GLBT Historical Society

Records of the AIDS Legal Referral Panel, an organization that connects people with AIDS (PWA) and volunteer lawyers willing to donate time and expertise in order to assist them. It has been a significant resource for PWA's since its inception. Also Included in this collection is materials from the Women's AIDS Network. The AIDS Legal Referral Panel was founded in 1983 by attorneys Frederick Hertz, Steven Richter, Mark Senick, and Gary James Wood. It was originally a committee of the LGBT organization Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (BALIF). Hertz, Richter, Senick, and Wood understood that many gay men in ...

Institution: GLBT Historical Society

Randy Shilts (1951-1994) was a prominent, openly gay journalist and author. A freelance television and newspaper reporter in the San Francisco Bay Area, Shilts covered issues facing local LGBTQ communities, most notably the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Shilts published three books: The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (1982), And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS epidemic (1989), and Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military, Vietnam to the Persian Gulf (1993). In 1982, Shilts published his first book, The Mayor of Castro Street, about Harvey Milk and LGBT ...

Institution: GLBT Historical Society

Gilbert Baker was an artist, drag queen, and Sister of Perpetual Indulgence who played the central role in the 1978 creation of the rainbow LGBTQ pride flag. Baker’s collection consists largely of textiles, sewing supplies, art, and audiovisual materials, along with a small number of documents.

Institution: GLBT Historical Society

California Revealed is a State Library initiative to help California’s public libraries, in partnership with other local heritage groups, digitize, preserve, and provide online access to archival materials - books, newspapers, photographs, audiovisual recordings, and more - that tell the incredible stories of the Golden State. We also provide free access and preservation services for existing digital collections for partner organizations with in-house digitization programs. California Revealed is supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian.

Institution: GLBT Historical Society

Jean-Baptiste Carhaix (1946-2023) was a French photographer. The collection includes photographs of early members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an order of gay and queer nuns who incorporate religious iconography, drag, street theater, and satire in their charitable fundraising, advocacy for LGBTQ rights, and other causes. Also included are images of early AIDS marches and fundraising events.

Institution: GLBT Historical Society

The collection includes 35mm photographic slides depicting nightlife events, circa 1970-1977, including images of a Sylvester concert and what may be Halloween 1977. The images predominantly depict Black performers and attendees, including people in costumes and drag.

Institution: GLBT Historical Society

Selected photographs from a scrapbook of “anonymous lesbian photographs” found, according to the donor, in a “Berkeley junk shop in the early 2000s.” The photos span the mid-1940s to the early 1960s, and include snapshots of individuals, pairs, and small groups at social gatherings, in the snow, on the beach, and with cars. Many figures are donning a post-World War II butch style. Several photographs include people in Women’s Army Corps (WAC) uniforms.

Institution: GLBT Historical Society

Bruce B. Decker (1950-1995), a Republican political consultant and public policy advocate, dedicated himself to AIDS research, education and treatment programs after learning he was HIV-positive in 1984. That same year, Decker helped found Concerned Americans for Individual Rights, a national organization of moderate and conservative gays and lesbians whose goal was to expand Republicans’ awareness of LGBT issues and counter the rising influence of the religious right. Governor George Dukemejian appointed Decker the first chair of the California AIDS Advisory Committee later that year; he resigned in 1988 after the governor announced his support for Proposition 102. Decker helped ...

Institution: GLBT Historical Society

This collection contains materials relating to Finocchio’s, one of the oldest and best-known female impersonation clubs in the world. The collection is arranged into four series: Production Material and Ephemera, Photographs, Garments, and Artifacts.

Institution: GLBT Historical Society

The Forget-Me-Nots was a small group of gay men from San Francisco who formed an affinity group prior to the 1987 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. They prepared to perform civil disobedience on the steps of the United States Supreme Court. The group’s members marched and demonstrated in memory of those lost to AIDS.

Institution: GLBT Historical Society