Ohio University Pride Center Collection
Scope and Contents
The variety of documents within this collection represent the history of the Pride movement in Athens and at Ohio University and the Pride Center (originally until 2024 the LGBT Center) including historic materials from several related student, alumni, University employees, and community organizations.
Entire newspapers and newspaper clippings, informative and educational literature, administrative documents, and a wide and numerable assortment of colorful posters are major contents of the collection. But, more importantly, a researcher sorting through this materials carefully will discover the beginning and evolution of the Pride movement in Athens and at the University, and the many, many people who helped to change hearts and minds and thereby change local culture to one of more acceptance at first and then to celebration of the existence and the unique diversity within the culture that resulted in so many letters being added over the years to the original LGBT acronym.
Materials include administrative documents, posters, flyers, newspapers, magazines, pictures, cards, and other miscellaneous documents. The documents range in dates from approximately 1972 to 2013, with the vast majority of the collection originating from the 1990s on.
Dates
- Creation: 1972 - 2013
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open under the rules and regulations of the Ohio University Libraries.
Conditions Governing Use
Ohio University retains all property rights to the collection.
Ohio University retains all copyrights unless retained by the donor, other correspondents, or other artists.
Extent
7 cubic feet (in 16 letter size Hollinger boxes and 1 flat Hollinger box)
Language of Materials
English
Arrangement
Materials mostly lacked cohesive organization except that they were arranged by year, and, some of them, by academic quarter or semester within the years. Other files by topics were loosely organized apparently without attention to chronological order. Any new order that was imposed upon the collection by the archivist was inspired by the necessity to make researching the collection more manageable for users. Some sections are in chronological order and some alphabetical.
Description Note
Original, legacy collection inventories may contain inaccuracies or be incomplete. Collection descriptions may change or be updated as they are verified. Please contact Mahn Center staff if you note any errors or discrepancies.
Processing Information
The material gathered from the Ohio University Pride Center in spring 2023 originally began as 12-cubic feet collection as it was transferred from the Pride Center to the Mahn Center. The initial work on the collection consisted of weeding materials that were deemed by the University Archivist as not being historically significant such as several folders full of purchase orders and invoices and receipts, documents and published materials that were not created by the Pride Center and apparently irrelevant to Pride Center mission and purpose, and many dozens of duplicate or blank forms. The materials remaining after this initial purge measured out to about seven cubic feet in volume.
Metal fasteners have been removed, new acid-neutral folders with new labels have taken the place of older more worn manila folders with less legible writing. The new folders with all of their contents were then placed in new Hollinger boxes, the resulting total being 16 letter size Hollinger boxes and one larger flat Hollinger box, the latter of which is filled with materials that directly survived a water pipe break in the Pride Center before being transferred to the archives and saved as best they could be by the University Archivist with minimal resulting damage being apparent except for the wrinkled texture of the posters and other documents and some colors which bled through the materials.
- Author
- Chloe Haught
- Date
- 2024 Spring
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections Repository
