Queer History Boston (The History Project)

The History Project is New England's largest LGBTQ+ archive and one of the oldest independent queer archives in the United States. It was founded in 1980 as a small volunteer collective to preserve the records of the Boston-area lesbian and gay movement, then already 25 years old. Its holdings now number more than 500 linear feet of manuscript material, 10,000+ photographs, and complete runs of every significant Boston-area queer periodical. The collection's spine is the papers of *Gay Community News* (1973-1999), the influential national gay newspaper edited from Boston; the Homophile Union of Boston (founded 1969, one of the first ten US gay rights organisations); Daughters of Bilitis Boston chapter (1969-1978); the Combahee River Collective (1974-1980, the Black lesbian feminist collective whose 1977 statement is a foundational text of intersectional feminism); and hundreds of personal papers, including Barbara Grier, Charley Shively, and Boston area activists across five decades. Since 2019 the History Project has partnered with the Boston Public Library's Kirstein Business Branch, sharing archive-storage and reading-room infrastructure at the BPL's Boylston Street facility. Access is by appointment (typically same-week booking), free, and open to any researcher including undergraduates and independent scholars. The archive also organises rotating public exhibitions and a monthly walking tour of Boston queer heritage sites. Reading room hours vary — check historyproject.org for the current appointment schedule. Copley Square Green Line is one block east. Combine with the neighbouring Boston Public Library (a heritage building in its own right) and the Boston Marriages townhouses of Beacon Hill 15 minutes' walk east.