Gay and lesbian archives donated to City of Vancouver
More than 7,500 photographs, 2,000 posters and 220 videos recording charity drag balls, Pride Festivals and HIV/AIDS activism are now available to the public through the City of Vancouver’s archives.
Ron Dutton, a longtime archivist, has donated the collection that he started acquiring in 1976. Called the B.C. Gay and Lesbian Archives, the collection includes 16.4 metres of subject files and 8.6 metres of periodicals.
“The B.C. Gay and Lesbian Archives was founded … to collect, organize, preserve and make publicly accessible the ongoing stories of Vancouver’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and two-spirited communities, from earliest historical times to the present,” Dutton said in a City of Vancouver news release.
“In these 42 years, hundreds of researchers have passed through my home as they examined this ever-growing collection.”
Dutton said he was donating the archive of more than 750,000 items because it had grown too big to keep in his home. He doesn’t plan to stop collecting old and new
In these 42 years, hundreds of researchers have passed through my home as they examined this … collection.
material and donating it to the city archives.
The public can explore the archive online by going to the City of Vancouver archives website. All 2,181 subject files are in the archives’ reading room. Periodicals will be available this fall.
City archivist Heather Gordon said the collection reflects the diversity within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and two-spirited communities. As well, the donation of text and visual materials record individuals and communities that have historically been under-represented in archival holdings, she said.