About OutHistory

OutHistory.org was founded in October 2008 by Jonathan Ned Katz, author of the groundbreaking Gay American History (1976) and other books on the history of sexuality and gender.

When the Internet became part of the everyday life in the 21st century, Katz understood that the work of documenting, archiving, establishing LGBTQ+ chronologies, and presenting new discoveries begun in Gay American History should continue on a digital public history platform.

Katz's long history as an activist and community scholar also caused him to imagine the site as a place of active community participation in the process of discovering and writing LGBTQ histories.

Reflecting the importance of history from below to the civil rights and liberation movements of the 1960s, Katz welcomed the participation of amateur and professional historians; independent researchers working on their own and those based in colleges and universities. The result is the site you are exploring now, where all of us have a forum to learn, contribute, publish, and share our research with others.

You can see some of Katz's own original work for OutHistory.org here.

Click here for our current editorial board.

OutHistory.org has had important benefactors in its journey. An initial grant in 2005 from the Zebra Fund at the Funding Exchange allowed Katz to begin the work.

An initial two-year, $100,000 grant by the Arcus Foundation to design the first site using open-source MediaWiki software and to hire a part time site director was made possible through collaboration with the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at the City University of New York.

A second Arcus grant supported content creation through the “Since Stonewall Local Histories Contest,” an effort to encourage community history research. Many of those submissions are now featured content on this site.

In the fall of 2011, co-Director John D’Emilio, then Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Chicago, oversaw a redesign of the site using the Omeka archiving platform This new version of OutHistory launched in September 2013. Thanks to the University of Illinois, for funding research assistantships dedicated to the site. Since 2019 D'Emilio has been focusing his energy on finishing a book of historical essays.

In 2013, Claire Bond Potter, Professor of History at The New School, joined Katz and D'Emilio as a Codirector. Since June 2019, Potter has been focusing on her energy on Public Seminar.

In May 2016, OutHistory.org celebrated the 40th anniversary of Gay American History with a conference co-chaired by Potter and Daniel Marshall, Senior Lecturer in Writing and Literature, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, and managed by Kevin Ewing. The conference, co-sponsored by Arcus, CLAGS, and The New School, brought together hundreds of LGBTQ historians and activists from around the United States to celebrate the state of our field and learn from each other.

In 2017 OutHistory.org added two Codirecors, Randall Sell and Kimon Keramidas.

Randall Sell, Associate Professor at the Drexel University School of Public Health, has contributed important original research to OutHistory, most notably on Allen Bernstein and Earl Lind.

Kimon Keramidas is Clinical Associate Professor, XE: Experimental Humanities & Social Engagement, Affiliated Faculty, Program in International Relations at NYU. Kimon taught a course with Jonathan Ned Katz and Elizabeth Heard titled Queering the Web, using OutHistory.org as a model for thinking about representations of queer people online in the digital age.

OutHistory.org receives non-profit status as a project of the Fund for the City of New York. We are funded by grants and through donations from users like you. All donations go directly to content creation, editorial work, and design.

Donate form on Home Page of OutHistory: http://outhistory.org/