Pride Month -- The UWM LGBT Collection
All month our sibling department, UWM Archives, has been highlighting materials from our joint LGBT Collection in celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month. The collection is the largest documentary collection of LGBTQ+ history in Wisconsin, and one of the largest in the Upper Midwest (we believe it is only surpassed by the magnificent Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota). Shown here are pages from our collection brochure highlighting the scope and purpose of the LGBT Collection in Archives and Special Collections. It was printed several years ago, so some things have changed (e.g., the former Head of Archives Michael Doylen is now Associate Vice Provost and Director of the UWM Libraries, and the current head is Derek Webb), but the purpose and scope of the collection remains the same.
The collection includes personal papers, organizational records, oral histories, motion picture collections, sound recordings, realia, posters, brochures, newspapers, magazines, books, and other printed materials. As the collection brochure notes, the materials in both Special Collections and Archives tend to focus on the Milwaukee region with mostly post-Stonewall documentation. In Special Collections, however, “the collection extends beyond the Milwaukee area in order to preserve rare print publications dating from the pre-Stonewall period.” We will be highlighting some of these publications over the next week. If you are in our area, we hope you will make an appointment to spend some time with our LGBT Collection.
