Gateway to Pride: LBGTQIA+ Collecting Initiative at the Missouri Historical Society

FAIN: ZPA-283876-22

Missouri Historical Society (St. Louis, MO 63177-5460)
Ian Darnell (Project Director: May 2021 to January 2024)
Sharon Smith (Co Project Director: December 2021 to January 2024)

The retention of a curatorial assistant and the addition of three graduate student assistants to support a community archives initiative at the Missouri Historical Society through collecting, preserving, and developing exhibitions of archival materials on LGBTQIA+ history and culture. 

The Missouri Historical Society requests NEH ARP support to retain full- and part-time staff to ensure continuation of the Gateway to Pride Initiative, a region-wide LGBTQIA+ collecting initiative led by members of the St. Louis LGBTQIA+ community. NEH support will help maintain our full-time LGBTQIA+ Collections Curatorial Assistant and three paid, part-time graduate research assistants. These roles perform the essential work of Gateway to Pride: research, acquisitions, collecting oral histories, cataloging, processing, archives, and public awareness to continue this ongoing initiative to document and share our region's LGBTQIA+ history.