University Libraries’ LGBTQ Community Historical State Timeline is a collection of archives from the 1970s to 2000s focused on uncovering hidden narratives on campus.

Taylor Wolford, special collections librarian, said it’s important to represent LGBTQ+ history in University archives.

“It’s important … to make sure that community members have a say and are involved in how we describe and collect their materials for future generations to use to research,” Wolford said.

Gathering the documentation to make the timeline was a difficult task, primarily because prior to the ‘90s, the LGBTQ+ community on campus was underrepresented in University records.

“It’s very difficult to find any information about community members, faculty and student staff who were openly LGBTQ+ in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s,” Wolford said.

Virginia Ferris, lead librarian for outreach and engagement, said in building the timeline, librarians intentionally sought out records to represent LGBTQ+ history on campus — a history that has always been present but has often gone undocumented.

“Our records only go back to really the ‘80s, maybe a couple earlier things mentioned in the Technician,” Ferris said. “It’s impossible that there wasn’t a community on campus before that, but the records just don’t reflect it.”

A possible reason for this lack of records is that prior to the formation of the LGBTQ Pride Center, originally named the GLBT Center, the lack of a formal infrastructure to support the LGBTQ+ community on campus impacted the collection of information.

“It’s a historically marginalized community,” Ferris said. “Written documents were not created and preserved from higher-level of power in the University. It was students who were forming organizations. … There was not a formal institutional infrastructure for supporting the LGBTQ community on campus until the 2000s.”

The documentation in the LGBTQ Community timeline provides a broad recollection highlighting both landmark events and the struggles for visibility and recognition on campus.

Here is a selection of records and documents from the LGBTQ Community Historical State Timeline:

View the complete timeline on the University Libraries website.