Mapping the Gay Guides: Understanding Historical LGBTQ Spaces through Gay Travel Guides

FAIN: PW-277481-21

California State University, Fullerton (Fullerton, CA 92831-3599)
Eric Gonzaba (Project Director: July 2020 to present)

Creation of a dataset from Bob Damron’s Address Books, a prominent travel directory used by LGBTQ Americans in the late twentieth century. From this dataset, the project would create interactive maps and visualizations.

Mapping the Gay Guides will explore LGBTQ spaces across the United States from 1965-2000 utilizing historical gay travel guides. The project will digitize twenty years of historical guides (1981-2000), transcribe the guides into data, and produce visualizations and pedological materials for use by public historians and educators to promote the study of local LGBTQ history. The site utilizes the Damron Address Books, a longstanding gay travel guide in publication since the early 1960s. Visitors to Mapping the Gay Guides will be able to explore tens of thousands of historical guidebook entries from all 50 states, D.C., and territories from 1965 until 2000. While recent historical attention is mostly centered on queer histories of large American urban centers like New York or San Francisco, Mapping the Gay Guides aims to understand the dynamics of LGBTQ culture through lost, ignored, hidden, or misunderstood spaces across the entire United States.