
The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) congratulates United Lynn Pride for winning the Albert B. Corey Award for their work.
The Albert B. Corey Award is part of the AASLH Leadership in History Awards, the most prestigious recognition for achievement in the preservation of state and local history. Named in honor of a founder and former president of AASLH, the Albert B. Corey Award is limited to one winner per year. It recognizes a primarily volunteer-operated organization that best displays the qualities of vigor, scholarship, and imagination in their work. This special honor includes a $500 award for the organization.
The United Lynn Pride project, “Through a Rainbow Lens: A Reflection on Lynn’s LGBTQ+ History” (TRL), aimed to document, share, and preserve Lynn’s LGBTQ+ history. Supported by a Mass Humanities grant, the project team conducted 32 video-recorded oral histories with key members of Lynn’s LGBTQ+ community over the last 50 years, documenting joys, successes, challenges, and hardships experienced by Lynn’s gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer community. These narrators represented a diverse cross-section of the community,including various generational, racial, national, religious, class, and gender backgrounds, encompassing both native and foreign-born Americans.
A new documentary film, “Finding Refuge, Demanding Equality: A Century of LGBTQ+ Lynn,” based on the project, will be shown on Friday, June 20 at 6:00 pm at EmVision Studios, 131 Essex Street, Lynn. Free tickets are available at https://www.unitedlynnpride.com/documentary.
Additionally, the project recovered two audio interviews and three transcripts from the 1980s, sourced from The History Project in Boston’s archive. Extensive research included analyzing articles from Gay Community News, InNews Weekly, Lynn Item, and the Boston Globe, dating back to the 19th century. Two hundred news clippings were collected and presented as a chronological and geographically organized timeline, which was also summarized in a graphic. Furthermore, 1,400 images, including photos, flyers, advertisements, and other documents, were gathered from 42 contributors and organized into 200 subject-based photo albums. Research on gay bars identified 19 different business names across 9 locations, while other significant locations were researched and compiled into a map. All collected videos, transcripts, indexes, images, and news clippings were archived at The History Project.
The TRL project shared its findings through various platforms, including a website, an exhibit at the Lynn Museum, a 360° Virtual Museum, pamphlets, and public talks and tours. The Lynn Museum exhibit and live events were viewed by 4,460 museum attendees, while online venues received 21,916 views by the project’s end in November 2024.
“It is a tremendous honor to be the only group in the country to be awarded with the most prestigious recognition for achievement in the preservation of state and local history. I thank theproject team, Cristian Recinos, Professor Drew Darien and retired Professor Pat Gozemba, for their amazing work and that work merits broader recognition.” said Jim Moser, Project Director.
“We are so proud to see our residents’ amazing work in creating Through a Rainbow Lens receive this well-deserved honor. The project is a powerful example of the tremendous value in looking back at ourselves as a community.” said Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson.
The Through a Rainbow Lens exhibit is currently on display at Lynn City Hall.
This year, AASLH confers 54 national awards honoring people, projects, exhibits, and publications. The winners represent the best in the field and provide leadership for the future of state and local history.
The AASLH awards program was initiated in 1945 to establish and encourage standards of excellence in the collection, preservation, and interpretation of state and local history throughout the United States. The AASLH Leadership in History Awards not only honor significant achievement in the field of state and local history, but also bring public recognition of the opportunities for small and large organizations, institutions, and programs to make contributions in this arena. For more information about the Leadership in History Awards, contact AASLH at 615-320-3203 or go to www.aaslh.org.
Photo
The Through a Rainbow Lens team stands in front of a sign from Fran’s Place, the oldest gay bar in Massachusetts. From Left to right, Project Director Jim Moser, LGBTQ+ history advisor Pat Gozemba, United Lynn Pride Executive Director Cristian Recinos and Salem State University professor Andrew Darien. Photo by Ferns Francois.
About United Lynn Pride
The mission of United Lynn Pride is to unite, engage, and empower the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) community in the city of Lynn, MA through community events, education, outreach, and other various forms of support. For more information visit www.unitedlynnpride.com.
About AASLH
The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH), a national nonprofit association, provides leadership and resources to help the history community thrive and make the past more meaningful for all people. AASLH serves the tens of thousands of history organizations, professionals, and volunteers around the country who help people of all ages develop critical thinking skills and understand how learning history helps society make progress toward justice. Through research, advocacy, and our field-leading professional development program, AASLH advances public history practice and connects history practitioners to critical issues in the field and to one another. For more information about AASLH visit http://www.aaslh.org/.
The above information was submitted to us by United Lynn Pride.
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