Queer Legacies: Stories from Chicago's LGBTQ Archives

July 20, 2020
In this informative and plainspoken essay collection, historian D’Emilio (In a New Century) shines a light on the history of grassroots LGBTQ activism in Chicago. Drawing on interviews and documents held by the city’s Gerbert/Hart Library and Archives, D’Emilio contextualizes gay life in the Midwest since the 1960s, relating the stories of the self-proclaimed “first lesbian attorney out in the country” and the first openly LGBTQ candidate from Chicago to run for the state legislature. Other profiles include a “female impersonator” who mentored younger generations, a Chicago Tribune employee fired for his visibility as a queer activist, and a woman born in the early 1900s who found support in Chicago’s burgeoning lesbian community after her partner of 50 years died. Highlighted activist groups include Dignity (“for decades the primary organization giving voice to LGBTQ Catholics”), and the Gay Academic Union, which advocated for an LGBTQ presence in U.S. higher education. D’Emilio moves briskly from topic to topic, acknowledging his lack of expertise in certain areas, as well as the scarcity of archival material related to trans history. Taken as a whole, the collection makes a convincing case for the power of storytelling to build communities and movements, and the importance of archival records in preserving “a proud heritage of resistance.” This sparkling account has much to offer LGBTQ historians and activists.