2008 Woodie Awards
Gay/lesbian books collection donated
Josh Walovitch, Collegian Correspondent
Issue date: 10/16/07 Section: News
On National Coming Out Day last Tuesday, the Gittings-Lahusen gay and lesbian book collection was donated to the Department of Special Collections and University Archives in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library.
The collection contains approximately 1,000 titles dating from the late 1920s to the present day and represents a lifetime of collecting by two important gay rights activists, Barbara Gittings and her life partner, Kay Tobin Lahusen.
During the past 40 years, Gittings has been considered part of the reason why there has been a fundamental shift in thinking toward gay rights and the gay community. She organized the first gay rights protest at the White House in 1965, helped end the medical classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder and started the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (First Lesbian Society).
This priceless collection was brought to the University of Massachusetts with the help of Anne L. Moore, Robert S. Cox and their friendship with Kay Tobin Lahusen. The Du Bois Library was a perfect fit for these books considering the large gay community present in both Amherst and Northampton.
Gittings began collecting the books following her coming out during her freshman year at Northwestern University in an effort to find as much material to help her understand her gay identity. Within this collection there is a great number of varied writings such as books by gay authors, gay-themed books by straight authors, personal accounts of gay experiences, sociological writings on gays, positive as well as negative writings about the gay community and several issues of The Ladder (a magazine published from 1956-1972) edited by Barbara Gittings.
The collection is home to the winner of the first Gay Book Award, "A Place For Us," a novel by Isabel Miller written in 1969. The books encourage a strong understanding of these diverse experiences that gay individuals have had with social change and the varied perspectives and approaches they have adopted in pursing it.
The collection contains approximately 1,000 titles dating from the late 1920s to the present day and represents a lifetime of collecting by two important gay rights activists, Barbara Gittings and her life partner, Kay Tobin Lahusen.
During the past 40 years, Gittings has been considered part of the reason why there has been a fundamental shift in thinking toward gay rights and the gay community. She organized the first gay rights protest at the White House in 1965, helped end the medical classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder and started the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (First Lesbian Society).
This priceless collection was brought to the University of Massachusetts with the help of Anne L. Moore, Robert S. Cox and their friendship with Kay Tobin Lahusen. The Du Bois Library was a perfect fit for these books considering the large gay community present in both Amherst and Northampton.
Gittings began collecting the books following her coming out during her freshman year at Northwestern University in an effort to find as much material to help her understand her gay identity. Within this collection there is a great number of varied writings such as books by gay authors, gay-themed books by straight authors, personal accounts of gay experiences, sociological writings on gays, positive as well as negative writings about the gay community and several issues of The Ladder (a magazine published from 1956-1972) edited by Barbara Gittings.
The collection is home to the winner of the first Gay Book Award, "A Place For Us," a novel by Isabel Miller written in 1969. The books encourage a strong understanding of these diverse experiences that gay individuals have had with social change and the varied perspectives and approaches they have adopted in pursing it.
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Daniel
posted 10/17/07 @ 10:24 PM EST
Thanks. Does anyone can get the book? A bi on http://www.findbilover.com
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