Main Page

Documenting the LGBTQH past in the U.S.A.

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Featured Exhibits

• Postcards: Masculine Women, Feminine Men; early-20th c.

• Queer Youth: On Campus, in the Media, 1947-2007

• Out and Elected in the USA: 1974-2004

• Lesbians in the Twentieth Century: 1900-1999

• The Pre-Gay Era, USA: 1950-1969

• WOW Festival: NYC, 1980-present

• Colonial America: The Age of Sodomitical Sin: 1607-1776

Help OutHistory Make History

Making LGBT History Is LGBT Activism

This is a prototype of OutHistory.org, a website in development on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and, yes, heterosexual history. It presents a sampling of many different types of content to suggest what this site can one day become. OutHistory provides the website, volunteers provide the content. Here's how to use the site and to help create OutHistory:

Explore Content To date, OutHistory has 2,488 entries. Users can "Search" keywords, search by month, day, and year, by century or decade, or by time era, or view featured Exhibits, survey Contents, or browse a Random Page. Provide Content As an experiment in history by the people, all logged on users with data, documents, citations, or skills to share can create entries, or edit, add to, and improve any entry except those with a named creator, or those closed to protect their content. Practice editing in the Sandbox. For how to create entries, volunteer data, documents, citations, and edits, and to help with research, fact-checking, copyediting, administration, technical matters, graphic design, fundraising, publicity, and any other aspect of the site see Participate.

Discuss Content All users can comment on the site and network with others via the Discuss option on the Main Page top bar. All users can comment on a particular entry and network about it via the "Discuss” section of that entry. Solve Mysteries, Fill in Stubs, Research Requests Users can Solve Historical Mysteries, search incomplete Stub Articles, respond to Research Requests, and fill in missing data. Users can also create new stub entries for topics they want to know about, and see OutHistory Work in Progress. Donate Present funding for OutHistory ends December 31, 2008. To help fund the development of OutHistory in 2009 and later see Donate. Donations to CLAGS for OutHistory are tax deductible.

Two Sources of OutHistory Content

(1) Content provided by named creators or site administrators, which can only be edited by those creators and site administrators, is marked by a gray box and "Protected Entry" text. Here is an example:

PROTECTED ENTRY: This entry by a named creator or site administrator can be changed only by that creator and site administrators, so they are responsible for its accuracy, coverage, evidence, and clarity. Please do use this entry's Comment section at the bottom of the page to suggest improvements. Thanks.

(2) Content provided by any logged on user and open to public collaboration is marked by a yellow box and "Open Entry" text. Here is an example:

OPEN ENTRY: This entry is open to collaborative creation by anyone with evidence, citations, and analysis to share, so no particular, named creator is responsible for the accuracy and cogency of its content. Please use this entry's Comment section at the bottom of the page to suggest improvements about which you are unsure. Thanks.

OutHistory.org: The Town Clock

Welcome to OutHistory.org, the town clock around which all of us interested in the history of sexuality and gender can gather to exchange news of the latest historical detective work, the startling new clue discovered, the mystery unraveled -- the town clock whose hourly chime reminds us of time’s passage and the substantial changes in the acts, feelings, ideas, and relationships of people within society and time.

OutHistory.org is a website in development about gender and sexual history, a site that, at its best, should encourage us to think deeply and critically about historical evidence and what it means to understand LGBT and heterosexual life in the perspective of society and time. OutHistory should help us ask and begin to answer questions about the gendered and sexual actions and feelings of people within social structures over time. OutHistory includes elements of an almanac, archive, article, bibliography, book, encyclopedia, library, and museum, but it is not identical to any one of these. It's a unique thing-unto-itself. What this history website is, and what it does, will become clearer as it develops its own historical life and identity over time.

OutHistory.org is produced by The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS), located at the City University of New York Graduate Center. The site is directed by Jonathan Ned Katz and the OutHistory Project Director for CLAGS is Lauren Gutterman. The site was designed by Cidamon.com using open-source MediaWiki software. The Arcus Foundation funded the site's coordination, design, and maintenance in 2007-2008. The content of OutHistory.org is provided by volunteers. The official launch of OutHistory.org is to take place October 21, 2008. For more about OutHistory.org, see About. Email : outhistory@gc.cuny.edu Telephone: 212 817-1955

OutHistory.org: Fight Against Forgetting

OutHistory.org: The free website to which anyone with data, documents, and citations can contribute.

OutHistory.org provides the structure. Community members with data, documents, and citations provide the content.

History of Organizations

Create an entry for your organization's history. Here's the format for the title:

Organization's Full Present Name: day, month, year of founding

Write the title of the entry in the search box.

Click on the title.

Add content and save.

Bibliographic Entries

Authors or publishers of books and articles, create an entry for your book or article. Here's the format for the title:

Author's Full Name: "Title of Book or Article in Quotations," day, month, year of publication

Write the title of the entry in the search box.

Click on the title.

Add content and save.

OutHistory.org: Recall the Past, Comprehend the Present

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Link to OutHistory, OutHistory will link to you!

For Immediate Release

Innovative OutHistory.org Launches Tuesday, October 21

OutHistory.org, the new website on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and, yes, heterosexual history, will make its official debut on Tuesday, October 21. The public is invited to celebrate OutHistory's launch that evening, from 6 to 8 pm, in the second-floor Cyber Center of the LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th Street, New York City.

The catered event is free and all are invited to hear the remarks of OutHistory’s Director Jonathan Ned Katz and to explore the site on the Center's computers.

Historian Katz describes OutHistory.org as "a dynamic, developing website that makes the history of sexuality newly accessible to a diverse audience. It has the potential to reach a wide group who never before had access to reliable work on LGBTQ history." In its early stages the site will focus on the United States, but OutHistory is working to expand its geographic scope.

Currently OutHistory features several historical "exhibits," among them a colorful collection of postcards from the early-twentieth century depicting "masculine women and feminine men." In the words of a popular song from the turn of the century these postcards ask: "which is the rooster which is the hen?" (Users can hear the song on the site.) The postcards were provided to OutHistory by an avid collector, Marshall Weeks, and the website expects other collectors of LGBT artifacts to contribute to future exhibits.

OutHistory contains two types of articles. Entries by named authors are marked as "Protected" and may not be edited by the public. "Protected entries provide the credibility associated with the naming of a particular author," said Lauren Gutterman, the website's Coordinator.

OutHistory also contains articles marked as "Open" to additions and edits by any logged-on users with data, documents, and citations. "These collaboratively created entries," says Katz, "are an innovative experiment in history by the community."

In addition to the postcard exhibit, protected entries include Ron Schlittler’s original photographic exhibit: “Out and Elected in the USA:1974-2004,” several Blogs on History by Joan Nestle, cofounder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and C. Todd White’s exhibit on some of the first homosexual rights organizations in the US.

Several protected exhibits were jointly created by professors and their students. "Queer Youth: On Campus, in the Media, 1947-2007," was written by students at Bryn Mawr and Haverford colleges, under the guidance of Professor of History Sharon Ullman.

“OutHistory is an ideal forum for teachers to get students involved with and excited about history," says Gutterman. Anthropologist Esther Newton also worked with her students at the University of Michigan to produce an exhibit on "Lesbians in the Twentieth Century."

A fascinating group of documents on transgender American history are republished from Jonathan Ned Katz's out-of-print books Gay American History and Gay/Lesbian Almanac. "OutHistory hopes to republish lots of authors' out-of-print but still valuable historical works," says Gutterman. Documents from Martin Duberman's out of print About Time: Exploring the Gay Past, will also be added to the site.

OutHistory is collaborating with ChicagoGayHistory.org , a website founded by Tracy Baim, editor of the Windy City Times, and both sites are presenting original essays on Chicago LGBT history by Professor John D'Emilio. "We are also discussing a partnership between OutHistory and The National Archive of Lesbian and Gay History, founded by Richard Wandel," said Lauren Gutterman. "And we've met with the Coordinator of LGBT Collections at The New York Public Library to discuss future collaborations."

OutHistory is produced by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS), a research institute at the City University of New York Graduate Center. The creation of the site was funded by the Arcus Foundation under a two-year grant that ends December 31, 2008. CLAGS is seeking funds to continue the site. “To fund the site in 2009 we’re turning to individuals with a special interest in LGBT history and the ability to foster its development,” says Katz.

"In an election year and in the midst of an economic meltdown," Katz explains, “foundations tell us they are focused on human and civil rights issues, not history. But knowing the history of present struggles makes today's activists more effective." OutHistory is, in fact, seeking funding for several illustrated "Histories of the Present," on the movement for LGBT marriage and domestic partner rights, on AIDS activism, on the law reform movement, and on the issue of homosexuals in the U.S. military. "Publicizing the history of LGBT activism is a form of activism," Katz stresses, "so keeping OutHistory alive and kicking is important."

Contact: Lauren Gutterman, OutHistory Project Coordinator Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies e-mail: outhistory@gc.cuny.edu cell: (718) 974-3436