Dr. Jim Downs

Excellent article by John Witt on the virtually unknown history of the Garland Fund that “sponsored research, education and news sources that would be outside the influence of the wealthy few. It supported Black civil rights…” nytimes.com/2025/10/06/opi… via @NYTOpinion

The Trump administration spent over $6 million on the eve of a government shutdown—triggered by concerns over excessive spending—to host a meeting that could have just as easily been held over Zoom.

Library Company of Philadelphia is hosting an excellent panel on Black photography during Reconstruction on October 21. Please register for this in person event! support.librarycompany.org/event/the-fo...

So much efficiency!

Opinion | Before Orlando, There Was New Orleans (Published 2016)

Trump Admin Removed Rainbow Crosswalk Honoring LGBT Victims Murdered at Pulse Nightclub.
I worried this would vanish from memory when I wrote this op-ed. Thanks to the NYT, for being an archive. We are witnessing an erasure of gay history www.nytimes.com/2016/06/13/o...

Thanks for posting this!

Fellow time travelers: creating queer heritage in the detritus of untold genealogies The invitation to provide an assessment of the growing, outstanding historiography on nineteenth-century queer sexuality is an honor. I immediately imagined writing an essay that would span from Je...

NEW ARTICLE: @jimdowns.bsky.social explores the fascinating history of queer history in a recent article for ANCH: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Thank you!!!!

Congrats

Thrilled to publish this article on queer heritage in the 19th Century and beyond

Making the Medieval Archive: Celebrating Elizabeth A. R. Brown at Penn This day-long symposium will commemorate Elizabeth (Peggy) A. R. Brown’s extraordinary legacy in the field of Medieval Studies and will mark the official launch of the Elizabeth A. R. Brown Medieval H...

Making the Medieval Archive: Celebrating Elizabeth A. R. Brown at Penn In-person & online conference Sept. 12 2025 Penn Libraries www.library.upenn.edu/events/makin...

Donald Trump, if you will not stand down, California will be forced to lead an effort to redraw our maps to offset the rigging of maps in red states.

If the other states call off their redistricting efforts, we will do the same. And American democracy will be better for it.

Excellent—me too, let me know what they say

Thanks for teaching my book on Jan 6 in your course @ugapress.bsky.social

‘The Gilded Age’ Enriches Its Portrait of Black High Society

An absorbing article by Salamishah Tillet, which features Erica Armstrong Dunbar's brilliant work as a historical consultant who is also my colleague at HISTORY STUIDO.Erica has the inimitable talent to translate a corpus of scholarrship into legible storyline. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/a...

The Death of an Adjunct Thea Hunter was a promising, brilliant scholar. And then she got trapped in academia’s permanent underclass.

Thea was born on July 4. I think about her almost every day. I still deeply miss our friendship, her beautiful mind, and her uproarious laughter. www.theatlantic.com/education/ar...

Out of the Bathhouse and Into the Bookstore How the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop created a new space for gay New Yorkers.

newrepublic.com/article/1324...

Uncovering a Queer Renaissance, Fifty Years Later | Los Angeles Review of Books Jim Downs commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots with a recovery of LGBT figures of the past.

lareviewofbooks.org/blog/essays/...

Before Stonewall, There Was a Bookstore Networks of activists transformed Stonewall from an isolated event into a turning point in the struggle for gay power.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Writing Gay History Though sometimes forgotten, the history of gay liberation was written with the history of African Americans in mind.

www.neh.gov/article/writ...

The Gay Marriages of a Nineteenth-Century Prison Ship What seemed to enrage a former inmate most was the mutual consent of the men he lived with.

www.newyorker.com/culture/cult...

Rediscovering Eve Adams, the Radical Lesbian Activist How Jonathan Ned Katz retraced the story of the woman who wrote what might be the first ethnography of American lesbian life.

For PRIDE, here are some articles that I wrote over the years on queer history. www.newyorker.com/culture/cult...

Homeland Security & @DHSgov Coming soon! An AI generated image of alligators wearing ICE hats

“For 30 or 40 miles…I staggered on, fearing every instant I should be …crushed within the jaws of some disturbed alligator. The dread of them now almost equalled the fear of the pursuing hounds.” -Solomon Northrup, Twelve Years a Slave

SCOTUS ruled parents can remove their children from class when gay is mentioned. Yesterday, Andrew Sullivan wrote a historically inaccurate NYT OpEd about gay radicalism that justified his transphobia. Unsure if it’s worth responding, esp to Sullivan, who misrepresents the past.

SCOTUS just declared that parents can pull their kids out of an elementary class when gay history is mentioned. This undermines teachers’ authority & shows how LGBT history continues to be silenced & erased from curriculum. This is why those in higher ed must insist on teaching queer studies.

Thanks for sharing this!

Writing Gay History How the story itself came out.

Activist Jonathan Ned Katz shared his archival discoveries about the parallels between Black and gay history in the form of a play, "Coming Out!," that premiered #OTD in a West Village firehouse in 1972. @jimdowns.bsky.social traced the history of LGBT history @nehgov.bsky.social:
loom.ly/6bfUqq8

This happened because of you. You protested at TeslaTakedowns and made his name and his company’s product reviled. You protested outside federal agencies slated for DOGE cuts. You barred doors, protected data. You sued and won. You WORE HIM OUT.

Don’t let them spin it any other way.

Thanks