Gender Studies

The LGBT collection contains 25 publications that chronicle the birth of the Gay and Lesbian movements in the United States. The gay liberation movement of the 1970s saw political action explode through the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Human Rights Campaign, the election of openly gay and lesbian representatives, and the first march on Washington for gay rights in 1979. Frustrated with the male leadership of most gay liberation groups and influenced by the feminist movement of the 1970s, lesbians formed their own collectives, music festivals, newspapers, bookstores, and publishing houses and called for lesbian rights in mainstream feminist groups like the National Organization for Women (NOW).

Over 75 magazines, newsletters, and newspapers created by activists and collectives that helped propel the second wave of feminism from the late sixties and early seventies through the end of the 20th century. Groups represented by these publications include the Redstockings, New York Radical Women, Chicago Women’s Liberation Union, the Third World Women’s Alliance, and many others. Abortion, rape, unequal pay, women in the service, child care, women’s self-help, pornography, gender roles, and many other major issues of the period were extensively covered in the pages of the feminist press.

Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.