Celebrating pride through oral history

The Oral History Review

The Oral History Review, published by the Oral History Association, is the U.S. journal of record for the theory and practice of oral history. Its primary mission is to explore the nature and significance of oral history and advance understanding of the field among scholars, educators, practitioners, and the general public. Follow them on Twitter at @oralhistreview, like them on Facebook, add them to your circles on Google Plus, follow them on Tumblr, listen to them on Soundcloud, or follow their latest OUPblog posts via email or RSS to preview, learn, connect, discover, and study oral history.

By Andrew Shaffer
June 12^th 2015

In recognition of Pride Month, we’re looking at some of the many oral history projects focused on preserving the memories of LGBTQ communities. The LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory is connecting archives across North America to produce a digital hub for the research and study of LGBTQ oral histories. The University of Chicago is cataloguing the history of students, faculty, and alumni for its “Closeted/Out in the Quadrangles” project. The University of Wisconsin – Madison continues to collect the histories of Madison’s LGBT Community, and has even prepared mini-movies to make the materials more accessible.

The current issue of the Oral History Review includes reviews of two recent projects that offer innovative uses of oral histories to tell the stories of LGBTQ communities. Lindsay Hager offers an in depth review of the 2012 documentary United in Anger: A History of ACT UP. The documentary chronicles the development of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), relying extensively on the materials preserved in the Act Up Oral History Project. Hager’s review is accessible in the current issue of the Oral History Review.

Liam Lair offers a review of Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers by Anne Balay. Lair puts the book into the context of the current “it gets better” narrative, suggesting the world looks very different from the position of working class LGBTQ communities and communities of color. Drawing on extensive oral histories with working class LGBTQ individuals, the book offers a critical contextualization of the progress currently shaping discourses around LGBTQ communities. Lair’s review of Steel Closets can be read in the current issue of Oral History Review, while the book is available for purchase.

And now for something completely different…

Registration recently opened up for the 2015 Oral History Association Annual Meeting in Tampa! You’ve got until August to register for early bird pricing, so make sure you get your tickets ASAP.

We’d love to hear about other LGBTQ focused oral history projects. Chime into the discussion by commenting below or on the Oral History Review Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and G+ pages.

Image Credit: “2012 06 09 – 0708 – DC – Capital Pride Parade” by Bossi. CC BY NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

Andrew Shaffer is a first year PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, studying gender and sexuality history in a modern U.S. context. Originally from Illinois, he lived in San Francisco for three years before coming to Madison. There he received an MA in International Studies at the University of San Francisco, and worked at a nonprofit that provides legal resources and policy analysis to immigrants and immigration advocates.

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