Events

It seems there’s more in your hairdresser’s closet than Nordstrom sweaters and fabulous shoes. In recent years, the St. Louis LGBT community has been busy rummaging through its closets, attics, and steamer trunks, salvaging bits and pieces of its lost queer history. Before long, a collection of artifacts and images was surfacing that began to tell the story of gay and lesbian activists, leather men, porn stars, and drag queens, many of whom lived secretly in the shadows.

In 2007, Steven L. Brawley saw a need to assemble this random hoard of oddities and memorabilia so he founded the St. Louis LGBT History Project. “I started the Project because I was sad to see our community elders dying off - their stories untold and personal artifacts thrown away. I knew as an LGBT community we had to do something to preserve our very own special queer history - a history that was largely unknown."

Today, under Brawley’s stewardship, the Project has grown into a comprehensive collection of historical treasures which provides a window into 50 years of St. Louis LGBT history. So significant is the Project’s stockpile, that the Missouri History Museum has agreed to take over conservatorship of select items from the collection in Spring of 2014. Before the items go into archival storage, however, PHD Gallery hosts: A History of Queer: Selections from the St. Louis LGBT History Project, curated by Steven L. Brawley.