Stepping Out: the Portland, Maine Queer History Trail
This 1.5 mile self-guided tour will take you through the downtown of Maine’s largest city along Congress and Pine Streets in Portland. Along the way, you will explore locations and events important to local LGBTQ+ history.
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About
Welcome! This 1.5 mile self-guided tour will take you through the downtown of Maine's largest city along Congress Street and Pine Street in Portland. Along the way, you will explore locations and events important to local queer history. The materials for this history trail are drawn from the LGBTQ+ Collection of the Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine. Located in Special Collections at the University of Southern Maine, the LGBTQ+ Collection is the largest, most extensive, collection focused on the history of Maine's queer community. You can visit the Collection online https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/lgbt/ or in person on the 6th floor of the Glickman Family Library at 314 Forest Avenue in Portland, Maine.
The queer history trail project was made possible by a grant from The Maine Humanities Council and funding from the University of Southern Maine. It was created by University of Southern Maine Sociology and Women & Gender Studies Professor Wendy Chapkis and USM Librarians Mary F. Holt (Digital Projects Manager) and Megan MacGregor (Instruction and Outreach), with the assistance of student researchers including Ty Bolduc, Emma Carpenter, Lael Daigle, Oliver Eaton, Tye Lynch, Gabriel Paulin, and Oliver Sigouin, as well as members of the 2016-2024 Qualitative Research Methods/Applied LGBTQ History course at USM.
Further support was provided by independent researcher Elizabeth Lowell and Portland Public Library Portland Room librarian and archivist Abraham Schechter, as well as Daniel Lawrence and Paige Barker. We are grateful for assistance from Susie R. Bock, Jill Piekut Roy, and Jo Ann Bianchi of the University of Southern Maine Libraries and the University of Maine VEMI Lab, especially Ersilda Cako, Paula Gallego, RJ Perry, and Ashley Forbes. For audio assistance, we are grateful to Jessica Lockhart (WMPG FM) and, for music assistance, Grant Beals.
Photos used in this project include work by photographers Annette Dragon, W. Jo Moser, Robert Diamante, and Steven Bridges. Much of the interview material included in these narratives comes from the Querying the Past: Maine LGBTQ Oral History Project https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/querying_ohproject/ and has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
We are still actively collecting our history. If you have additions or corrections to the history trail, please email them to steppingoutportland@gmail.com. If you have material you would like to donate to the LGBTQ+ Collection, please contact Susie R. Bock at the University of Southern Maine Special Collections usm.specialcollections@maine.edu.