The Rainbow in Rose City: Documenting, Engaging, and Celebrating the Richmond, Indiana LGBTQ Community

Abstract

The idea for this collaborative project, featuring a mix of student research and primary source gathering, grew from the Indiana University Primary Source Immersion Program that we both attended in the summer of 2018 in Bloomington, Indiana. This program connected faculty with special collection librarians and archivists in order to incorporate more primary source research into the classroom. Archivist Beth South was interested in adding more student research and diverse collections to the IU East Archives and Dr. Travis Rountree wanted his Eng-W270 argumentative writing course to address rhetorical constructions of LGBTQ identities in the Richmond, IN area and to have his students establish an LGBTQ archive collection. As Richmond or Wayne County didn’t have any type of LGBTQ collection available anywhere and the LGBTQ community has been mostly closeted, the course was adapted to have the students build and contribute to the first LGBTQ archive collection for Richmond and the surrounding areas.

See more about the collection at: http://iue.libguides.com/iuearchives/LGBTQ