Preserving LGBTQ Historical Highlights Grant Project

Three people in drag

In 2019, the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center received a grant from the California State Library to digitize physically at-risk materials from five different collections in the Hormel and San Francisco History Center archives. The selected materials contain personal photographs, news clippings, photographic negatives, typescripts, handwritten texts, and an audiocassette recording. Through digitization, San Francisco Public Library highlights these histories and provides wider public access to materials that exemplify how queer San Franciscans helped shape the city. 

Visit the project collection on SFPL's Digital Collections website at digitalsf.org. Below, you'll find brief descriptions and links to digitized items from each of the five archival collections represented.

Grace Miller thumb

Grace Miller Scrapbook

Local lesbian bar owner's compilation of newspaper clippings documenting the 1954 police raid on Tommy's Place and Miller's and co-owner Joyce van der Veer's subsequent arrest and trial.

Thank you to our funder, California State Library, and to our digitization vendor, Two Cat Digital, for their support and services.

Photo credit (top): Detail from SFP95-036, Harold (Bill) Giddings Bradley’s Corner Bar Photograph Collection, San Francisco History Center.

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