In a move that reflects both the region’s progress on LGBT acceptance and the mainstreaming of our histories in public museums, the Missouri History Museum has announced its first collection of LGBT artifacts, according to the online version of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Sometimes things are happening right before our very eyes,” said museum curator Sharon Smith, who is spearheading the project. The museum, she said, is tasked with tracking those events — regardless of their politics — and preserving them for generations to come.
Many of the items Smith has acquired for the museum come from one man. Steven Brawley, from Kirkwood, Mo., has for more than 60 years acquired gay memorabilia, items, papers and literature which reflect the changing nature of our status; from playground predators to people to avoid in public spaces from fear of catching a life-threatening disease to our integration into the mainstream through marriage, adoption and the codification of equality in the eyes of the law.
Some of the items Brawley will deliver include drag queen dresses, leather vests, handwritten protest signs, Pride Parade T-shirts, and books by talk-show host Andy Cohen. “I almost don’t want to say this,” said Colin Murphy, editor of the Vital Voice, St. Louis’ gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender magazine. “But it feels like another barrier has been crossed, to have the Missouri History Museum embrace our stories.”
But not everyone is as encouraged by the project. Some have argued that it’s a poor use of tax-payer funded money. “I don’t think it’s a good use of tax money at all,” said Rep. Chuck Gatschenberger, a Republican from Lake Saint Louis, who recently issued a news release criticizing tax benefits for gay couples. He said he’d like to know more before condoning such an initiative, an initiative that is being funded by both straight and gay taxpayer funds.
The move is also seen as part of a larger trend of mainstream museums and historical foundations recognizing that our histories are part of the broad collective known generally as the human experience. In Kansas City, for example, there is a gay history trolley tour; a talk on gay rodeos, “Pride in the Saddle,” is presented at the New Mexico History Museum and an exhibit on everyday life in the queer communities at the Chicago History Museum.
The Missouri History Museum is just in the first stages of development and does not expect to open the exhibit anytime soon but as Brawley pointed out, “What’s the alternative? Keeping things in someone’s basement?”
