Guides to Collections (Finding Aids)

The Central PA Womyn’s Chorus is an all-women’s chorus group that performs concerts throughout the Central Pennsylvania region. Founded in 1994, the chorus made its debut at the Pride Festival of Central PA in Harrisburg. The chorus continues to perform concerts throughout the area which raise awareness about feminist and LGBTQ+ issues.

This collection contains eight series: Concert Programs; Concert Flyers; General Publicity; Gala Choruses VIIE Festival International, Montreal, Canada 2004; Articles; Miscellaneous; Posters; and Artifacts.

Concert Programs features an assortment of programs from the chorus group’s concerts between 1998 and 2022. Concert Flyers includes a series of flyers promoting the chorus group’s concerts between 2014 and 2019. General Publicity includes inserts, a postcard, and a membership brochure to raise awareness about the chorus group. The Gala Choruses VIIE Festival International, Montreal, Canada 2004 includes a booklet and a program from the festival at which the group performed. Articles features news stories documenting the work of the chorus group in the community. Miscellaneous includes music lyrics, notes, and a music catalog used by members of the chorus group. Posters features an assortment of the chorus group’s promotional concert posters. Artifacts include a chorus group polo shirt and t-shirt.

This collection contains newspaper articles collected by a Central PA resident from The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Blade, and The Washington Post that focus on national LGBTQ+ history in the Washington D.C. area.

This collection was donated by an unidentified donor during a LGBT History Roadshow event in Harrisburg in October of 2019. It includes a t-shirt, a trophy, 4 buttons, and 1 wooden nickel.

Alberta Hamm was born April 1, 1941 and assigned male at birth. After high school, Hamm entered the seminary for a short time before ultimately enrolling in the Army. She was stationed at Fort Dix, NJ and served 13 months in Korea. After being discharged in 1961, Hamm entered sales, owning her own business for a time, and working for Montgomery Ward department store starting in 1979 selling appliances throughout stores in Pennsylvanian for the next 20 years. From a young age Hamm knew she was different. She started to transition in 1995 and after retiring in 1999, had transition surgery in 2001 at the age of 60. She also enrolled in Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC) in 2000, where she pursued a degree in social services. While at HACC, she served as president of the campus LGBTQ+ organization, student senator, and in 2002 became the first transgender individual in the nation to become student body president of a collegiate student government. She served in this position from Spring 2002 to Spring 2004. After Hamm graduated, she worked for the Center for Independent Living, and stayed active with local LGBT+ organizations like TransCentral PA and Common Roads. Hamm passed away in October 2019 at the age of 78.

The Non-Straight Motorist Green-Book was created by Pedro Zagitt for an exhibit at the Susquehanna Art Museum. After visiting the Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections to explore the LGBT History Project, Zagitt was inspired by the Gaia’s Guide 1976 by Sandy Horn, one of the first travel guides for non-heterosexual/non-cisgendered people in the pre-internet era. The form of the guide is based on the Motorist Green Book created by Harlem postman Victor Green in 1936, and the first travel guide for Black Americans during the time of segregation. This publication is one of two copies that Zagitt created.

This collection contains 4 t-shirts: two from local AIDSWalks held in Harrisburg, PA by local AIDS organizations, SCAAN and AIDS Community Alliance; one from the 1993 March on Washington held in Washington, D.C.; and one created for the Dan Miller Legal Defense Fund.

Born on May 4, 1923, in Brooklyn, NY, Walter J. Lear was a physician and activist for healthcare reform and LGBTQ+ rights. He received his B.S. from Harvard in 1943, his M.D. from Long Island College of Medicine in 1946, and his M.S. in Hospital Administration from Columbia University School of Public Health in 1948. Lear came out in January of 1976 in the first issues of the Philadelphia Gay News.

Lear held many public health positions in Pennsylvania including, but not limited to, Deputy City Health Commissioner for Philadelphia (1964), State Regional Health Commissioner (1971), and acting executive director of Philadelphia General Hospital. He also founded the Institute of Social Medicine and Community Health (circa 1975) and was one of the four founders of the Maternity Care Coalition in Philadelphia (1980).

As an activist, Lear’s dedication to healthcare and LGBTQ+ rights intersected. His activism included, but is not limited to: Chairperson to the Gay Public Health Workers Caucus of the American Public Health Association (1975-1978); Board of Directors member for the Gay Community Center of Philadelphia, now the William Way Center, (1975-1991); PA State Health Department delegate to the Governor’s Council for Sexual Minorities (1976-1979); co-founder of the Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia (1979); co-founder the Philadelphia AIDS Task Force (1982); and the first openly gay member of the Philadelphia Human Relations Commission (1984-1988).

Lear passed away in 2010.

The contents of this collection are organized into six series: Context of Collection, Correspondence, Photographs, Scholarship, Recognition Events, and Miscellaneous. For more materials related to Walter J. Lear, please see:

Walter J. Lear papers, 1975-1996, John J. Wilcox, Jr. LGBT Archives, William Way LGBT Community Center.

Walter Lear Collection, 1944 – 1963, Joan E. Lynaugh Archives and Special Collections, Barbara Bates Center for the Study of The History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania.

John Folby was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The eldest of five children, Folby was raised in a “very strict Roman Catholic, Irish-Italian family.” At age twenty-five, he relocated to Harrisburg with his partner. Shortly after moving to Harrisburg, Folby became heavily involved in the local gay community, beginning with his work on the Harrisburg Gay Switchboard. He also joined a group for gay Catholics, Dignity/Central PA, which better integrated him into the gay community with trips to New York City for the annual Gay Pride parade and introductions to the gay bar scene in Harrisburg.

With the influx of HIV/AIDS in the gay community, Folby began his twenty-five-year career with the Department of Welfare where he ran the Special Pharmaceutical Benefits Program (SPBP), Pennsylvania’s version of an AIDS Drug Assistance program for people living with HIV/AIDS. Folby, with the help of his supervisor, was able to parlay this civil servant position into one of advocacy. Due to lack of government funding, Folby was frequently forced to think creatively and economically to promote HIV/AIDS awareness and get the word out about HIV/AIDS medications, such as AZT. Folby became an advocate inside the system.

This collection contains the personal and governmental activism of John Folby. Items represent local, state, national, and international HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention.

TransCentral PA is a nonprofit 501c3 organization which serves the transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming community in central Pennsylvania. It was originally formed in 1989 as the Lower Susquehanna Valley chapter of the national trans organization, Renaissance Education Association. The group separated from the Renaissance in 2006. This collection contains administrative materials and monthly newsletters from 2007-2021.

The Carlisle Anti-Discrimination Ordinance, also known as the Borough of Carlisle Human Relations Ordinance, was passed in December 2016. This ordinance established a Human Relations Commission and protection of LGBTQ+ community in the Borough, specifically when it comes to sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

The majority of materials in this collection were collected by Malinda Triller-Doran, Special Collections Librarian for Dickinson College Archives and Special Collections in Carlisle, PA. Items include drafts of the ordinance and resolutions, newspaper coverage of the debate, and community responses.

Johnson and Maser met in 1975 through a mutual friend. As a couple, they saw how AIDS was affecting their community and became active in local AIDS Awareness organizations, the Lancaster AIDS Project, and the Betty Finney House, which helped raise awareness and support people with AIDS.

This collection contains newspaper clippings, which document coverage of issues related to LGBT rights and activism in the LNP (Lancaster, PA) newspaper in summer 2015; a program for the art exhibit “Men and Other Abstractions” created by Johnson; posters that address civil rights and the ban on military service for gays and lesbians; buttons that feature various advocacy efforts; and matchbooks from hotels, bars, clubs, and restaurants in Pennsylvania and cities across the United States.

Lindsay Snowden was born in Pittsburgh on March 15, 1976. Lindsay joined the military at 17 and was an army nurse for nine years. After the military Lindsay stayed in nursing, while also becoming an entrepreneur. Lindsay worked on many projects in the Central PA area, which included: forming the first all-black drag king troupe in Central PA, House of Gaines; co-founding and editing STUDS Magazine; and running the Central PA Vipers, a women’s semi-professional full contact football team.

This collection contains materials related to STUDS Magazine and the Central PA Viper’s all-female football team. There is also a flyer advertising Voyce Mail, a spoken word CD created by Shaashawn Dial and produced by Lindsay Snowden, and two collections of poetry books written by Shaashawn Dial.