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Bibliography

The Bibliography provides a list of archival sources about Nashville queer history, and secondary sources for learning more about Tennessee’s LGBTQ+ history as well as general 20th-century queer history of the Southern United States. Contact nashvillequeerhistory@gmail.com if you do not have access to any of the hyperlinks.

Archival Sources about Nashville queer history

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Atlanta History Center

  • The Barb collection. Abstract: “The Kenan Research Center’s collection of The Barb contains over 600 pages of text and photographs within 40 issues published over four years. In 1974, Ray Green founded the free serial Atlanta Barb, the first LGBTQ newspaper published in Atlanta.”

Albert Gore Research Center

  • MT Lambda Papers. Abstract: this collection houses physical and digital records, ephemera, and textiles related to MTSU’s LGBT+ student organization.
  • Oral histories: Coming soon
  • OutCentral Collection. Abstract: this collection includes business records and ephemera from the defunct OutCentral Cultural Center, documents related to Gay Cable Network, a selection of LGBTQ nonfiction and fiction books, and periodicals, like Dare, Xenogeny News, Out&About Nashville, and a few others.

Nashville Public Library, Special Collections

  • Brooks Fund History Project. Abstract: “Oral history interviews with approximately 25 individuals from Middle Tennessee who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, conducted between 2009 and 2014 by members of the Brooks Fund History Project steering committee.”
  • Larry Romans Papers. Abstract: “The Larry Romans Papers reveal a wealth of information about the 1990s in relation to LGBTQ culture, activism, acceptance, and politics, on a national scale and, especially, in Nashville, Tenn.”

Vanderbilt University, Special Collections

University of Louisville

Archival Resources on Queer History in East and West Tennessee

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East Tennessee

West Tennessee

Secondary Sources about Southern queer history

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Books

  • Buring, Daneel. Lesbian and Gay Memphis: Building Communities Behind the Magnolia Curtain. Garland Pub.: New York, 1997.
  • Capó, Julio. Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami Before 1940. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2017.
  • Coe, Alexis. Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis. Zest Books: Minneapolis, 2014.
  • Harker, Jaime.The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon. University of North Carolina Press, 2018.
  • Howard, John. Carryin’ on in the Lesbian and Gay South. New York University Press, 1997.
  • –. Men like That : A Southern Queer History. University of Chicago Press, 2001.
  • Hubbs, Nadine. Rednecks, Queers, and Country Music. University of California Press, 2014.
  • Johnson, E. Patrick. Sweet Tea. Black Gay Men of the South. University of North Carolina Press, 2012.
  • –. Black. Queer. Southern. Women. An Oral History. University of North Carolina Press, 2018.
  • Mims, La Shonda. Drastic Dykes and Accidental Activists: Queer Women in the Urban South. University of North Carolina Press, 2023.
  • Padgett, Martin. A Night at the Sweet Gum Head: Drag, Drugs, Disco, and Atlanta’s Gay Revolution. W.W. Norton & Company, 2021.
  • Rosenthal, Gregory Samantha. Living Queer History: Remembrance and Belonging in a Southern City. University of North Carolina Press, 2021.
  • Sears, James T. Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones: Queering Space in the Stonewall South. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001.
  • –. Lonely Hunters: An Oral History Of Lesbian And Gay Southern Life, 1948-1968. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
  • Thompson, Brock. The Un-Natural State. Arkansas and the Queer South. University of Arkansas Press, 2010.

Dissertations & Theses

  • Chenault, Wesley. “An unspoken past: Atlanta lesbian and gay history, 1940–1970.” PhD diss. The University of New Mexico. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2008. Click to read.
  • Cole, Ashley D. “‘I wanted to be just what I was’: Documenting queer voices in the South.” MA thesis. Middle Tennessee State University. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2016. Click to read.
  • Magdalena, Amanda Beth. “More than Rubies: The Role of Evangelical Religion in Lesbian Identity and Community Formation in Memphis, 1960–2000.” State University of New York at Buffalo ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2021.
  • Manuel, Daniel C., II. “‘We Are Able to Find Pride and Dignity in Being Gay”‘: Culture, Resistance, and the Development of a Visible Gay Community in Lafayette, Louisiana, 1968-1989.” MA thesis. University of Louisiana at Lafayette. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2014. Click to read.
  • Odom, Quinlan Day. “A Queer Past: The Emergence of LGBT+ Student Organizations in Middle Tennessee.” MA thesis. Middle Tennessee State University. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2020. Click to read.
  • Schultz, Hooper. “The Southern Front: Gay Liberation Activists in the U.S. South and Public History Through Audiovisual Exhibition.” MA thesis. The University of Mississippi. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2020. Click to read.
  • Staffelli, Philip. “The Queer Eye for Nashville: How LGBTQ People Form Community, and Make Spaces, and Places…Like Everyone Else.” MA thesis. Middle Tennessee State University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2021. Click to read.
  • Wright, Christina Anne. “‘How could love be wrong?’: Gay activism and AIDS in Charlotte, 1970-1992.” MA thesis. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2017. Click to read.

Research Papers

  • Broadwell, John. “Queer Nashville: Institutions, Media, and Religious Organizations 1970-1999.” History 6020: Historical Research Methods. Middle Tennessee State University, 2020. Permission was granted by the author to publish this paper. Click to read.

Memoirs and Biographies

  • Addams, Calpernia. Mark 947: A Life Shaped by God, Gender and Force of Will. Writers Club Press, 2003.
  • Brevard, Aleshia. The Woman I Was Not Born to Be: A Transsexual Journey. Temple University Press, 2001.
    • –. The Woman I Was Born to Be. Aleshia Brevard, 2015.
  • Rice, Marie S. Michelle Danielle is Dead. Nashville, TN: Jonathan, 1985.
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