This past week has been a personal challenge--a potential brush with severe weather, the loss of a powerful, feminist icon, and a paper due in my archives course. The flexibility of a remote internship was appreciated as I shifted my focus and my workload. It could be the tone of the rest of the week, but the reality of this project has felt heavy.
I was excited with the hopes of finding relevant collections at MDAH, especially after beginning last week with the ability to search subject authorities. The history I'm reading and the act of digging into Mississippi LGBT published histories for cited primary sources also pointed to collections that might be of value for LGBTQ research at the state archival repository. Switching between different database platforms drives home that someone without extensive search experience could have trouble navigating online resources. Despite finding some vertical files described with subject headings, a running theme has been very few collections described or tagged. Collections might even include searchable keywords in the finding aid with LGBTQ themes but no controlled access terms. I am trying to be thorough, but not having searchable terms or descriptive finding aids leaves me thinking there is not much there.
Invisible histories, indeed. Needing to know more about LGBTQ history in general and Mississippi specifically, I am searching for other potential sources of information that might clue me in to resources that aren't explicitly described. I found a brief but useful resource from Benjamin Egerman and Preservation Maryland on Looking for LGBTQ+ History on Your Campus or Other Small Archives (2019). As most of the archives I'm reviewing are connected to colleges and universities, the idea to look at student groups and in student publications was a great idea I had not considered. Digitized and archived student newspapers are the kind of resource likely to give a more open glimpse of student life on campus, including LGBTQ students.
Needing a win, I moved on to the University of Mississippi--Ole Miss. One of my favorite classes (social movements) was taught by a professor who had studied at Ole Miss. Nearly two decades later, I was thrilled to have found the first LGBTQ subject guide at a Mississippi repository. As I worked through each collection listed, I was disappointed that several of the identified collections came from reactionary political groups and subject files kept by non-LGBTQ individuals. In one case, a non-LGBTQ author's manuscript included the word queers and was included in the research guide. I minored in gender studies between 1999 and 2003 (the program was called Women's Studies at the time), and somehow I am still shocked and disappointed at how difficult it is to find a primary resource that isn't peripheral. That isn't someone else gazing at lives that are so hard to find. I remember researching media portrayals of gay and lesbian characters in the 1990s (I was a communications major) and feeling excited at the emergence of relatable stories. I am starting to understand why community archives are taking over the task of documenting this the LGBTQ community (among many others) and the proliferation of oral histories. Reading through the tips provided by Egerman (2019), I'm realizing that those who came before me have experienced difficulty and struggle that I could never fathom. The pain of not finding these voices in the archives I'm searching through is just as bad as the pain of knowing what this community has gone through to get to where we are today.
