LGBT individuals and families are increasingly visible in popular culture and local communities; their struggles for equality appear regularly in news media. If history museums and historic sites are to be inclusive and relevant, they must begin incorporating this community into their interpretation. Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites is straightforward, accessible guidebook for museum and history professionals as they embark on such worthy efforts. This book features: An examination of queer history in the United States. The rapid rate at which queer topics have entered the mainstream could conceivably give the impression that LGBT people have only quite recently begun to contribute to United States culture and this misconception ignores a rich history. A brief overview of significant events in LGBT history highlights variant sexuality and gender in U.S. history, from colonization to the first decades of the twenty-first century. Case studies on the inclusion and telling of LGBT history. These chapters detail how major institutions, such as the Chicago History Museum, have brought this topic to light in their interpretation. An extensive bibliography and reading list. LGBT history is a fascinating story, and the limited space in this volume can hardly do it justice. These features are provided to guide readers to more detailed information about the contributions of LGBT people to U.S. history and culture. This guide complements efforts to make museums and historic sites more inclusive, so they may tell a richer story for all people.

This book moves the field forward in its collective conversation about the interpretation of slavery—acknowledging the criticism of the past and acting in the present to develop an inclusive interpretation of slavery.

Honorable Mention for the 2023 Francis Richardson Keller-Sierra Prize 2023 Judy Grahn Award-Publishing Triangle Finalist Restores queer suffragists to their rightful place in the history of the struggle for women’s right to vote The women’s suffrage movement, much like many other civil rights movements, has an important and often unrecognized queer history. In Public Faces, Secret Lives Wendy L. Rouse reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the suffrage movement included a variety of individuals who represented a range of genders and sexualities. However, owing to the constant pressure to present a “respectable” public image, suffrage leaders publicly conformed to gendered views of ideal womanhood in order to make women’s suffrage more palatable to the public. Rouse argues that queer suffragists did take meaningful action to assert their identities and legacies by challenging traditional concepts of domesticity, family, space, and death in both subtly subversive and radically transformative ways. Queer suffragists also built lasting alliances and developed innovative strategies in order to protect their most intimate relationships, ones that were ultimately crucial to the success of the suffrage movement. Public Faces, Secret Lives is the first work to truly recenter queer figures in the women’s suffrage movement, highlighting their immense contributions as well as their numerous sacrifices.

Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites is framed by educational psychoanalytic theory and positions museum workers, public historians, and museum visitors as learners. Through this lens, museum workers and public historians can develop compelling and ethical representations of historical individuals, communities, and populations who have suffered. It includes various examples of difficult knowledge, detailed examples of specific interpretation methods, and will give readers an in-depth explanation of the psychoanalytic educational theories behind the methodologies. Audiences can more responsibly and productively engage in learning histories of oppression and trauma when they are in measured and sensitive museum learning environments and public history venues. To learn more, check out the website here: http://interpretingdifficulthistory.com/

Art and Public History: Approaches, Opportunities, and Challenges examines the relationship between art and public history, outlining opportunities, challenges, and insights drawn from recent initiatives. With a special eye towards audience engagement and challenging historical narratives, all of the case studies and projects combine historical interpretation with contemporary and historical forms of visual art in unique and insightful ways. In addition to emphasizing the kind of practical advice found in the best case studies, this volume also offers a critical discussion of the concepts, tools, skills and technologies that contribute to fruitful interdisciplinary collaboration. These issues are addressed through sections on projects related to historical artworks; contemporary art and artists; and public art and the built environment. It addresses how public historians can incorporate art into their practice by outlining opportunities, challenges, and insights drawn from recent projects in the United States and Britain. These projects have taken place across a variety of platforms, including local and national history museums; art galleries; digital archives; classrooms; historical markers; and public art projects. The case studies incorporate the perspectives of different stakeholders, including public historians, artists, and audiences. The book will provide both public history practitioners and academics with useful guidance on how art can be integrated into public history initiatives, through critical discussion of tools, strategies, and technologies that contribute to fruitful collaboration and audience engagement across a variety of platforms. Readers will walk away with new ideas, strategies, and practical considerations for interdisciplinary projects to attract audiences in new ways.

Interpreting the Legacy of Women’s Suffrage at Museums and Historic Sites is an invaluable guide for public historians and practitioners who wish to share an updated historic narrative that is inclusive of the full breadth of the movement, including the pervasive bias and racism. This book acknowledges the barriers faced by history practitioners, from the difficulty in finding materials that document the political actions by women of color, to our own reluctance to broach this disparity, and then offers practical solutions and techniques for bringing about a larger shift in organizational culture. To begin, this book includes a chronological primer on the US women’s suffrage movement and the events around the 50th, 75th, and finally the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment that took place in 2020. Additionally, four women’s history practitioners share case studies from their work at the National Woman’s Party, the Frances Willard House, and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. Each organization is moving forward to confront the racist tactics, or documented racism within their own history. The final case study written by Chick History showcases their multi-year project to digitize and make available family and local history related to African American women’s political history in Tennessee before 1930. The case studies can be used as models for best practices, cautionary examples of lessons learned, and can be replicated at sites of all sizes. Lastly, the book provides an expansive list of online resources as well as a discussion guide on the history of women’s voting rights. Interpreting the Legacy of Women’s Suffrage at Museums and Historic Sites will be helpful to both practitioners and community organizations as they engage in public discussions or convene focus groups around the sensitive topics of bias and racism within the larger women’s suffrage movement.

"Tin's Dictionary of Homophobia is so sweeping in its scope that one can dip into it again and again and learn something, or confront an idea in which even the most well-read queer will find fresh intellectual nourishment and historical illumination."—Gay City News Based on the work of seventy researchers in fifteen countries, The Dictionary of Homophobia is a mammoth, encyclopedic book that documents the history of homosexuality, and various cultural responses to it, in all regions of the world: a masterful, engaged, and wholly relevant study that traces the political and social emancipation of a culture. The book is the first English translation of Dictionnaire de L’Homophobie, published in France in 2003 to worldwide acclaim; its editor, Louis-Georges Tin, launched the first International Day Against Homophobia in 2005, now celebrated in more than fifty countries around the world. The Dictionary of Homophobia includes over 175 essays on various aspects of gay rights and homophobia as experienced in all regions in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the South Pacific, from the earliest epochs to present day. Subjects include religious and ideological forces such as the Bible, Communism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam; historical subjects, events, and personalities such as AIDS, Stonewall, J. Edgar Hoover, Matthew Shepard, Oscar Wilde, Pat Buchanan, Joseph McCarthy, Pope John Paul II, and Anita Bryant; and other topics such as coming out, adoption, deportation, ex-gays, lesbiphobia, and bi-phobia. In a world where gay marriage remains a hot-button political issue, and where adults and even teens are still being executed by authorities for the “crime” of homosexuality, The Dictionary of Homophobia is a both a revealing and necessary history lesson for us all.