When people think about queer history in the United States, they often think first of places like New York or San Francisco. But the history of queer activism, community and struggle was never confined to the coasts. It was also made in places like Kansas City and Springfield, in local organizations, in political campaigns, in community spaces, and in the archives that preserve those lives and stories. Recovering that history helps us see that queer history is not some marginal side note to the American past. It is part of the history of citizenship, rights, community, and social change in the United States.
To learn more about this history, Djene and Patrick speak with Stuart Hinds, Curator of Special Collections and Archives at the Miller Nichols Library, about his work as the Curator of the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America (GLAMA).
Stuart Hinds is Curator of Special Collections and
Archives at the Miller Nichols Library at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. He also serves as Curator of the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America, a collecting initiative he co-founded in 2010 to preserve and make accessible the history of Kansas City’s LGBT communities. Stuart has spoken widely on topics related to queer history and archives, co-taught the first course on U.S. gay and lesbian history at UMKC, and is currently working on a book titled Cowtown Queers: A History of Gay and Lesbian Kansas City.
