Oral history is one of the biggest components of understanding the queer experience. Most LGBTQ+ history has been passed down orally, rather than through written material.
Oral histories have special characteristics that other resources in our collection don’t have – intimacy. They provide a first-hand view and help us understand a specific moment in time and help understand the lived experience of a person.
FSU SCA has a collection of oral history recordings from the LGBT Oral History Project of North Florida.
The LGBT Oral History Project of North Florida is a volunteer-based public history collaboration between FSU honors undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty members, FSU Libraries, and participants from the north Florida LGBT community. The purpose of the project is to gather and preserve the life stories of LGBT people who have lived or are living in the north Florida region and to make their stories available to the public and to scholars and researchers worldwide. Starting in 2021, the project additionally focused on the history of Naiad Press, a Tallahassee publisher of lesbian literature.
These interviews provide intimate looks at the North Florida LGBT community.
Want to check out more LGBTQ+ oral history? The LGBTQ Oral History Collaboratory is a hub of online resources and links to different oral history collections throughout the United States. As the largest LGBTQ oral history project in North American history, the Collaboratory connects archives across Canada and the U.S. to produce a digital history hub for the research and study of gay, lesbian, queer, and trans oral histories.
Stay tuned for more posts this month celebrating LGBTQ+ items at FSU SCA!
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