Preservation Maryland

UMD students at LGBTQ lecture, 2018.

Lecture Recap: Uncovering and Preserving LGBTQ History with Dr. Sue Ferentinos

12/03/2018
By Meagan Baco

This fall, Preservation Maryland announced LGBTQ history and heritage as a new initiative of our proactive Six-to-Fix program and kicked-off the statewide project with a lecture on November 29, 2018 by LGBTQ history and preservation expert Dr. Susan Ferentinos.

Dr. Susan Ferentinos spoke to an engaged crowd on Thursday, November 29, 2019 at Chase Brexton Health Care in Baltimore City. Dr. Ferentinos is an expert in LGBTQ historical research and author of “Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites.” Her presentation discussed alternative research methods needed to uncover the history of LGBTQ life that was historically illegal and oppressed.

Sue offered case studies of LGBTQ interpretation at historic sites, like Stonewall National Monument in New York, Jane Addam Hull-House in Chicago, and Phillip Johnson’s Glass House in Connecticut, as examples for future opportunities in Baltimore and Maryland to interpret LGBT history in the Old Line State.

Before her lecture, Dr. Ferentinos spent time with several University of Maryland students that are wrapping up a semester-long preservation studio course identifying historic places in Baltimore significant for their role in LGBTQ life. The UMD studio class was led by Dr. Jeremy C. Wells and will result in new documentation of The Hippo in Baltimore City and a toolkit that can be used by other amateur historians and citizens to continue the necessary work.

A special thank you to Chase Brexton Health Care and Sam McClure of the LGBT Health Resource Center for hosting us and sharing Chase Brexton’s history via their great 40th anniversary retrospective video. This lecture was supported in part by Preservation Maryland and the Maryland Historical Trust through the Heritage Fund grant program.

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