GLAD donates records to Yale University Library

Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) has donated records comprising more than 30 years of LGBT legal history to the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University.

"As an organization that has brought about significant shifts in the way LGBT people are treated under the law, by the government and by society as a whole, GLAD's records will be an invaluable source for scholars, historians, civil rights advocates and students," said Christine Weideman, Sterling Memorial Library's Director of Manuscripts and Archives. "We're grateful to be entrusted with preserving this vital part of history."

The records will be kept in Manuscripts and Archives in Sterling Memorial Library in New Haven, Connecticut, and join the material collections of Love Makes A Family; nineteenth-century diaries documenting same-sex intimacy; the papers of Harvey Fierstein, Gertrude Stein, Glenway Westcott, Larry Kramer, David Mixner, and numerous other lesbian and gay writers, artists, and activists; and one of the largest collections in the world of LGBT periodicals published before the gay liberation era of the 1970s.

"GLAD was founded in response to a series of anti-gay government actions in Boston in 1977-1978, including a police sting operation at the Boston Public Library. That our records will now be archived at Yale's world-renowned research library is a marker of how far the LGBT community has progressed over the last three decades," said Lee Swislow, GLAD's Executive Director. "We are honored to have played a part in that progress just as we are honored that Yale will ensure that the record of our work is preserved for the benefit of future generations."

"These papers will be of immense value to historians and other scholars," said George Chauncey, Professor of History and co-director of the Yale Research Initiative on the History of Sexualities. "GLAD's litigation has played a leading role in mitigating the widespread discrimination faced by LGBT people, and their remarkable records will give scholars and the public a much better understanding of both the extent of that discrimination and the legal and political strategies that have challenged it."

Records designated by GLAD as open to research will be available in early 2011. Read more at http://bit.ly/hyqJ2c.