AtlanticHistoryAndArchivesNetwork

Atlantic History And Archives Network

Purposes

AHAN is a voluntary organization of LGBTQ members and friends interested in preserving our history by routing important documents to permanent locations where they'll be kept in safe conditions and made available to future researchers and community members.

Documents

Important documents may include the minutes and financial records of LGBTQ organizations; personal papers of community leaders; unpublished letters, diaries, manuscripts, etc; photographs of LGBTQ persons and events; and various ephemera such as posters for fundraisers, dances, AIDS-related events, and so on

GAE/GALA Fonds

When GAE/GALA was folding, one of its final acts was to vote that AHAN should receive the records of the organization and of the Rumours club, and should decide on an archival repository where they would be placed. GALA hired a small truck, and an eager (but dusty) crew of volunteers pulled out dozens of boxes from under the upstairs pool table area. The manager's and GALA offices were emptied of more boxes, some battered filing cabinets, and the beloved Turret sign. All these materials were transported to a secret semi-underground location (basement volunteered by an AHAN member)where, over the course of a few years, more volunteers completed a rough sort and removed some extraneous materials contributed by the local mice.

A committee was struck to recommend where the materials should go, and to negotiate with the chosen repository. Accordingly, the materials entrusted to AHAN, with a few exceptions, were placed with Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management (now Nova Scotia Archives). The exceptions were some posters, signs, and banners that did not fit NSARM's collections policy. A finding aid to the GAE/GALA materials is now available.

We have audio of Lynn telling the story of the rescue of those documents on file, 15 minutes.

Here is a Personal Archives Donation Template to use if someone is gifting an archive.

1993

RobinMetcalfe writes: "[No one person] "created" AHAN. The initial impulse, from what I see in my records, was a talk by GaryKinsman on October 9, 1993; I believe this was in the context of an Atlantic Lesbian and Gay conference. Those of us who attended discussed forming a local archives group. MattHughes (from the Valley) kept meeting notes for the group, which he mailed out; I volunteered to act as secretary; FrancisYoung? (from Fredericton, where he still lives) provided a list of archival materials that he had in his possession. A contact list was drafted, which I sent out by mail on November 9, 1993."1

History

November 16, 2015

The organization now has ten members2

February 1, 2019

Members: RobinMetcalfe, LynnMurphy, TumaYoung, JimMacSwain, DanielMacKay, AnitaMartinez. DebTrask, PatDingle?, RobThomson?, and DiannGraham.3