The Living Museum

Help us recover the story.

This museum is not finished, and on purpose. Whole chapters of South Coast LGBTQ+ history are still missing. If you lived it, remember it, or kept something from it, you are part of this museum.

Share what you know See what's missing

I  ·  The honest gaps

What we are still looking for

These are not failures. They are the silences that decades of erasure left behind, and the reason this wing exists. We refuse to fill them with invention. We would rather fill them with you.

Gap Fall River, before 2020 Fall River's LGBTQ+ history is nearly a blank in the record. The bars, the gatherings, the organizers, the people. If you know it, we need you.
Gap The years before 1980 We have found almost nothing documented before 1980. Anyone who remembers queer life on the South Coast in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s holds history no archive has.
Gap The lost bars and spaces Names, addresses, photographs, matchbooks, memories. Especially Fall River venues, women's and lesbian spaces, and the rooms that history forgot.
Gap The community press Newsletters, zines, flyers, mailing lists. The paper trail a movement leaves behind. We have not yet found a single South Coast LGBTQ+ publication. They must exist.
Gap Trans history Trans lives on the South Coast are badly underrepresented in the sources we can find. This history deserves its own place here, told by the people who lived it.
Gap LGBTQ+ people of color The record we inherited is far whiter than the community it claims to describe. We are working to change that, and we need your help to do it right.

II  ·  Ways to take part

Every memory is a primary source

Share a memory

Tell us about a person, a place, a night, a movement. Your story is preserved as your story, in your words.

Identify a photo

Help us put names to faces and dates to places. A single identification can unlock a whole exhibit.

Correct the record

If we got something wrong, tell us. Corrections make the museum stronger, and we credit them.

Donate or lend materials

Photographs, letters, flyers, objects, recordings. We can digitize and return originals, or hold them in trust.

Record an oral history

Sit with us for a recorded conversation, on your terms, with full consent over what is kept and shared.

Point us to someone

Know an elder, a keeper of stories, a family with a shoebox of photos? Introduce us, gently.

III  ·  How we hold what you share

Your story stays yours.

Consent first

Nothing you share is published without your clear permission. You decide what is public, what is private, and what is kept but not shown.

We do not out people

We will never name you, or anyone you mention, as LGBTQ+ without consent. You can contribute anonymously.

You can change your mind

You may ask us to amend, restrict, or withdraw what you have shared, at any time.

Handled with care

Hard memories are received gently and without pressure. You set the pace, and you can stop at any point.

IV  ·  Add to the record

Tell us what you know

Start anywhere. A sentence is enough. We will follow up before anything is ever used.

Optional. You may contribute anonymously.
Optional, but it lets us follow up with care.

We will never publish what you share without contacting you first. See our method and ethics.