Philadelphia: Inside One of the Nation’s Largest Collections of LGBTQ History

From Billy Penn:

If they were stacked vertically, the LGBTQ artifacts at the William Way Community Center would stand 800 feet tall. That’s a tower nearly as tall as the Comcast Center, made up of hundreds of thousands of items like personal letters, artworks, t-shirts and buttons.

We’re talking flyers for drag shows from the early 2000s, diaries handwritten by the city’s public health officials during the AIDS epidemic, even a lifelike diorama of Woody’s, the famed Gayborhood bar.

The Wilcox Archives at William Way are nationally recognized as a powerhouse, according to director John Anderies, who said the collection is easily among the top 10 largest of its kind.

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That is starting to change. The collection of queer history is growing in popularity, thanks to a 5-year-old push for a more organized operation. And on the horizon are continued improvements — including a total digitization of the archives.

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No longer are the archives such a haphazard operation. Credit the William Penn Foundation for extending a $300,000 grant in 2014, which enabled the LGBTQ community center to hire two staffers — one full-time and one part-time — to get the collection under control.

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Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Digital Preservation, Funding, News