American gay rights activism. >> Megan Metcalf: Excellent! Thank you so much. And actually, your introduction reminds me of something we were actually discussing right before the panel, which is most of the time, as a librarian, just speaking for myself. Most of the time you encounter people who are aware of these resources, these primary resources we're going to be talking about today in LGBTQ+ history. Most of the time they are historians, right? Or they are not necessarily members of the LGBTQ+ community, and I'm wondering if you all have had similar experiences with that where we're finding, you know, more often people in the community aren't aware of their history. It's more a scholar or more a look from above, or more academia would be a place where that would be more, more fluid. So is, have you guys also had that experience? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Yeah, at, we, we have, we are fully open archives. We take appointments, open five days a week, so I can say yes, we've definitely had people who are not members of the LGBTQ community come in to study the collections because of, let's say conversion therapy, social history, use of urban spaces. It's a, it's quite fascinating the amazing things that you can pull out of some of these collections. So, so yes, in answer to your question. >> Lisa Warwick: Yeah, for us it's a lot of researchers, and so we've been trying to do more things in the community that will make our collections a little more accessible. They're not all officially approved, but I'm going to talk about them anyway. So we're having a monthly panel series on LGBTQ history in D.C. starting with the first one on July-- I'm going to have to look at my notes-- . >> Megan Metcalf: Good librarian with her notes. >> Lisa Warwick: References, July 25 at Cleveland Park Library, and then another one on August 24 at Mt. Pleasant Library, and another one on September 17 that's going to be all of the founding members of the Sapphire [inaudible] which we're really excited about. And then we're also going to do this-- just got approved, so I'm allowed to talk about it-- so we're going to do a voguing ball at the, in September. >> Megan Metcalf: Wonderful! >> Lisa Warwick: So there are handouts with our websites. All of the details on that will be listed later on. >> Megan Metcalf: Wow! A voguing workshop! And don't you also have a panel coming up on the 21st as well? August 21? No? That's a different one? >> Lisa Warwick: Twenty-- . >> Megan Metcalf: Which one am I on? [Laughter] >> Lisa Warwick: Twenty-fourth. >> Megan Metcalf: Oh, it's the 24th, okay. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Thank goodness we cleared that up, right? >> Megan Metcalf: Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness, okay. That's not-- okay. So any other comments on that specifically? >> Jake Newsome: So I guess I would have to say that in my case as, you know, being the researcher going into these, trying to find these archives, I found it quite, actually the opposite. Right? That I was going into these archives that normally hold all the, the material on, you know, Holocaust records and going in saying, "I want to be able to find, you know, information on this particular victim group. I want to, I want to know about gay concentration camp survivors. What were, what were the Nazi's policies against gays and lesbians?" And archivists there being like, "Hmm, I don't really think we have anything about that on here. We only do like real Holocaust stuff." So what I ended up having to do was, you know, spend time going across Germany and visiting these local volunteer-led grassroot community center archive libraries, right? Where it was members of the community themselves finding and documenting this history. And so without, you know, the passion and the work and the dedication of those, those archivists who, you know, were really just archivists on the weekends or at, at work after work. You know, clearly like none of, none of my work would have been possible or the work of other, other scholars. And I don't know how many times that literally I would meet someone, they would get off of work, and like we would have a sandwich together really quick. And then go, like go spend, he would give up his night to spend it in the archives so I could get in there. >> Megan Metcalf: Yeah. >> Jake Newsome: And so that's just, it's just really incredible the, you know, the work of archivists and librarians all over the place. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: And can I add to that? That in, this summer you're probably going to be there next weekend in Berlin? There is the LGBT ALMS Conference, so it's an international Archivists, Librarians, Museum Curators, Special Collections Conference for the LGBTQ community. And it's happening at, in Berlin next weekend, which I'm not going to, but. >> Megan Metcalf: I wish! >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: They had it two years ago in London, and I was there, and it was really a lot of people talking about what you're referring to which is the small community archives, international spaces, and merging this research archival gap that I think exists. Definitely it happens at LHA, and when you think about archives and access, I would say that's a huge question that we have in terms of how are people getting to these collections, right? So when like at CLAGS, for example, we have this really rich archival history, and it's all in file cabinets in the office. And we're always having funding issues of a sort of like university-- grassroots university center. The university pays for the office space, but not the staff, and not anything else. And so even 25 years later, we're still trying to get funding, and a lot of what we do is individual donor requests, right? Individual donor reach-outs, outreach, but most of the money I think can exist in the archival material which I know is controversial, unethical. And that's where I am right now, the conversation of access and sustainability, and like how do we merge those two things? So an example of what I'm referring to is the digitization projects that would allow for these materials to leave the shelves and enter an online space so that people can access the materials. And I know that at the Lesbian Herstory Archives, we've had a series of projects, whether it be through library students, digitizing full collections, and then putting it online. We've done that with Pratt University Library where we have a full website of Audre Lorde's, all her oral histories or all of the, I guess, of audio, website, what is it called? I'd have to look it up, but like a full run of audio clips. Oh my gosh, Love Tapes, the Love Tapes. All online. And so we've had multiple materials put online through the digitization, and then we've also had proprietary digitization projects through Gale Resources, so I wanted to mention-- . >> Megan Metcalf: We should talk about that. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: Yeah, we should talk about Gale and how things sort of projects like Gale are sort of moving into this realm of access and potentially an unethical space, and I should say as a disclaimer that I'm on the Gale Advisory Board for their LGBT full-text database, so. >> Megan Metcalf: Fun fact: that was the first database I bought for this library. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: There you go. >> Megan Metcalf: But it's really interesting because actually just yesterday, they, someone, a researcher had put a call out on Twitter for this long-lost document called "The Asexual Manifesto," and all the librarians and archivists were going at, and we find it. And we find the reference to it in the Archives of Human Sexuality and Identity, and we see that it's been digitized from the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and now we have the full text in our hands. So it's really interesting because I think for the longest time, the things that would be in the Lesbian Herstory archives, or in other community archives, would never be accessible, because they would not have the funds to digitize it themselves. So this option of Gale or another database or another publisher coming in and digitizing it for us is also very enticing. But then again, it's behind a paywall, so what are the ethics of that? Yeah, I think that's really an interesting question. So how does it work? Do, do you guys know when people-- ? So they digitized your collections. So do you guys have data or information on who's accessing what once you, once it's been digitized? >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: We might. >> Megan Metcalf: We might [laughs]. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: We don't want to know. >> Megan Metcalf: We don't want to know. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: I think access in libraries is a real question, like the consideration of how a lot of queer people have entered libraries has often been about us going in and like hiding in a shelf, right? Finding in HQ or whatever the Dewey equivalent is, and when your parent isn't looking, you like look for that one text, right? And then you come out to yourself, and that's like the most of the coming out stories happens in libraries with like queer librarians. In fact, at least that's my gathering, right? >> Megan Metcalf: I hear some yeses from the audience. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: Relating to that moment where you like [inaudible] you're like oh my gosh-- [inaudible]. And so when you think of like libraries and privacy and access, it's all, it's all very complicated when you add a queer lens to it, and so when archives enter that space, we have to think about, well you know, the Lesbian Herstory Archive is open to any lesbian. You don't have to give any credentials. You don't have to give a reason. You don't even have to kiss me when you walk through, although it's okay if you do. But as long as you want to and say you identify as wanting to see the collection, then you can. So it's in that way completely accessible, but if you're not able to be in the space, then it's not accessible. So there is those questions of access and what the ethics are of that. And then there's the question of you know turfdom and like [inaudible] that relationships as it relates to queer spaces, and turf refers to trans-exclusive radical feminism which comes up when people say [inaudible]. The first question is well are you accessible to every-- you know? And then we have to like talk about it. But so access is a big question, and so then I would say it's something that [inaudible] to think about. And money is a big question too. And we're being recorded, but I would say that the royalties for the Gale database has to a point led to a sustainable, you know, archive, in a way that we hadn't anticipated. >> Megan Metcalf: So if it can be reciprocal like that, that's hopefully a positive thing for the future. But yeah, I definitely never envisioned publishers coming into the queer community archive that I was at, the Queerzine Archive project. That would never in a million years have imagined that that would be an option for us, but I'm curious for other panelists. Have you had any digitization efforts, or been involved with any digitization efforts? Or have there been any ethical considerations with that and with outing people? [ Inaudible ] >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: So we digitize on demand, and we don't, yeah, so but there is a cost for that. I mean, it's something very simple. There's usually no cost to that if it's something that the reference librarian can do right at the desk, we're good with that. But if it's like a folder more than that, then it would be, then you have to actually pay for the digitization to actually uploading it to the [inaudible] and all that stuff. But the other, the big initiative that the Smithsonian Museum of American History and the one archive have going on is what we call right now is the LGBTQ digital hub, and that's being developed by Smithsonian and Stanford University, and that's going to be Open Access with the caveat, and Bob Horton, who is my big boss, he can speak to this much better than I can because he's the one working it through. But that would be basically a hub where smaller institutions can actually put their materials, and it would be sort of like the gay Google in a way, is the way I envision it anyway. And but there would actually be, the controls would actually be put on by that repository, so it's not a one size fits all, so let's say if the Herstory Archives wants to put their material up and they say, "Oh, well, this is only available to people we allow to see it. Or this is everybody can see it," then that is the way that we're envisioning it is that there's a lot of control by the local institution or the local individual even. And we want to make it so robust that actually someone let's say sitting at home saying, "Oh, you know, they're saying that this happened, in you know June of 1969, but no, no, no. I was there," and you know they can type in their comments and add that up. You know there's no vetting process. It's on the researcher to you know follow that through to make sure that what they're saying is, is accurate. But there's no kind of policing on there, so that's kind of where we are with digitization. At least at the Archive Center. >> Megan Metcalf: Is there a potential launch date for that, or not yet, too early? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Well, the good thing is, is that we're, it's a three-phase process, and Comcast has been very good about actually helping to fund it, in addition to one going out-- . Yeah, it's been, it's really, it's taken off much quicker than we ever thought. So it is now in development, the prototype, so we're hoping maybe 2020, keeping our fingers crossed, yeah. So yeah, it just, I don't think there's anything, there's nothing on our website because one is the primary mover and shaker simply because we're quasi-federal, and we can't go out for grant money. We can ask for money, but we can't go out for grants, but they can. So that's kind of where we're at, so we're thinking 2020, so yeah. >> Megan Metcalf: And you have a full collection of ONE, a full run of ONE. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: We do have a full -- . >> Megan Metcalf: We're talking about ONE magazine, the first gay publication, periodical, in the United States. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: And we have a full run of the [inaudible] Review as well. Yeah. >> Megan Metcalf: As do we. [ Inaudible ] >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Alright, Lisa! [Laughter] >> Megan Metcalf: And what about The Ladder? What about The Ladder, Lisa? [Laughter] Do you have The Ladder? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: We do have The Ladder. >> Megan Metcalf: Okay. We're just going to do this for the rest of the time. [Inaudible] No, but we have Turnabout. [Laughter] >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Alright, okay, we're even. >> Megan Metcalf: Do you have Drag? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Yes. >> Megan Metcalf: You do not have Drag. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: I do, and I actually have a full run of the Drag Rag, do you? [ Laughter ] >> Megan Metcalf: Well, I guess I'll just have to come see you then. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Please do. >> Megan Metcalf: Alright. Digitech put that in LGBTQ Hub, although shout out to the digital Transgender Archive because they've digitized Drag, Turnabout, and I don't know if they've digitized Transvestia or not. But I do know those two for sure. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Awesome. >> Megan Metcalf: Yeah. Let's keep fighting. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: They'll know exactly what we've got by the time we finish, right? >> Megan Metcalf: Exactly! Any other digital projects anybody wants to pitch or talk about? >> Lisa Warwick: I don't have all of those. >> Megan Metcalf: That's okay. >> Lisa Warwick: You don't have to get into it, it's okay. Not among Lisa's. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: That's right! [Laughter] >> Lisa Warwick: So our biggest digitization project right now is the Washington Blade, so we, we do have the full run of that. We've digitized up to 1993, and we plan to have the rest done within the next year or two. And we just got the full run of Women in the Life, and it, it runs from 1993 to 2003, and we're going to start digitizing that next year. >> Megan Metcalf: Wow, and then this will just all be accessible on your website. >> Lisa Warwick: Yep. DigDC.DCLibray.org. All of that will be free and open to the public. We have had some concerns with digitizing with, in the Punk archive we have a zine collection, and there are a few things that you can see if you're at a library on one of our connected computers, but you can't see from [inaudible]. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: I totally, I totally forgot to mention SOVA, SOVA.SI.EDU which is our search engine with across the institution. At least within the American History Archives, if something has been digitized that's linked to the folder on the website. So let's say if you'd want to, you know go to SOVA.SI.EDU look up "lesbian," it'll pull anything that has that keyword in it across the institution. So let's say the Portrait Gallery has something, American Indian might have something, you know, if we have something, it'll bring all that up. At least on ours, if we've digitized, let's say someone asked for a photograph, whatever, you can click on that, and you can actually see the image. So I totally forgot about that part. >> Megan Metcalf: That's amazing. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: I was just [inaudible]. >> Megan Metcalf: Oh, taking notes? Right. So another popular topic that's been coming up a lot recently is hidden histories and visible histories, and I feel like a lot of LGBTQ history is hidden. But you know this is 50 years of Stonewall. We're talking about this, this turning point in the LGTBQ historical narrative, or so people say. But does it obscure things? Is it hiding things? What does this focus on Stonewall not allow us to see? And I'm wondering if there's anything, any hidden histories in your own collections you'd like to share? >> Lisa Warwick: I'll tell a story that kind of ties into the access piece, so when I was getting ready for this talk, I was looking for our copies of Blacklight, which is a gay, black periodical that ran in the late '70s, and we just have a few years of it, and so it's in this miscellaneous box. And while I was going through, I found two issues of something called Breadbox that said it's a gay revolutionary workers handout, and it was, it's completely hidden in our collection. It's in, unless you knew it was there, you wouldn't know, or unless you came in and said, "There was this thing called Breadbox," and in tiny print on the bottom, it said, it says something like, "You can find these, these will be handed out every ten days in these locations." [Laughter] We have two of them, and you just know that there are tons of them somewhere. Those are the kinds of things that get hidden in our collections, and I think those are also focusing on like D.C. history. Everything that was going on before it kind of gets swept under the rug a little bit. >> Megan Metcalf: Definitely. >> Lisa Warwick: Before Stonewall. >> Megan Metcalf: Yeah, before Stonewall, what was happening then? Yeah. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: So when you mentioned hidden history, for me what, what that calls to mind is let's say within a lot of our collections that were collected for maybe another purpose or another reason, you know. And suppose let's say one of those, the persons in there belonged to the community but was either not out or it's not generally known. We have a huge photograph collection. [Inaudible] is his last name. I cannot remember his first name, but anyway, he used to do lecture talks around the country on his travels, you know, for you know the ladies' lunch and all that nonsense. And excuse me, for anybody who does that, sorry. So, so come to find out one day, somebody kind of came into my office and said, "You did know that [inaudible] is gay?" And I'm like what? He said, "It's not generally known, but he was gay." And I said, "Okay," I said, "is that you saying it, or?" He goes, "No, there's that secret box." And I'm like oh. I said, "What box is that?" And he goes, "I'm not supposed to tell you, but it just happens to be box 25, [inaudible]." And sure enough, I mean, within his photographs, there's photographs that are definitely gay-related [laughter]. And so yeah, so that, that is kind of the hidden history there. And how, this discussion came up actually last night. We, was anybody at the viewing for Beyond Stonewall? Awesome, very good. So which is running on the, do my little commercial now, the Smithsonian Channel, Monday evening at eight and at ten. And in fact, it kind of touches on some of these hidden histories, but one of the questions that came up was Charlotte Cushman, who was a very famous actress in the 19th century. Do you know her? >> Megan Metcalf: Who has her papers? Would it be us? You do? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: You do? >> Megan Metcalf: Yes, we do. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Oh, see. >> Megan Metcalf: Who wrote an article on her? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: She reeled me in on that one, yeah. >> Megan Metcalf: I'm sorry, Lisa. We really need to stop this. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: So but it came up as to how do you, how do you let people know that when she herself did not necessarily, well of course the term "gay" was not even in use then. Self-identify as a lesbian, or she may have self-identified as a lesbian in her private life, but she never wanted it known outside. So, so there was the tug of war in the sense of so, do we put that on the label, and then that becomes the be-all and end-all of why she's known? Or she's certainly known for her prowess as an actor. So, so that's kind of the, the issue with hidden histories and kind of tagging things that we do come across in the archives that aren't, were not necessarily collected because of their LGBTQ content. >> Megan Metcalf: Yeah, you don't want to out people necessarily. I mean, or do you? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Well, yet again, that's, at least for us, we always presume that after death there is no presumption of privacy, is our standard policy. So I don't know what it is here. So, so let's say you know some of the material that has come from eBay that is definitely gay content and has people in it that sometimes I do know who they are in the sense because, because the people that sold it said, "Oh, that's Joe, that's so-and-so, and so-and-so." They're long-since dead, you know. I, that's who it is and that's part of their story. That's the way I look at it in the sense of these people would probably, this material would end up in the dust bin somewhere if it had not been for this person trying to make a buck off it, and me, you know, haunting eBay that day and saving it. So I figure in some ways, I'm trying to actually, you know, you know give them a life, or make their life meaningful in some way. In the sense that it informs archival and historians. So, so yes, we out them if they're, if they've passed. And if they were obviously out in their life, then, then we do. But we wouldn't necessarily do it for somebody living, of course. >> Megan Metcalf: Well, I know Cushman has a lot of, that are lesbian fans, so I feel like she's fairly out now. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Yeah, yeah. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: It's funny that you mention eBay because LHA has collected everything that we have as volunteer only, I'm sorry, donated, so we don't really solicit except for one collection. And so we got it on eBay, and it was the New York City run of The Daughters of Blitis. [ Inaudible ] I think there's like-- I don't actually know the number. It takes up about a certain number of square feet in the Brooklyn Hub. It's not, it's not small. But I actually wanted to know if I could show something? >> Megan Metcalf: I would love that. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: It only takes like three minutes. Because I was like do we, are we going to do this? And it was a whole conversation. >> Megan Metcalf: I think I'm glad we're doing it. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: And I think it's okay, but it's only going to take a few minutes. So I created a Bitly, so it's easy to get to, so let's see if it's true. But ultimately, I feel like all of [inaudible] history is hidden history. So let's see if I can, if I did this right. No, I didn't. I don't know who that is. [Laughter] Let's try that again. If it's not going to work, then I apologize. So what I'm going to show is ultimately a few projects that we, oh my goodness. Alright, fine. I'll just go through it directly. So firstly, the Lesbian Herstory has, we are about to launch a new website. So if you've been to our website, I apologize. It's been that way for the past 20 years, and it's hard to get to. But we're just about to launch this one, and so you're seeing it fresh off the page, so it's still in draft mode, so don't be attached to what you see. But ultimately, it's going to look something like this where you can look for our digital collections and get to them, and then you can find out the other collections we have, and see more information on them. That's our facade if people haven't seen it. And the digital collections that I was referring to were those that were digitized by Pratt Sills, the Pratt University Library, and we have a [inaudible] others. And I don't know why my Bitly didn't work, but the hidden history that I wanted to show was the Salsa Soul Sisters. And also a vice article which I can't get to now, but Blackburn. No, I'll just do the vice article. Google, help me out! There we go! So we just got this article published, or this person Ariana Lecher just got the article published, but it's about, it's sort of like whenever we do hidden histories of lesbians, we have to give like Lesbian Herstory and then say, "Oh, here are some things that are related to that." So this is an example of that, so a lot of what we do is we don't collect anyone who's famous or we do, we collect famous lesbians, but we don't make that a requirement for having their materials. So ultimately, we'd like to focus on the everyday dyke and anybody who's interested in documenting themselves, and excuse the ads, this is Vice magazine. So this is Mabel Hanson, and her partner Lillian Federman. Wait, no, sorry. That's not who, that's not her partner's name. I'll come back to her partner's name. A lot of these photos are by [inaudible] one of our collective members, so we have the full run of The Ladder. I was trying to mention when you guys were doing the war. [Laughter] But alongside that, we also have things that are sort of obscure, and so one obscure object that we chose for this article was a Japanese Dyktionary which is sort of like a collection of text that was transcribed in Japan, in Japanese as well as English throughout the whole Dyktionary, so here's an example of what that would look like, so here's the header on both sides. And one side is English and the other side is not English. It's in Japanese, and it's a way to sort of like translate what it is to be a lesbian in Japan for, I guess, people who are traveling there and who wouldn't use it necessarily, but the Japanese Dyktionary is an example of the kind of things that we have, and it was created in 1989, so we have things of that sort of obscure nature. We also have, we have hundreds and hundreds of T-shirts and thousands of buttons, and so all of those are sort of like very obscure because lesbians like to make T-shirts and buttons during the [inaudible] organizing, and they don't necessarily have the provenance of, you know, object given by a person with their name and who's the-- . We don't know if that's Sara Schulman's Lavender Menace T-shirt or [inaudible]. We just know it's a T-shirt with Lavender Menace. We don't know whose sweat is on it, but we don't wash it [laughter]. But we do like to tell the stories around them, so this one is sort of remembering Rita Mae Brown who also, who did the book the [inaudible] referred to, but she was also an activist. And so when she led a group of women in collective action, this is an example of what that would look like through the T-shirt. And then we have Mabel again. What's her partner's name? Oh, I don't have it. I'm sorry, I have a bad memory, I'm getting older. Lillian Foster, and I said Federman. Here's Lillian Foster and Mabel, so Mabel's one of the women who we sort of have as an icon because she was the first elder of the organization when all of the women who started it in the '70s were in their forties, I guess you could say, Mabel was the elder woman who then passed, and they sort of took her story and the way to promote her story as an example of what the archive's purpose was. And so although Mabel had been out all her life, and she was a dancer in Harlem, and she was out since the 1920's, she's an example of what was going on in the city before Stonewall. She donated a lot of the pulps in the collection. She also was the cofounder's nanny, which is an interesting conversation about race in the archives, and how that plays a role. And then in her later life, that cofounder became Mabel's caretaker when Mabel was at the end of her life. So it sort of is this interesting queering of the way racial relations exist in New York which I think is-- I like that story a lot. So that was just an example I was going to show stuff on Salsa, but I think [inaudible]. But I just wanted to give some visuals while I was here. >> Megan Metcalf: I like those visuals. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: And like show you the new website so I can encourage the coordinators to let's launch it instead of having more meetings about it. [Laughter] >> Megan Metcalf: So I shouldn't ask if there's a projected launch date then? >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: Oh my god, two weeks ago. >> Megan Metcalf: [Laughter] Two weeks ago? >> Jake Newsome: Yeah, so I have, I have to give a story about hidden histories and a particularly access to, or this question, you know when we, when we use terms like "hidden history" or "invisible histories," I think we always have to ask ourselves like hidden from whom? Or invisible to whom, right? And so when I was, so as an undergraduate, I became interested in the history of the Holocaust. I took all the courses at my university over the course of several years, but it wasn't until the very, very last semester that a guest speaker came onto campus and gave a talk about, and the title was "The Men with the Pink Triangle," right? So it was talking about a gay Holocaust victims and gay Holocaust survivors. And I remember thinking as, as I was there, how did I study this topic intentionally for four years and never learn about this particular group? I was also having a moment of kind of anger at myself, that especially, you know, as, as a gay man studying this history, why didn't I, why did I never stop to think to ask these questions about where are these people in this particular history? And so when I went onto graduate school and decided this is what I'm going to study, you know I'm going to tell this, tell this story, essentially, you know, the potential advisors, professors all told me, "Well, there's nothing to know about it." Like, you know it was such, there was such an era of homophobia that even the survivors didn't want to talk about it, no one wanted to talk about it. And as a result, there's just this complete lack of information. So you know good luck, but you're not going to find anything. So of course me being like young and idealistic, I was like, "Don't worry, I'm going to find-- " [laughter]. And so I go to the archives thinking that I'm going to find nothing, right? But then, so whenever I do find those small kind of volunteer-led archives, you know, being absolutely surprised to find mountains and mountains of material, right? By gay Holocaust survivors themselves, by the local West German press, by West German politicians and lawyers and judges, all talking about the fate of gay people under, under the Third Reich, right? And so it really made me question then like was there ever really a silence, right? And, and what does silence mean? Because I think on the one hand silence means like a lack of something, right? A lack of information or a lack of noise, but clearly silence can also be a verb, right? And something can be silenced, and clearly that was the case with this particular history is that it was, it wasn't a lack of information, it wasn't a lack of, of knowledge at all, but it was essentially a, people with power, whether they were the politicians or historians writing the official history, saying this is not worth knowing. It's not worth remembering, it is not worth acknowledging as, you know, real history. And so I, I think keeping that in mind as we talk about what, what is hidden history is that someone hid it. Usually on purpose. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: I really like that, silence is a verb. Sorry, I'm [inaudible], but I just had to say that's exactly the same experience I had with black lesbian researchers. And it's the reason why I continue to do the work that I do because initially people would, everyone who comes to the archives is either a doctoral student or people that come to me, they're a doctoral student researcher. They have to uncover the unknown history, the hidden history, and they come expecting to find nothing. And I'm talking ten years already at this point where people say, you know, there must have been nothing. In fact, there was a conference, a Lesbians in the '70s conference in 2000, and I was one of the coordinators for it. It was done through CLAGS. And even the coordinating committee, we sat in a circle. There was like a call put out throughout the country. Anyone who was a lesbian in the '70s, come join this listserv. So then just imagine like 70 lesbians who were around during the '70s on this listserv. You can imagine all the example-girlfriends and all the like [laughter], it was really like tumultuous. But then when we finally got to planning, we said, alright we have to meet in person. There's too much arguing on this listserv, so whoever's in New York, come into this room. So then I went down to meet like 20 people, right? So the 20 women gather in this room, and they're all excited to be there, and they're like, "How are we going to plan this conference? What are we going to do?" And it was only myself and one other woman in the room that was black, but that women was also not around in the '70s and so when the question was alright, so do we include theater women? Do we include WOW? Do we include-- everyone's sort of, they were in agreement. And I said, "Well, what about the lesbians of color?" And everyone went, "Well, you know, there weren't really any lesbians of color." [Laughter] And there were two lesbians of color in the room that went, "We don't know, maybe they're right. Maybe there's -- ." So they were like, "Just call Cheryl Clark, she'll do something," and that was the end of it. And so then it wasn't until I went to the archives that I opened the box and found there was just this unbelievable amount of material, right? Of all this work happening in the '70s. Then I realized oh this is, this is a silence of being sort of like perpetuated, right? And even so then we had an event. We had, I had sort of like this huge event. There was a zine, there were, there were two events. Hundreds of women came, and we put one of the original Salsa board members on the panel, and then so fast-forward five years later. I'm doing a book chapter for this Audre Lorde collection where Audre Lorde's last partner puts together this book chapter, or she puts together this book. She asks for the Salsa Soul Women to put together a chapter on Audre and Salsa. I'm recording the conversation, we're all there, we do the chapter, we're talking, we're oral historying it, you know. It's in LHA. And then finally I said, "So tell me about like, you know, what's happening now, and you know how Audre Lorde-- ?" She goes, "Well, you know, there's so, we don't, nobody wants to acknowledge that we were there. We were always at the table. CLAGS did this conference in 2010, and there were no black lesbians at the conference." And I said, "Wait, Emani, stop! You were at the conference. [Laughter] You were on the panel! How could you say that?" And it just, it just continues. It's like this, this continuous-- . So I'm wondering, I guess it's like did you find that the Jewish scholars, the Jewish collective archivists were also sort of like permeating the silence, too? Or the people who were there are constantly talking about the silence? They think the silence is a burden that, is a verb that we all perpetuate. It's like this conversation about racism or #metoo. Whatever it is, there comes a point where if it's being taken care of, we have to stop acting as if it's there. You know, the conversation has changed. So anyhow. This is a long rant. I'm so sorry. I'm nearly out of my mind. I have so many curiosities that I'm going to use the verb as an example of what that could look like. >> Jake Newsome: Well, I think it's just really interesting because you're right. I mean, you raise a really great point that that silencing or the, the narrative of silence isn't, can also be perpetuated by the community like itself. And so really, if you're reading any, for example any article or book on gay Holocaust experiences, essentially, I mean you can bet that the first sentence is going to be, "No one knows about this history. Nothing has been written on it." Well, actually, I have a list of about 95, you know, published things that have been written on it. [Laughter] But, but so yeah, this idea, you know, and it kind of makes me wonder is it, is it also a, an idea of legitimacy, right? That, that you know you're trying to undo the silence, and so you need there to be silence kind of first to break it. And so yeah, I think it's, it is, it's interesting to think about. >> Lisa Warwick: Since we're on tape and people can just rewind, I'm going to take back the thing I said about, "And D.C. Public Library doesn't have a lot about [inaudible]." [Laughter] It is one of our largest digital collections, and I'm going to stop saying that now. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: Yeah, talk about abundance instead of lack. Maybe after Stonewall, because I'm wondering what the Stonewall 50th effects will be now, right? Maybe that'll be the effect, that there's now, the world has been Stonewalled? [Laughter] >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: You know, I always talk about the archival closet in the sense that in order to kind of mitigate this silence, people have to give up the stuff, you know? How many donors have I talked to, you know, "Oh, we've got this, we've got this, we've got this." And I'm like, "Oh, that's great! Do you have like journals, diaries because that's primary source?" "Oh, well, you really wouldn't want that, would you?" And I'm like, "Oh yes!" "Well, I don't know if I'm ready to give that up." Which I totally understand, but at the same time, if you want to mitigate it, mitigate what is not there, we have to, you have to give it to us. That's the thing, and that's the big push. Because you know our line is that, you know God forbid that something happens to you, and no one knows what you've got or that it's meaningful. It goes in the dumpster because we've got to sell the house. I'm not going through that hard drive, forget about it, you know? And all that old lesbian stuff in the closet? We're throwing it out because we don't want anyone to know that she was, you know? It's just, that to me is the silence, is the community stepping up in this sense of realizing that what you have, your history is valuable. We use that every day in the archives. All of those old materials from like the '70s, you know, '60s, before, you know that's-- and I'm wondering about the Stonewall effect too, if people will start to realize the value of, of this material. Like, "Oh wow, I really do need to think about where do I want this material to go when I am no longer the steward of it?" So that's my riff on that part. >> Megan Metcalf: Because we were having a conversation before we began about how during June, but especially this June, anyone who does anything LGBTQ, all the requests come in. So I don't know about y'all, but it's been a busy month. Like maybe the busiest Pride Month I've ever had, and I'm hoping that this will be a sustained, you know, this will get a lot of research interest, and people will want to donate things, and start to realize that it's important. So I guess we will be looking at this video and seeing, oh, were we right about the Stonewall effect of not? Maybe not, I don't know. So another question I had for the panelists before we turn it over to the audience would be so we talked about, so some of us are, so Lesbian Herstory Archives, obviously just lesbian stuff. The Library, we collected, DCPL, we collected, but it's not all we collect. So I'm curious for the Smithsonian folks in the room, too, especially, do you guys collect specifically LGBTQ, or are they coming in as part of other collections? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: No, we specifically collect. >> Megan Metcalf: Okay, great. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Yeah, they also can come in with other ones, but we, no, no, no. Catherine Ott and myself are very aggressive at going out trying to, you know, reach out to anybody that will contact us. Most of, most of our material does come from people who call up and say, "Oh, you wouldn't want all of those old fill-in-the-blank?" And we're like, "Oh, yes we would." Yeah, so you know and we're very lucky in the sense that the Smithsonian carries with it, you know, a little bit of weight. So when Catherine calls up, you know, Bishop Gene Robinson and says, "You know, hey, we'd like to collect some stuff," he's more apt to talk to us than perhaps somebody else. So we try to, we really do try to mitigate that, and we try to be, play nice and not, you know, swoop in. But-- . >> Megan Metcalf: Better watch out for me. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: I know, I was going to say, oh, you're on my radar now, lady. >> Megan Metcalf: Uh-oh! >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Miss Lisa. >> Lisa Warwick: Uh-oh. [Laughter] >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: So, so yeah. So no, we actively go out and collect. >> Megan Metcalf: Are you the only one who's responsible? You and your colleague? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: It's just myself and Catherine Ott. I mean, it doesn't mean that other people can't collect it, but they always, yeah, it's kind of like if somebody comes in, and say, "Oh, you know, we're collecting [inaudible] from-- ." You know, which was a very Japanese, right? Because he was in the internment camp. A very famous actor played Ito and Auntie Mame on Broadway and did numerous things in motion pictures, still is alive. He and his lover, actually husband now, live in California. That was actually collected for his career, but the side story was, of course, that he happens to be gay. So they came downstairs and said, "Oh, hey, would, you know, would you support this acquisition?" I'm like, "Yes." So that all comes in, you know, and that's part of the papers there that you can research. That's not the primary reason why he was collected, but that's kind of an example of, you know, you know the gravy coming with the mashed potatoes. >> Megan Metcalf: Yeah, because for the Library of Congress, of course we were collecting LGBTQ items, but it was not an official area until the '90s after some sustained effort on the part of LC GLOBE. So I'm just also interested to see when LGBTQ collecting came online in there various-- . I mean, LHA is pretty obvious. But so for the Holocaust Museum, do you specifically collect LGBTQ or is it more coming in with other collections? >> Jake Newsome: So I would say it, especially, I mean up to this point and after the fall of the Soviet Union when all of these kind of Eastern archives opened up, I mean, we just got flooded with. We just, we were just taking anything and everything. And so you know it just then was a matter of our archivist and librarians sorting through what we found. >> Megan Metcalf: The backlog. >> Jake Newsome: What we got, and to be able to then start tagging what we actually had. And so it's really, you know up until recently, I would say, the last five or ten years when we've now been able to kind of catch our breath and say we're going to really now be targeted and trying to acquire specific either topics or specific types of material. And one of those is you know LGBT-related material. But it's incredibly hard because I mean as, as is probably the case with a lot of our work, people didn't want to-- gay people or people in the community didn't want to leave a trace behind, right? Because especially in Germany, there was this really harsh national law, and so really everything that we-- almost everything that we get is all through the eyes of the Nazis themselves. Which is incredibly problematic, right? And so trying, being able to try to look at those documents within cross-referenced. We have other information on these people who might be on what they called "Pink Lists," you know, poses its own challenge. And so yeah, so even as we, now we're trying to think of ways well how can we find LGBT sources when LGBT people themselves didn't want to be found. >> Megan Metcalf: And just a follow up for you, because I'm curious from the German connection. Do you know, does your institution have anything that would have been at the Hirschfeld Archives? Because we have here at the Library of Congress, we do have a lot of the annual reports from the early Sexology Institute, so I'm wondering if that would be something that you would have? >> Jake Newsome: So we do have some. We, from the beginning, really tried to set boundaries on like 1933 to 1945 so that it would be somewhat manageable. But in-- . Says, says, right, I know that-- . But we, we do have a lot of, Hirschfeld stuff kind of by accident, and we have some really, really interesting stuff. But I think one reason we have it is because, and this is one thing that maybe a lot of people don't know, is that you know, the Nazi book burnings is a famous incident from Nazi history, right? But Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Sciences was one of the key targets of that. And so we know that over that night, over the course of two or three days, these Nazi students went in, or college students, went in and I mean just completely gutted this institute. Over 25,000 books and periodicals were burned, and so we have that, we have some of that information because it became a target of the Nazis. Again, so much of what we have comes from the perspective of the perpetrators which poses so many ethical questions but yeah. >> Megan Metcalf: Okay, I think that's the last of my German questions. [Laughter] So I feel like I have, we haven't heard from Shawn in a while, so do we want to start wrapping up? We'll start with Shawn, and we can start anything we want to talk about that we haven't talked about so far? And then we can open it up to questions from the audience? >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: Alright, well then I'm going to. >> Megan Metcalf: Yeah, go back, go back. [Laughter] >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: Alright. So let's see. If it doesn't work this time, then you guys can like talk about me. >> Megan Metcalf: This is what it's like to be, you know, an actual librarian research consultation. It's the actual experience here, broken links, you know, we all face these issues. [ Inaudible ] >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: Yeah, it's just a list of links, y'all. I didn't do anything special here, but I did want to talk about Salsa Soul Sisters. So one of the things that we do, I'm reaching here, but I have a mic. One of the things we do I think as archivists nowadays is we think about the [inaudible] of access. And what people, so once we did finally get the acquisition of the Salsa Soul collection, immediately the women were thinking, "Okay, great! So now you have our stuff." And this took ten years. This is sort of post-the 2010 event where I was like, "Here, black lesbians did exist!" And then we're like, "Oh right, you know, we need to put our stuff, or we need to archive our stuff." And then I was convincing them for ten years to archive them with LHA. So they finally did, and then they were like, "Okay, great. So where's our book? Where's our website? Where's our, you know, street named after us?" All of these things, and I thought, well you know, actually, like it's sort of that conversation where there's still the silence, you must donate, you've donated, no what? And really that's it. Like your stuff is in a box, and someone might open it one day. Like that's really all that we're promising. We're going to preserve your materials, and they were just like, "Oh, the LHA! They take our things, they do nothing, this is what we mean about the feminists," you know. So we were just like alright. First of all, stop with the negativity. So we, but then of course I said, "I'm going to do it, we're going to do something." So we did an exhibit, right? And a lot, and I was just at the sort of the historians, the National Historians Conference, and I was on a panel, and everyone just immediately started talking about their exhibits. Like it's all about-- we're exhibit-happy people. And I find that it's taking up too much time and energy for archivists personally to have to exhibit this material, but that's just my personal feeling. Having said that, the exhibit went-- is amazing. A lot of people came, and so this is sort of what we, we connected with a gallery that we had already been working with to do exhibitions, and the business was just a way to show people the exhibit, the material that is in the archives so they can come to the archive and just get a look at it. So what we did was I created this map on the wall which then connected to the points of the flyers that we-- . So a lot of their material was flyers. They had a newsletter, the Salsa Soul Gayzette, and so these are like covers of the newsletter and special issues. They had, we had T-shirts at the collection, so we pulled that. We had some [inaudible] with specific ephemera. We had lots of photographs, and then I, of course, because it's women of color exhibition, we had an altar with names of the women who are now our ancestors. So it was all really wonderful, and just to show you some, I think I have a couple of post-exhibition photos. One of the women who is, was the sort of exhibition. No, no, no. The editor in chief of their newsletter, the Salsa Soul Gayzette, is now the wife of the mayor of New York, so Chirlane McCray is there, and that's me staring lovingly at her [laughter]. Hello, she looks good for her age. No, period. She looks good! All the women in the room, you would be very [inaudible]. I apologize. That's my daughter. Now so we all did a zine, and the zine was through the Blackburn Gallery and that was sort of part of the process was getting things that we could hand out. And I didn't bring copies, I apologize. And these are a lot of the original Salsa Soul women who came. We had like multiple events which I think this was maybe the opening, and so again, beautiful women. Lots of flirting was happening in that room. [Laughter] And it was, we had three events throughout, so that was last June, thank goodness because this June is so insane. But right now we're at the New York Historical Society, so we have a larger exhibition at New York Historical. And we got a grant to do an exhibition year for them, so we're sort of like lining it up. Brooklyn College, Studio Museum of Harlem has some things in line, and then the Graduate Center. So we have like a calendar happening. All of this to say it's exhausting. I just wanted to put it in a box, but exhibitions are one way, I think, to really engage the community and get a lot of people in the room and talking and, and engaging with the material. So that was the last thing that I wanted to make sure I showed before. >> Megan Metcalf: That's amazing. And I'm going to use that as an opportunity to say did you know we have a Stonewall 50 exhibit in the Great Hall, which I'm sorry you can't see right now because it's closed? But come back tomorrow, come back Monday, come back during our regular hours. It's on the second floor of the Great Hall, and there are items from the [inaudible] Emily Vinson's collections, and so there's flyers from the first Gay Pride March, which a lot of people don't realize was a planned year-- it was the commemoration of the one-year anniversary of Stonewall which I think a lot of people don't think that Pride comes from that. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: I think you're right. >> Megan Metcalf: And they also don't know that Stonewall was a mafia-owned bar. That's another, that's another hidden history, yeah. All gay bars at that time are mafia-owned. So and then that feeds right into the police brutality, but so, sorry I derailed that, but just wanted to promote myself for a moment. So continue. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: So riffing on that, let me promote ours. So just a reminder, okay, so the Illegal to be You exhibit is on, as you come in the Mall entrance of the Museum of American History, on your right-hand side. It just went up yesterday. Please go and see it. The documentary of Beyond Stonewall is on the SI Channel Monday at eight and ten PM. And then I think it's on Wednesday morning, or something like that. But then, the last two things which are maybe the more important is that I charge you all to go home, clean out your closets. There's plenty of us, I mean, we're all in the same game here, and we all want to preserve it. So it's on you. And then the other thing that's on you is to make sure that your institutions, you let them know that you want to see your history. I tell that all the time. It's not that the Smithsonian or name any institution you want to, doesn't necessarily want to do it. It's that there's a gazillion and one things going on at any one day. But if you are a squeaky wheel, they will listen. That's why the documentary got done, that's why we have a case up for Stonewall, and we're actually, speaking of Pride, hopefully have an exhibit on Pride next year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Pride. Shhh! Hasn't been approved yet, but I'm ever hopeful. So if I leave you with nothing, those two things, most important. >> Lisa Warwick: I also have an exhibit to plug, so you're right, we're all doing exhibits now. A staff member did it. It is opening on the 28th, and it's at D.C. Arts Center. It's not related directly to LGBTQ history, but it's a history of that art center. >> Megan Metcalf: And then DuPont as well. >> Lisa Warwick: Hmm? >> Megan Metcalf: DuPont as well, Under Uprising, Stonewall 50. >> Lisa Warwick: Oh, yeah! Meg and I are both-- we co-curated an exhibit. Yeah, it's in the DuPont Underground. >> Megan Metcalf: We've been doing a lot this month. So you see how she almost forgot that she co-curated an exhibit with me? [Laughter] It has been a long [inaudible], y'all. >> Lisa Warwick: But someone else-- no. >> Megan Metcalf: You're right. Remember that time we went under the ground, and we put the USBs in the projectors? Remember? >> Lisa Warwick: Yeah! >> Megan Metcalf: Okay, cool. >> Lisa Warwick: I remember that. One of them is a little pixel-ly. I need to go back and do it. It does take a lot of time. >> Megan Metcalf: It really does. >> Lisa Warwick: Yeah, the other thing I just wanted to mention in my little list of notes. The thing I discovered from the D.C. angle researching Stonewall was I feel like it's pushed as like, "Stonewall happened, and the next day everything was different." >> Megan Metcalf: No. >> Lisa Warwick: It's like, I'm like going through this database for the Washington Post and the Washington Evening Star, looking for Stonewall, and it's like not Stonewall Jackson, not Stonewall Jackson. It's not until like 1971 was the first mention, and it was only because they were interviewing somebody who said, "I got into activism because of Stonewall." It's only because people claim it that it becomes a turning point, and I think a lot of turning points, it's really empowering to feel like, yeah, it's really empowering to feel like because somebody claims it, it becomes a turning point, absolutely. >> Jake Newsome: I do not have an exhibit to plug [laughter]. I do have a story to share. I have a story to share. Alright, so as I mentioned earlier, my, the bulk of my research and writing focuses on what happened to gay survivors and the gay community after the Holocaust, right? And so I, I began writing because I wanted to know how the Pink Triangle, as a symbol, right? Was the badge that the Nazis forced gay camp inmates to wear. How does that go from concentration camp badge to then gay liberation logo in America, right? So across an ocean and decades later. And so, you know, I'm trying to trace down, everyone says, "Well, it just was. Like we just saw it." Yeah, but someone had to have the first one. Someone had to make that decision, right? And so I go and through this network of the volunteer archivists and historians, you know find, okay, it's this one particular group who claims that they were the first ones to decide to use the pink triangle. It turns out, of course, they actually heard a group in Berlin who was going to use it, and so like they tried to get there first, talking about claiming, right? And so I end up through kind of chance, talking with a guy who was at the meeting who proposed, at least according to him, he proposed that they use the pink triangle as a new gay logo, right? >> Megan Metcalf: What year was this? >> Jake Newsome: This is in West Berlin in 1972, and they, this idea that, you know, being out was of course a personal liberation, but it also needed to have a political component. And so everyone needed to wear a gap logo of some sort. But they were like, "Well, what are we going to use?" And so this guy says, "Well, we're going to use the pink triangle because clearly every German is going to recognize it as a concentration camp badge." And it's going to be kind of a symbol to them that you know there's still a big part of history that hasn't been dealt with. And in fact, the West German government, even at that time, was still using the Nazi law to arrest gay men in West Germany. So that's a whole other story, right? So they wanted to fight kind of this Nazi law with a symbol of the Nazi past itself. So my question then to him is well how did you find-- you know, what made you pick this, this symbol? And he said, "Well, I came across this really obscure book called 'The Men with the Pink Triangle.' It was written by really the one at that time, the only gay survivor autobiography." Turns out it was written under the pseudonym of Heinz Heger. But he said, "As soon as I picked up that book and read the title, 'The Men with the Pink Triangle, I knew like this was going to be a simple symbol. It was going to be powerful." And so of course then I did everything I could to try to find out who the real Heinz Heger was. Turns out it was a pseudonym, Josef Kohout, so I tried-- in every story that I tell as giving talks at campuses or in my writing, I tell the story. So now, last, several months ago, our museum opened up a new archive up in Bowie, Maryland. And in a way, to kind of show it off to us staff, they brought out some, some materials from the archives just to let us to come see, and like see all the new technology. So I'm walking around. We're looking at all these random assortment of artifacts, and I come across this table where they have some badges laid out. Some concentration camp badges. And I'm looking, and I see one number that just completely jumps out at me, and so I'm like, okay, hold on. So then I'm getting on my phone, and I'm looking up-- it was Josef Kohout's badge on the table. It was Heinz Heger's badge, right? It was literally the pink triangle that he wrote the book about that then inspired that activist group to choose it. And then you know set, set the stage for its expansion. And even when I talk about it, I still get chill bumps, right? And it, it's just an incredible sometime accident of history and research. And it's-- . >> Megan Metcalf: Wow, that's incredible. Well thank you so much to our panelists this evening. Let's give them a round of applause. And now, questions from the audience. And we'll repeat the questions into the microphone since it's being recorded. So who's got questions for us, for anyone or for the panel at large? [ Inaudible ] >> Did people refer to themselves as gay? Straight? You know, this word "homosexual," I mean, we still are homosexuals, aren't we all? And where did "lesbians" come from? Aren't they gay, homosexual too? And-- I'm curious. Is there a difference between then and now? Are we still using these same words? >> Megan Metcalf: Yes and no, I think. Does anyone want to jump in? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: I can speak a little bit to it. >> Megan Metcalf: Alright, go for it. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: So the term "homosexual" comes into vogue in the latter part of the 19th century as a medical term, a pathology, as opposed to something that's positive. The idea that the community is, is recognized as gay which is pan-- pan whatever, whether you're the L or the G or the B or the T. And even now, when that was a big discussion when we were doing labels for the exhibit is you know, okay, it is the gay community, and everybody will understand what we mean by that. Because otherwise the labels were starting to get this big. Then the other thing of course, are you British, by the way? Or? >> I was once. [Laughter] >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Okay. >> Proud American. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: So you could tell us about the origins of the phrase, "the friend of Dorothy," right? That's more of a, I've been told that's more of a British term in the sense that, you know, you would walk up to a gentleman at, you probably have been cruising, hopefully, and just say, "Oh, are you a friend of Dorothy?" And you'd go, "Oh, yes," or "Dorothy who?" You know? [Laughter] You'd turn around and run the other way. So it's, so it's still, it's still rather fluid. I mean, in the museum, the kind of what I call the catchall LGBT collection, because it's a lot of ephemera and stuff, small things that people hand me, it's the LGBT collection. We, and I stopped at T because that's where we were at that time. You know, so at some point, you know, you've kind of got to figure what's going to fit on the label is-- . >> Megan Metcalf: I added a Q and a plus when I got here. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Did you? Yeah, there you go. Yeah, we sometimes I'll venture into the plus, but. >> Megan Metcalf: It can take a while though with institutions to get them to change it though. You know? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: But and, and maybe more specifically, the term "gay," the one piece of evidence that I've seen that is really interesting to me is there is a photograph from a gentleman in World War II, and on the back of his photograph, he goes, you know, "This is me and-- " wherever the heck he was. "You know, gay as hell still, and loving it," as if it was a passing fancy or something. But that's the first reference I've seen in our collections to, you know, calling yourself "gay" and that meaning that he was a homosexual, so hopefully that's a little bit enlightening, I don't know. >> Megan Metcalf: Oh, more questions. >> So I appreciate-- . >> Megan Metcalf: Okay, just wait. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: There you go. >> Yes, I appreciate urgency and the desire to collect materials, but at the same time we know we can't collect everything. >> Megan Metcalf: Right. >> And also there is power to leaving collections within the communities of origin and archivists now are exploring both custodial needs of creating relationships between individuals and communities and institutions. And I wonder if you could speak to those kinds of relationships where you go to certain communities and individuals where it's not about collecting, but it's about building those kinds of relationships. Because sometimes in some areas of our community, once you go there with that agenda of collecting, then the conversation stops because we don't want to be collected. But we want to have a relationship. So I just wonder if you could speak to those kinds of relationships? >> Megan Metcalf: Wow, that's a great question. Anyone feel like jumping in? I know you have something to say, Shawn. I know you do. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: But I feel like it sort of applies to, or it applies from a different angle, like I totally 100% agree with you. And I think that that is a conversation that I bring up when I think about concepts of Open Access and all access, and some things are meant to be closed, some things are meant to be sustained within a specific group and within a community, and I'm always interested in starting from that perspective, right? And so I think for community archives which are few and far between, there is that element of trust within the community to maintain the community's archives. If you're speaking about geographic communities or ethnic communities, or ultimately it's about self-described communities, right? Like if you're a part of a group, whether it's a church community or a specific ethnic group of a specific geographic location, southern dykes, or whoever your community is, the goal and the hope is that that community has the interest, right? To do self-archiving, and the resources and the means to do that. So in some ways, what's been happening with queer community archives is a lot of them have been collaborating with institutions because of the preservation conversation. You know, it takes a lot of work, and it takes space, it takes real estate, right? >> Megan Metcalf: Trust. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: Yeah, so, so the trust happens with the community archive, and then the assumption is that the community archive has worked with an institution to preserve that work that they're collecting in the community. Then that's, in some ways, what the trend is right now, and as long as the community is, the community archive is transparent about how institutions are absorbing the material to the individuals that are donating it, I think that is okay. Because you know in 100 years, we're all not going to be here to know whether or not that happened, and so we want the materials to still be here. I'm not, I don't necessarily think that only institutions can sustain materials, but it does take a really strong community based-archival practice for it to sustain further than an institution. So whether or not there are collectives of people that are making that happen, it really depends on the community. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: So I have a real-life story, and out of respect to the people that I'll be talking about, I will not use names, but so we had reached out to this community, and certainly just in conversations, and they had donated material. But they were, they were a part of a group, a very old and respected group within the Washington community. And both of these people were, were well, one of them was, just a dyed-in-the-wool archivist. I mean, just a wannabe, and you know, catalogue everything, everything boxed, just perfectly. Just as you'd want for this community. Well, the community died out. So he finally, you know he knew us. He came to us, and he says, "You know, we're ready to turn this over now." So I, I guess that's kind of the way that I like to approach it because what always worries me is it goes in the dumpster when that one person, and every organization has one, who's really into like making sure that everything's filed or at least put in a box, and it's, you know, not in the basement with the water. It's, you know, and that's their thing. But then when that person goes away, is it a burden for the community? It's like oh, well, you know I don't have room in my house for that. So, so it's, it's a fine line, isn't it? >> Lisa Warwick: Can I add also? I think one sort of intermediary step right now would be archival projects where, that are potentially digital so it's not about people bestowing their boxes of stuff to another person's basement. But it's about sort of collecting the story, right? So there's a lot of on my oral history projects that are being coordinated by probably a public library. New York Public Library has a really robust one. There's [inaudible] is an example. But I'm also thinking of a practice that StoryCorps does and the Library of Congress is where they're housed. Once upon a time I was the archive coordinator for StoryCorps, and one of my positional purposes was to work with community archives. And what I appreciated and learned a lot about that process was you know StoryCorps would perform the interview. StoryCorps is a national oral history project where sometimes the oral histories would happen at an organization or in a specific geographic location. And so those are sort of like the door-to-door interviews, facilitators would go in. Two people who knew each other would have a conversation, and then that conversation would be archived at the Library of Congress. So whenever that happened at a specific site or with a specific community group, that community group got a copy of the material, so then there were two separate, you know, these things existed in both places. And that was often a way to respect that this community needed to have access to their stuff. They're not going to fly to D.C. to listen to their interview, so the individual people would have a copy, and then the community would have a copy. And so I think that that model is a really great example of how things can be preserved and also maintained within states. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: And just, and now that you mentioned that, you reminded me that the, with this same group that I was chatting about, he actually, bless his heart, took it on. He digitized everything that anybody wanted, and so we got the, we got the actual stuff to preserve it and to make sure to make it accessible, but then they have a digital copy. So, so you're right. That's kind of an intermediate. >> Megan Metcalf: I think that's similar with the Digital Transgender Archive which it is, it's an archival project. KJ Rothson and I'm not sure who else worked on it, but they've digitized items from institutions all over the place and are putting it together in one repository. But at the end of the day, you know, the items still, are still living in Internet archive or wherever they've been digitized. But that's just another really good example of one of those projects. Yeah. Do you have a question? >> I want to I guess get to, might be controversial, everyone just figure out what origin. So figure out what's the origin of the word "gay." It used to be happy and the word used to mean happy and merry, you know. Even theme parks and the "gay way" and all that stuff. I'm wondering how it came to be used instead of homosexual. I always wondered that. And number two, a little bit controversial, but it's bringing up there, do you actually catalogue anti-gay religious right literature as well? >> Megan Metcalf: Oh yeah. Oh, absolutely. >> Very good, thank you. >> Megan Metcalf: All the time, yes. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Yeah, I mean, that's-- . >> Thanks. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: To speak, speak to the "gay" thing, what I was told in the history was that yeah, again, it was another code word that let's say you were, you know met somebody. And you know, "How are you?" "Oh, I'm feeling very gay today," just you know because it did mean happy. But then in the underground, it meant perhaps something else. But then to speak to the other we are, yes. Actively always collecting the other side of the coin because. >> Megan Metcalf: We have to. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Yeah, you have to. And I always tell people, I says you know, in 50 years, 100 years, whenever, when let's say marriage equality is kind of you know, [snores] a big snooze, you know. And people will go, "What was all the screaming about?" You can actually say, "See, this is what was going on. This is what we were fighting against." >> Megan Metcalf: You need both sides. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Oh yeah, you've got. Very hard to collect though, isn't it? >> Megan Metcalf: It is. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Yeah, yeah, they just don't want to give it up. >> Megan Metcalf: Jose? >> I think I just want to thank you. It's a wonderful panel and wonderful colleagues. >> Megan Metcalf: Introduce yourself, Jose. Because we know who you are. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: I think a lot of people know who-- . >> Megan Metcalf: They should know who you. >> Jose [inaudible] and I'm a local historian and archivist. [Inaudible] some part of the collection four years ago, Jose [inaudible], who was the first gay American man who run for a political office in San Francisco in 1963, I believe. So he donate most of the [inaudible] to the San Francisco Library, I mean LGBTQ Museum, but I buy like 71 or 72 items and I'm very happy to have it in the [inaudible]. And I also bring up a picture of [inaudible]. >> Megan Metcalf: Here she is! Here she is! >> I met [inaudible] 25 years ago in New York City. I went to the Stonewall 25th anniversary, and you know, Sylvia and Martha Johnson, you know, they create a lot of projects and programs in New York City, including [inaudible]. I believe in 1969 or 1970 straight transvestite action revolutionary, something like that. And you know my conversations with Sylvia, you know, she was very humble and these are a lot of things. you know they know, we know just a little bit things of what we know of Stonewall, by Marge and Sylvia were you know everywhere. I just thank you and any time that you need anything related to the Latino LGBTQ community, I will be more than happy to work with anyone. And thank you, thank you for this panel. >> And thank you, and what a great picture. [ Applause ] [ Laughter ] >> Megan Metcalf: Alright, questions? >> Hi, one conver-- . >> Megan Metcalf: Leigh? >> Yeah! >> Megan Metcalf: Leigh, oh my goodness! We used to work at the same library. Oh my gosh, you're here! [Laughter] Hi! Hi. >> A conversation I've been having a lot, particularly this year, but recently is commercialization of Pride. And so I'm curious, I'm curious if you have folks at your institutions have seen anything like that? Any more corporations purchasing licenses interested in partnerships, grants, anything like that on your end? >> Megan Metcalf: Oh, yeah. Well, especially in D.C., right? Like our Pride is so corporate. I think here because we're not like NYPL, we don't have the, the images online from that time period, but I know that they've all been getting like mad requests for, "Oh, we're going to publish this book, we're going to put this on a beer can, we're going to do this." I think it's different for us as government, or for me as a government librarian, but I definitely have heard from others in the field that they are quite overwhelmed and not quite sure what to do about all the private interests in this. And what, what the potential use for that would be. Yeah, what about you? >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: As I mentioned, Comcast is helping fund Digital Hub. As far as the corporatization of Pride, that is a fascinating subject to me, and I, every time I collect from as many Prides as I can get to, and it's amazing to see the material that is coming out of corporate headquarters. And I didn't, I didn't bring a flash drive tonight, sorry. But one of my favorite things that I collected this year at D.C. Pride was a poster developed by the CIA, of all people [laughter], to recruit-- yes! Yes, to recruit LGBT people. Yes, it is awesome. It's so 19403 film noir, and yet there's a rainbow. It's amazing. It'll be in the exhibit next year, yeah. >> Megan Metcalf: I just because, I mean I think most people know the CIA, the FBI, they actively investigate gay rights groups and have forever, so that's very interesting. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Well, all three of them were there. Secret Service was there, FBI, CIA was there, and yeah. All of them, all of them. >> Megan Metcalf: Welcome to D.C.. >> Franklin Robinson Jr.: Yeah, welcome [laughter]. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: Can I also say, I don't know if you are aware that New York City has World Pride this year. >> Megan Metcalf: I've heard of that. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: Which I'm not-- nobody really understands what that means. All that we know is that Heritage of Pride is the organization that usually does the Pride March. And this year, Heritage of Pride sort of either stepped down or works with or has been working with this other group called World Pride, and that they've come to us. They've come to New York City, so now World Pride is in New York City for the first time [inaudible]. >> Megan Metcalf: Oh, it's the first time. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: So I don't know if it's the first time there's a World Pride, but it's the first time it's in New York City. [ Inaudible ] Which is sort of like I feel like why they started, right? To be in New York for 50. So there is, I'm talking every night of the week there's like multiple events, and each of the archives in New York City have been tapped out of our bloodstream to participate in every single thing that we can. And so it is definitely something that's happening. What is also happening as a result of it is Reclaimed Pride, which is the Reclaimed Pride March. So I was going to pull up the -- . You can look, yeah it's ReclaimPrideNYC.org, so a lot of the actual group that are working Pride or that work in Pride for, you know, beyond Stonewall 50, have stepped away from walking in the march, so now everyone's walking in Reclaimed Pride. So it's going to be walking alongside the march on Sixth Avenue, while the march is on Fifth Avenue, and it's of course, you know the day after the Dyke March which never has a permit and is going to walk on Fifth Avenue, so I think that New York City in some ways, there's like all the, you know, millions of tourists that are going to come in and like celebrate Pride. And then there are the people who are like reclaiming it, which how fun, you know? Like at the end of the day. Some people are going to do Reclaim and then like run over to Fifth Avenue [laughter], and I don't really know what's going to come of it. We'll see, but a lot of groups have created statements and thought about like how corporate entities are entering the space, and how it's all politicized and that sort of thing. Having said that, when it comes to the Archives, and that is sort of what we were alluding to with Gale collaboration that there was a, there's a woman who, Rebekah, Rebekah Schaffeld wrote her dissertation on how LGBT archives are relying on institutional or corporate support, and that is the future of LGBT archiving. And that there is as a goal question about that, and so I would recommend if you're interested in that question to look up her dissertation. She's a librarian. I think she's now somewhere in, I don't know, [inaudible] in this country, but one of the things that she used LHA as an example, and I was sort of like enraged. There's no way. We're not relying on institutions. And then it turns out, well, yeah, Gale gave us a really nice check for the royalties for the digitization that they did of our microfilm that they already had in their microfilm. So when they did the microfiche, we got maybe like $2000 a year. It didn't do much but pay the water bill. And then they digitized the microfilm, didn't let us know about it. We had to go back into contract with them to renegotiate. And then we got a substantial portion of the royalties, and because they're making who knows how much, LHA has received enough that we can endow ourselves so that the founders can actually retire, right? [Applause] So in some ways, it's like well, it's sustaining our organization that the community relies on, and many people who donate to LHA have been donating for the past 30 years, and they're not going to be able to do that forever. And although we want them to put us in their will and keep us sustaining, and although we don't have any staff because [inaudible], there is a question of sustainability that I do have that I think financial support is necessary. If corporations are going to participate in that, and allow access to the material, dot, dot, dot. [Laughter] Right? It's the conversation that you know it's sort of like can we as a community move the corporation aside and then match it? Probably not. So I'm not averse to the relationship. I do think that we take many steps to make sure that it isn't unethical. We redact and redact and redact everything that we-- like right now they're digitizing all of our organizational files. And we made sure before that happened that we were able to hire a lesbian to go through it, and train that person. And she would go through each sheet of paper and redact everything that shouldn't be put online. So there is definitely a lot of care and attention put into it even though it is, you know, a corporation. >> You said you were interested in like Open Access. >> Shawnta Smith-Cruz: It's not Open Access. It's closed. [ Inaudible ] >> A lot of us think of those you know our archives and that kind of public history as going very hand in hand makes sense to be in that Open Access, freely available to all, but right, that yeah, how do you balance that issue of being able to sustain something and make it accessible, yeah. But it's also an interesting, maybe a good problem to have, right? How much of your money can I take and still feel good about it, you know? [Laughter] >> Jake Newsome: Can I input one last thing? Because you put, something you mentioned earlier about the Stonewall effect got me thinking about, and we're talking about these, these marches and the relationship between for example, a large, these large parades and public policy, you know. Or you know changing the mainstream community's understanding of the LGBT community. But also there's sometimes very clear relationships between these types of marches and history or scholarship, right? And so I have, it made me think of one example that actually the day that, or the weekend that the Holocaust Museum in April of 1993, it just so happened that it was also the same weekend as the 1993 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Biequal Rights. And so suddenly, you know, we're, we're, our museum's opening up on the National Mall, and then there's like tens or hundreds of thousands of not just gay people, but like gay politically, historically-minded people coming through this museum, wanting to find, you know, look for themselves in this museum. And so you know, we had like one plaque, like one little bit on yes, gay people were there. They were persecuted too, which, you know, so was not a whole lot. But I will just say that no other national Holocaust museum in the world even acknowledged that there were gay people in the Holocaust. So at least that, I mean, that was, that was something, right? But clearly the, the museum rightfully got a lot of criticism for not having enough information on this particular group. And one thing that I'm pretty proud of for, of the institution is that instead of trying to like defend itself and say, "Well-- ", making up some excuses, the leadership said, "Yeah, you're right. Like we don't have a lot on there. But it's because there's not a lot of history written about it, at least not in English." And so essentially they raised some money and that then funded an entire wave of scholarship on the persecution of gay people during the Holocaust to help fill, you know fill that gap. And so I think that you know sometimes we, at least I personally think of the political ramifications of these big types of marches, but in some cases it very clearly has an impact on how history itself is written as well. >> Megan Metcalf: Absolutely. I think we have time for one last question. And you're it. >> Following up on that, I'm curious as whether or not the influence of like the Spielberg Holocaust oral history, have you been able to acquire tapes that would relate to the, the gay situation there as well, at the concentration camps? >> Jake Newsome: Yeah, so that's, that's an interesting topic, right? Because so we, we have been able to go back through and start watching some of those videos, but unfortunately, there's not, at least when they were first created, they weren't tagged as, like this interview includes a gay topic, right? And so then us having to watch it and go back in and retag it and say, "Oh, wait, that person actually is talking about a gay relationship or a gay experience." But all of that compounded on the fact the you know in order to even get an interview, number one, you had to have an interviewer who was willing to talk about those types of issues. And then you had to have an interviewee who was also willing to talk about it. Which whether it's, you know, gay, straight men or women, usually the topic of sexuality at all was not broached during these types of interviews because it was you know not proper. The issue, for example, of rape or forced sex is something that's only just now being studied in the context of the Holocaust of Holocaust history because even we know it happened, but interviewees, interviewers themselves didn't even want to ask questions of people about it. And so while, while we can tap those types of interviews, it's, you're really having to kind of read between the lines in a lot of cases, yeah. >> Are you looking for people to be interviewed? I mean knowing that, just like any Holocaust survivors, they're getting up in age. >> Jake Newsome: Absolutely, yeah. We're, we're always open to you know filming new oral history testimonies, absolutely. >> Thank you. >> Megan Metcalf: I think that brings us to time, so thank you everyone for joining us this evening. Take a bookmark. [ Applause ] Have a good ALA.