Florida LGBTQ+ Collection

Collection

Identifier: MSS 0533

Scope and Content

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The Florida LGBTQ+ Collection contains newspapers, journals, newsletters, magazines, and other periodicals related to the LGBTQ+ community in Florida. It includes titles such as The Weekly News (TWN), which was the longest-running gay newspaper in Florida at the time of its final issue, and Mama Raga, a lesbian magazine published in Gainesville.

The collection has grown to include documents and ephemera. The greatest concentration of this material focuses on the Gainesville LGBTQ+ community. It also includes subject files that cover topics related to the entire state, such as material on a late 1970s boycott of Florida citrus, and 1981’s Trask-Bush Amendment.

The Florida LGBTQ+ Collection also contains material from outside the state of Florida. It consists of LGBTQ+ publications, such as ONE, the first pro-gay magazine in the country, and RFD, a reader-written periodical focused on country living. This series also includes LGBTQ+ documents and ephemera, such as chapbooks by lesbian poet Jean Sirius and guides to the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay rights in 1987. While the content of this grouping is mainly national in focus, many of the materials, particularly the publications, do have information related to the state of Florida.

Dates

Creation: 1955 - 2024

Access

The magainze Lesbian Connection in boxes 14-17 is restricted. Please ask archivist if you would like to view them.

Otherwise the collection is open for research.

Extent

15.16 Linear Feet (34 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Location

University of Florida Smathers Library Building

Acquisition Information

ONE Magazine donated in memory of Alma Ebert by Carle Elkins and Patrick Ellis. Several issues of Kindred Sisters were donated by Gregory Allen. Other materials donated by Sue "Rainbow" Williams and the Pride Community Center of North Central Florida. Other purchases and donations added.

Related Materials

The Johns Committee Collection contains documents produced by the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee as part of its investigation into homosexual activity in educational institutions, particularly colleges and universities.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida Records and the Records of the Florida National Organization for Women both include subject files on LGBTQ issues.

The Cal Yeomans Collection includes material on the life and career of Florida native Cal Yeomans, who was a key contributor to the gay theatre movement of the 1970s and 1980s.

The Ernest Matthew Mickler Papers contain published and unpublished writings, correspondence, biographical materials, and photographs of artist, writer, and photographer Ernest Matthew Mickler, who was best known for his book White Trash Cooking.

The University of Florida Digital Collections includes the LGBTQIA Collection , which consists of bulletins, journals, magazines, newsletters, and newspapers, photographs and assorted ephemera published by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA) organizations supporting the State of Florida's LGBTQIA+ community.