Hidden Histories: Discovering Los Angeles' LGBTQ+ Collections

Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection

The Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection contains images from the 1850s to the present, documenting all aspects of life in Southern California, with an emphasis on Los Angeles.

LGBTQ+ topics and themes represented in the collections held by the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection include Arts and Gay men.

Featured Materials

Annual Drag Party photo album, 1949-1955
This collection is currently being processed, please contact the archive for more information.
Hankey (Roy) photographs, 1974*
20 color photographs of a Pride parade in 1974.
Herald Examiner photo collection, circa 1920-1989*
Around 27,000 scanned photographs from the Los Angeles Evening Herald (1920s-1962) and Herald Examiner (1962-1989) provide dynamic coverage of the entertainment industry, politics, sports, and public issues.
Jacinto (Louis) collection, 1976-2008
This collection contains approximately 3,000 photographic negatives and contact sheets of 35mm film shot by Jacinto in Los Angeles, primarily of the Los Angeles punk music scene, LGBTQ+ events ranging from political rallies to Pride celebrations, and Los Angeles city events.
Turnabout Theater / Yale Puppeteers collection, 1910s-1990s
This collection consists of several thousand photographs and negatives, hundreds of items of ephemera, many journals and items of correspondence, and several puppets and stage props owned by the Yale Puppeteers. The trio that made up the troupe—Harry Burnett, Forman Brown, and Richard “Roddy” Brandon—were all gay. While they were not open about this during the height of their popularity, two of them did come out in the 1990s (the third had already passed). View the finding aid here.

*online materials available

Contact the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection

For more information about the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection's LGTBQ+ collections and holdings, including citation and copyright information, please contact the archives.

✉ Email: photos@lapl.org
☎ Call: 213-228-7274

The Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection is an L.A. as Subject member. For more information about L.A. as Subject, visit their website here.

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