Collaborative LGBTQIA+ history exhibit opens on Texas A&M campus
By Marketing and Communications | 07-12-2021
COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS (July 2020) Texas A&M University Libraries is proud to participate in and host Coming Out Together to Share our History: LGBTQIA+ Collections in College Station, Houston, and Beyond at Cushing Memorial Library and Archives from July 12 through December 16, 2021. The exhibit is co-curated by Cushing Library and other institutional partners across the region.
Notable materials from partner collections include selections from The Banner Project, a bar top and a decorated chair commemorating the community and history of Mary’s a bar in Houston, and oral histories that will be screened in the exhibit space. Cushing Library has drawn from their extensive LGBTQIA+ collections to add memorabilia from various LGBTQIA+ events like the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, a copy of The Intersexes, the first English language defense of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other materials from their various LGBTQIA+ collections.
Dr. Francesca Marini, programming and outreach librarian of the Cushing Library, proposed the idea for the exhibition a couple of years ago as a way for Cushing Library to support and partner with local communities and other universities to showcase our shared history. The exhibit marks the first time Cushing has worked with this many community partners to create one exhibition.
Dr. Marini noted the exhibit’s impact on scholarship and research. “It shows how rich and complex LGBTQIA+ history is, both in the College Station/Houston area and in the country as a whole,” Marini said. “It shows how communities have archived their own history to make sure it is documented and passed on to future generations.”
The exhibit was created through collaboration between Texas A&M University Libraries Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, UH Libraries LGBT History Research Collection, Charles Law Community Archive at The African American Library at the Gregory School/Houston Public Library, The Banner Project, Gulf Coast Archive and Museum of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender History, Inc. (GCAM), Nick Vaughan & Jake Margolin, The JD Doyle Archives, Rice University Fondren Library Woodson Research Center, and The Botts Collection of LGBT History.
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Media contact: Angel Franco, angelfranco97@library.tamu.edu