"Their Dreams, Their Rights, and Their Love" LGBTQ+ History Audio Tour

Join us on a ten-stop tour exploring Boston’s historic LGBTQ+ community and consider the ways they asked and answered the fundamental American questions - about freedom, voice, and how change is made - in their own time and ways.

This self-guided audio tour is also available on the free NPS app! You can download this tour ahead of your visit and listen along as you walk through Boston.

Total run time of all 10 audio clips: 39 minutes, 54 seconds.

 

 

Download this tour and discover many more using the free NPS App!

How to find "Their Dreams, Their Rights, and Their Love" on the NPS App

1. Download the free NPS App from your preferred app store
2. Tap "Find a Park" and search "Boston African American National Historic Site"
3. Select "Boston African American National Historic Site, Massachusetts," which will take you to the park homepage on the App
4. Tap "Self-Guided Audio Tours"
5. Select "Their Dreams, Their Rights, and Their Love" A LGBT History Tour

 

Learn More...

To learn more stories related to the LGBTQ+ History of Boston, and view the resources used in this tour explore below

Sources

Samuel Gridley and Julia Ward Howe - Romantic Friendships

"An Era of Romantic Friendships: Sumner, Longfellow, and Howe" Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site.

"Charles Sumner and Romantic Friendships" Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site.

Samuel Gridley Howe to Charles Sumner, April 20th, 1852, Howe Family Papers, 1819-1910 (MS Am 2119). Houghton Library, Harvard University. 

Charles Street Meeting House

Mark, Maci. "Charles Street Meetinghouse: Historic Safe Haven for Radical Thinkers," Boston African American National Historic Site.

“Meetinghouse Receives $52,371,” Gay Community News, December 21, 1974, Volume 2 Number 26

Gay Community News Volume 1 Issue 1 June 17, 1973.

“Noble Announcement,” Gay Community News, June 29, 1974, Volume 2, Number 1, GCN: June 29, 1974. volume 2, number 1

Beverly Smith, “Community Voices: Racism and the Rally,” Gay Community News, September 1 and 8, 1979, Volume 7, number 7, Gay community news: September 1 & 8, 1979. volume 7, number 7 

“React,” Gay Community News, July 26, 1973, Volume 1 Number 6

Gay Community News archive is available at Northeastern University
 

Sarah Orne Jewett and Annie Fields - Boston Marriages

"Boston Marriages" Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site.

Jane Mayo Roos, “Another Look at Henry James and the “White, Marmorean Flock,” Woman’s Art Journal, Spring Summer 1983, Vol 4, No 1, 30.

Josephine Donavan, “The Unpublished Love Poems of Sarah Orne Jewett,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Autumn, 1979, Vol. 4, No. 3, Lesbian History (Autumn, 1979), 27.
 

Prescott Townsend

Linger, Theo. "Prescott Townsend," Boston African American National Historic Site

Bullough, Vern L. Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002): 45.
 

Angelina Weld Grimke

Greendridge, Kerri. The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family. New York: W.W. Norton, 2023.
 

Sporters

Reid, John. The Best Little Boy In the World. New York: Ballantine Books, 1977.
 

Old West Church

Burns, Richard, Act Up Oral History Project, 2012 147 Richard Burns — ACT UP Oral History Project

”Man Sues Boston” Gay Community News, Vol 7, no 17, November 17, 1979. Gay community news: November 17, 1979. volume 7, number 17
 

City Hall/Faneuil Hall

“Into the Gay 90’s: Town Meeting 1989,” 1989, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Political Alliance of Massachusetts Records, Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections, M91, Box 5, Folder 25.

“A Wedding Toast,” Boston Globe, May 17, 2004

"Gay and Lesbian Town Meeting" Boston National Historical Park.

Other Sources

Springate, Megan E. Interpreting LGBT Historic Sites,” LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History. National Park Service, 2016.

The History Project, Improper Bostonians. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998.

"Boston and Stonewall at 50" The History Project, 2019. 

Chauncey, George, Gay New York. New York: Basic Books, 1994.

 

LGBTQ+ History in Greater Boston

Learn more about LGBTQ+ History in the Greater Boston area at Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters as they explore the legacy of those who lived at 105 Brattle Street.

Explore the legacy of the Gay Liberation Movement in Boston through The History Project's online exhibit: Boston and Stonewall at 50