ABSTRACT

During the past half-century, queer public history has transformed from a grassroots cultural form of movement activism to a widely accepted cultural and intellectual practice that blends queer collective memory with the professional practices of the larger field of public history. Beginning with cultural activism in the 1970s Gay Liberation Movement, activists developed methods for queer public history. By the 1990s, these practices became institutionalized in LGBT organizations, and by the 2000s, mainstream historical institutions began to engage LGBT history.