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This collection documents the life of Helen Harder (nee Eleanor F. Sugg). Born in 1918, Harder was a flight instructor in the Women's Army Corps (WACS) in World War II. She later worked in a variety of fields including private industry, sales, civil service and education. Harder was interested in spirituality and wrote a number of small essays on the subject.

The records of Shanti document the organizational history and work of an agency dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening or chronic illnesses. There are a wide range of record types in this collection, which focus on the years 1987-2003. The bulk of these include materials related to the board of directors and to training volunteers and other organizations. There are also newsletters; publicity and fundraising materials; cloth artifacts; a scrapbook; audio-visual material; and photographs.

Photographs of Vanguard's 1966 Street Sweep demonstration in San Francisco. Vanguard was an organization of LGBTQ youth and others living on the streets of the Tenderloin district in San Francisco. The Street Sweep was organized to demonstrate their commitment to the neighborhood and to protest ongoing police harassment. This collection also contains photographs of another protest and a few unidentified subjects.

Bill Beardemphl (1926-2002) was a journalist, activist, and chef who is best known for founding the Society for Individual Rights (SIR), a homophile organization, and publishing its magazine Vector. In the 1980s, he was also the owner of the San Francisco Sentinel. The collection contains Beardemphl’s journalistic notes, subject files, and photographs, as well as early issues of Vector.

The general periodicals collection of the GLBT Historical Society.

Collection consists of black and white and color photographs, negatives, slides, and contact sheets produced by photographer Richard Boetger in the early 1970s. Many of the items in the collection are portraits of male nudes but also include a few portraits of women and ballet dancers, as well as a framed photograph of opera singer Birgit Nilsson.

This collection represents the history of the San Francisco Women's Building/Women's Centers from 1972 to 2001. It provides a comprehensive look at the second wave of the Feminist Movement in San Francisco at that time-the Women, the Ideals, the Issues, the Struggles.

This collection contains records of the ancestry, emergence, and activities of the organization, COLAGE from 1982 to 2000. The bulk of the collection is from 1990 to 1996. The content of the collection focuses on the organization's newsletters, annual conferences, and advocacy work on issues related to custody and adoption rights of gay and lesbian parents. The collection includes newsletters, conference and other events papers, membership surveys, member manuscripts, issues papers including court case transcripts, and operational papers documenting the evolution of the organization.

Francine Logandice was a transgender entrepreneur who owned a resort on the Russian River and a number of successful bars in San Francisco – the 222 Club on Hyde, the Black Rose, The Depot in the Outer Mission, Francine’s, Elaine’s, Déjà Vu and Café San Marcos. The collection contains correspondence, books, book lists, notes, and research related to Logandice's passion project, the Bibliography of Impersonation, Transvestism and Transexualism.

The general biographical ephemera collection of the GLBT Historical Society.

This collection documents the creative works of artist David Cannon Dashiell. This collection includes written, conceptual, and design works produced from the middle 1970s through 1993 when the artist died. Personal items in the collection are limited to a small cache of photographs and slides.

Thrillpeddlers was a San Francisco-based multigenerational queer theater company specializing in Grand Guignol plays and Theatre of the Ridiculous.

Digital audio file of a recording of an interview with Harvey Milk. Recorded by G. Kenneth Ward at San Francisco City Hall on February 2, 1978.

Maria Sanchez was a popular San Francisco DJ who spun records at many venues including the Sutro Bathhouse and the Fairoaks Hotel. She was a member of the Bay Area Disco DJ Association (BADDA) and wrote a monthly disco gossip column in "Baseline: Bay Area Disco Report."

Bruce G. Rodgers was the author of The Queens’ Vernacular: a Gay Lexicon, a dictionary of gay slang. He was born October 15, 1942 in Wisconsin, moved to San Francisco in 1966 and died August 10, 2009. He is buried at the Santa Clara Mission Cemetery. Rodgers graduated from Wausau Senior High School in Wausau, Wisconsin in 1959. He attended Barstow Jr. College, 1960-1961 and University of Southern Nevada, 1961-1963. During the 1960s he worked as a teletype operator and supervisor for Review Journal Daily in Las Vegas and as a teletype operator at the Wall Street Journal in San Francisco. In the 1970s he worked in order fulfillment at Western Tape in Mountain View, California, then in the1980s at Albert L. Shultz Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto. He retired in 1996. On his resume (circa 1982), Rodgers describes his personal interests: “I have an overriding interest in linguistics and languages. I (sic) am reading fluent in Spanish, French, Judeo-Spanish, and Hebrew, and am knowledgeable of Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Italian, German, and Turkish. I am constantly interested in slang expressions in all languages.” His partner from 1966 to 1989 was Joe Jenkins (1935-1989) who had an interest in George Washington memorabilia. Jenkins’ collection of George Washington memorabilia was donated by Rodgers to the San José Historical Museum (currently History San José) in 1994.

Victoria Schneider is an activist and sex worker best known for her lawsuit against the City and County of San Francisco, concerning an unlawful strip search during her booking at the San Francisco County Jail. Schneider had been placed in the men’s cells, and had requested to be moved to the women’s; the search was ostensibly conducted to determine her gender. Born intersex and assigned male, Schneider identified strongly as a woman and had transitioned to live as such. Schneider won her lawsuit and was awarded $750,000 in damages from a federal jury.

Libertarians for Gay and Lesbian Concerns (LGLC) records document the activities of LGLC especially those of George Meyer, LGLC's National Coordinator from 1983 to 1987. LGLC was established during the 1981 national Libertarian Party Convention in Denver, Colorado. LGLC succeeded the Thomas Jefferson Libertarian Club, a 1970's gay and lesbian political organization. Despite LGLC's ties with the libertarian movement, it has never been an official organization of the Libertarian party. The organization's mission was to support gay and lesbians libertarians, to persuade gay and lesbians to consider the libertarian view of civil liberties, and to bring awareness of gay and lesbian issues to libertarians. After a slow beginning in Salt Lake City (1981-1983), LGLC moved to Washington, D.C. (1983- 1984). George Meyer moved to San Francisco in late 1984, and began the San Francisco chapter (August 1984) while serving as National Coordinator. Meyer's efforts as National Coordinator saw an increase in the organization's membership and influence. He edited the bi-monthly LGLC Newsletter, which had 400 subscribers during the mid-1980's. Meyer supported the Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco local chapters. By 1986, despite his efforts, only the New York City and San Francisco chapters were still active. Meyer also arranged information booths at Libertarian party state and national conventions, encouraged LGLC participation in Gay Freedom Day parades, and maintained a network of contacts in thirteen states.

The James Dewsnap collection contains two full-length nude portraits of Scott O'Hara by San Francisco artist David Ross; transcripts of 16 interviews from 1994 that Dewsnap conducted with Jackie Phillips, the lead "comedienne" at Finocchio's from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s; and an unpublished book-length typescript on Phillips’ life, called "Oh, what a drag! The life and career of Wacky Jackie Phllips, Finocchio's riotous redhead, as told to Jim Dewsnap."

The general groups ephemera collection of the GLBT Historical Society

This collection documents the work of Community United Against Violence (CUAV), the nation’s first LGBTQQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning) anti-violence organization. The collection covers the years 1977 to 2005, and contains administrative records; board materials; correspondence; financial records; hate crime surveys, reports and statistics; incident and police reports; materials related to the organization’s Speakers Bureau, and other outreach projects and events produced by CUAV; public relations materials; files collected by staff members; subject files; news clippings; awards; and reference publications.

Frederick Schoonmaker and Alfred Parkinson were an interracial gay couple best known for their attempt to establish a gay intentional community, to be called Stonewall Park, in rural Nevada. After the failure of their San Francisco ice cream shop, Munchkins, the couple secured backers and made several purchases of land. Each time, however, they were turned back by homophobic locals. In 1987, after Schoonmaker and Parkinson had given up on the dream of Stonewall Park, Schoonmaker was diagnosed with AIDS. He died the same year. Parkinson's fate is unknown. The bulk of their collection spans the years 1984-1987 and pertains to Stonewall Park and related ventures, as well as the National Association of Lesbians and Gays (NALAG) and the Lavender Press, another of the couple's ventures.

Roz Joseph (1926–2019) was a San Francisco-based photographer who in the mid-1970s photographed the pageantry and activism of the city’s diverse drag cultures at Gay Freedom Day parades, Halloween celebrations, Imperial Court coronations and drag and costume balls. The collection consists of matted color photographic prints, notebooks of slides, interviews and manuscript materials, and various ephemera.

Jean-Baptiste Carhaix (1946-2023) was a French photographer. The collection includes photographs of early members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and images of events, including AIDS fundraisers and marches.

This collection contains materials relating to Finocchio’s, one of the oldest and best-known female impersonation clubs in the world. The term, "female impersonators" is a historic term that comes from a straight-coded Victorian theatrical form and continued until the mid-20th century before merging into what we now call drag. Finocchio's performers included what we now know as drag queens, trans people, and cis men in drag.

Camille Moran is a transgender poet and painter, as well as an activist who works against psychiatric abuse of queer and trans youth. This collection includes draft testimony, poetry, a series of satirical notes about her decision to transition, and other writing by Moran, as well as a number of articles she wrote or collected.

Janet “Janny” MacHarg was a political songwriter, cabaret performer, writer, and feminist activist, known as the “Tallulah Bankhead of San Francisco.” Contents include photographs, sheet music, writings, publications, correspondence, drawings, notes, and other ephemera.

The Lesbian and Gay Chorus of San Francisco was founded in 1980 and is the nation’s oldest self-identified LGBT mixed chorus. This collection contains six scrapbooks of materials relating to the Lesbian and Gay Chorus of San Francisco. The scrapbooks include photographs, programs, flyers, chorus notes, buttons, ticket stubs, and other ephemera.

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus is the world’s first openly gay men’s chorus. The Chorus sang in public for the first time on the steps of San Francisco City Hall in November 1978 at a candlelight vigil for Harvey Milk. In 1981, The Chorus embarked on a national tour that helped spark the creation of similar choral groups in the U.S. and overseas. They are credited with igniting the worldwide gay and lesbian choral movement and continue to tour the country today.

This collection contains ephemera produced by the Lesbian and Gay Chorus of San Francisco. Materials include 35mm slides of concert programs, as well as flyers and posters advertising chorus events.

Sylvester (born Sylvester James Jr.) was a disco-soul singer-songwriter known for his androgynous appearance, falsetto singing voice, and the moniker the “Queen of Disco.”

This collection contains materials produced by the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Marching Band and Twirling Corps and collected by Steve Scholl. Materials include directories, band notes, programs, bylaws, flyers, posters, photographs, scrapbooks, and other ephemera. It also contains flyers and programs relating to local LGBTQ theater events.

Ginny Knuth (1934-1997) was a cisgender woman who volunteered extensively with San Francisco transgender organizations from 1983 until her death. The collection includes photographs, an oral history, a small amount of biographical information, and a large number of awards and plaques.

Digitized film recordings, circa 1965-1977, from the Henri Leleu collection (1997-13). Henri Leleu (1907-1996) was a gay man who arrived in San Francisco in the early 1960s. He was a World War II veteran, world traveler, and avid photographer. In San Francisco, he was active in the leather scene and participated in LGBTQ community groups including the Tavern Guild. The films document various LGBTQ events and bars. Also included are two films by Rich Weiss collected by Leleu.

Hobby Directory (1946-circa 1952) was a small publication in which male hobbyists could publish personal ads and meet friends who shared their interests. The magazine quickly acquired a large gay male readership, and gay men used their ads to connect with one another. The men's descriptions of their hobbies -- for example, ballet, interior decorating, or collecting photographs of weightlifters -- were designed to signal that they were gay, as well as genuinely describing themselves to romantic prospects. Hobby Directory was a fairly mainstream publication which was sold in craft stores and advertised in the magazines Popular Mechanics and Popular Science. Its reasons for ceasing publication are unknown, but historians have suggested that it may have fallen victim to enforcement of the Comstock Laws, which forbade sending "obscene" materials through the mail.

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. These slides were salvaged by the donor, Deborah Deegan.

The Arcaids Theatre was a theatre troupe composed entirely of people with AIDS and what was then called ARC (AIDS-Related Complex, referring to the broad spectrum of AIDS-related symptoms and opportunistic infections). Arcaids was founded in 1988 by Wendy Rouder, and attracted a core troupe of both professional and amateur actors. The troupe existed for about two years, during which time the players developed scripts and put on small public performances. Performances were a mix of scripted and semi-improvised material, often with a blackly comic tone, and with frequent musical interludes. This collection contains a wide range of documents: publicity materials, news clippings, rehearsal photos, brochures, scripts and improv scenarios, fliers for recruiting performers, notes from creative meetings, business documents, correspondence, and bylaws related to the management of the theater as a nonprofit.

Oral history recordings and supplemental material for the Lyon-Martin House Oral History Project. Interviewees include: Kendra Mon, Pauline Shulman, Diane McCarney, Kate Kendell, Marcia Gallo, and Margie Adam. Located at 651 Duncan Street in San Francisco, the Lyon-Martin House is the former home of lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon (1924-2020) and Del Martin (1921-2008). In 2021, the City of San Francisco designated the Lyon-Martin House a City Landmark in recognition of its association, through Lyon and Martin, with the lesbian rights, homophile, and marriage equality movements. The oral history project documents the narrators’ memories of the Lyon-Martin House as a social and activist space, as well as of Lyon and Martin.

Wilderness Women was a monthly newsletter of outdoor and nature activities for women in the San Francisco Bay Area, published from 1981-2015. According to one of the original creators, the newsletter grew out of members’ previous involvement in lesbian birdwatching groups. The newsletter was first published as a San Francisco Bay Area chapter of Camping Women. The name was changed to Wilderness Women after the group decided to disassociate from the national Camping Women organization. Event listings included hikes for single lesbians over 50, outings hosted by the Gay and Lesbian Sierrans, camping trips throughout California, and many others.

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.

Louis Graydon “Lou” Sullivan (1951-1991) was a transgender activist, diarist, and author who often corresponded with other trans men. This small collection comprises eight letters and one photo sent from Sullivan to a trans man named David.

Efrain John Gonzalez is a bisexual photographer, tour guide, and artist. This digital collection consists of selected photographs by Gonzalez of the first National Bisexual Conference, held in San Francisco in 1990.

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.

Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria is a documentary film directed by Victor Silverman and Susan Stryker, telling the story of trans women's lives and resistance in 1960s San Francisco. The collection contains extensive video interviews with the women and their allies, portions of which were excerpted in the film.

This collection contains materials collected by Sandy Holmes, a longtime lesbian activist who worked for the ACLU and served as secretary to the Bay Area Black Lesbians and Gays (BAYBLAG) in the mid-1980s. While a student at Yale, she also headed a campus organization called the Yalesbians; both groups are well represented in the collection.

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.

Richard William Evans (1942 January 20-2023 April 26) was a Black, gay artist, community advocate, and participant in the “back-to-the-land” movement in Northern California. As a member of the Stellar Arts Collective, Evans helped to create “The Power of the Sun,” a large-scale stained glass installation that was displayed in the State of California office building at 455 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco from 1979 until the artwork’s destruction in a protest in 1991. The project proposal, photographic slides, oral history interview, and digital film in this digital collection document Evans's artistic work with the Stellar Arts Collective.

Mary Richards was a freelance writer for the Bay Area Reporter, an LGBTQ newspaper, for twelve years in the 1980s and 1990s. This collection contains audiotape recordings of interviews Richards conducted with LGBTQ people on a wide range of topics.

The Rossmoor Lesbian Social Club (RLSC) is a club in the Rossmoor senior community in Walnut Creek, California. The club was founded in 2009 by Carol Morton with a mission of providing social activities for Rossmoor residents who identify as lesbian, bisexual, or transgender women. This collection contains 24 interviews with RLSC members about their life stories, as well as an introductory panel discussion.

BAAITS was founded in 1998 by community members that organized the International Two-Spirit Gathering in the Bay Area that same year. Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS) exists to restore and recover the role of Two-Spirit people within the American Indian/First Nations community by creating forums for the spiritual, cultural and artistic expression of Two-Spirit people. BAAITS is a community-based volunteer organization offering culturally relevant activities for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Native Americans, their families and friends. Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits comes together to socialize, share and network in an alcohol and drug-free environment.

Veronica “Ronnie” Friedman (1945-1986) was a transgender woman who lived in San Francisco. The collection consists of Friedman’s detailed and emotional diary entries, as well as drafts of letters to her mother and children, personal notes, daily planner pages, timelines and autobiographical statements relating to transition, greeting cards, and other correspondence.

Jessica Barshay (1940-1998) was a psychotherapist who lived with multiple disabilities, including asthma, Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome (CFIDS), and Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS). Barshay was a lesbian feminist and identified strongly with both Jewish and Buddhist faiths. The collection includes correspondence, journals, subject files, newsletters, medical records, and professional papers.

Larry Buttwinick (1924-2004) was a gay Jewish man and an original member of the Imperial Court of San Francisco. His life intersected with prominent LGBTQ figures such as Jose Sarría (drag star, political activist, and founder of the Imperial Court) and Henry Diekow (a drag artist also known as the Baroness von Dieckoff). He was also a member of the Society for Individual Rights (SIR), an early gay and lesbian rights organization, and one of the founders of the Lavender Seniors of the East Bay.

A birthday card from Silvia Kohan's lover, Junita, with a personal message about their interfaith relationship. The card is made from the slipcover of a book on Jewish history, "World of Our Fathers."

Denise D’Anne was an activist, environmentalist, civil servant, writer, restaurateur, and candidate for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, as well as a trans woman who transitioned in 1968. D'Anne's collection includes extensive manuscripts and photographs documenting her diverse personal, political, and professional activities.

Oral history of Tom Baker (S. Thomas Baker), interviewed by Shawn Sprockett in January 2024. At the time of the oral history, Baker was a 93 year-old gay man living in the Castro in San Francisco, CA. He had lived in San Francisco for nearly 50 years. The interview discusses Baker’s early life and teenage years, his coming out experience in the 1950s, his gay community, experiences with gay bars in San Francisco, his interactions with police, and other related topics. The collection includes an mp3 audio recording and pdf transcript of the interview. Also included are matchbooks of bars, collected by Baker and given to Sprockett.

GLBT Historical Society (GLBTHS) records suggest that GLBTHS board members, volunteers, community donors, and staff brought together this collection of videocassettes, DVDs, video reels, and film reels from the late 1980s through the early 2010s. The collection documents a range of LGBTQ activities and topics and encompasses numerous genres, including event and protest recordings, documentaries, public access television episodes, interviews, news broadcasts, feature films, and adult videos.

This collection contains tapes recorded by Queer Blue Light, a gay activist video collective active in San Francisco in the 1970s. Daniel Smith, who donated the collection to the GLBT Historical Society, was a member of the collective. The tapes contain raw and edited footage of gay and lesbian political and cultural activities, including recordings of a 1975 meeting on relations between the San Francisco Police Department and the gay community, particularly in Eureka Valley; a meeting featuring Bobby Seale’s mayoral campaign manager and members of the East Bay gay community; a 1975 demonstration of gay teachers in San Francisco; several poetry, theater, and musical performances; and the 1976 and 1978 Castro Street Fair, among other events. It also includes “Sign 504 Now,” a documentary about the 1977 504 Sit-in by activists with disabilities.

Selected recordings from the records of the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project, which worked to uncover and make public the history of lesbian and gay communities. The organization began as a loosely knit study group in 1978; the recordings selected here date from approximately 1980 to 1991. All audiovisual material in the collection has been digitized; for access to additional recordings please contact the archivist.