Finding Formerly Incarcerated Queer Women and Trans Men in the Archives: A Conversation with Hugh Ryan

How do we find stories that have been suppressed? Join NYPL curator Julie Golia with author Hugh Ryan for a conversation about Ryan's groundbreaking new book, The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of Forgotten Prison. Golia and Ryan will dicuss how he plumbed the Library's archives to reveal the untold stories of queer people who spent days, weeks, or years in one New York City prison. A Q&A with attendees will follow the talk.

Hugh Ryan is a writer and curator, and most recently, the author of The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison, which New York Magazine called one of the best books of 2022. His first book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, won a 2020 New York City Book Award, was a New York Times Editors' Choice in 2019, and was a finalist for the Randy Shilts and Lambda Literary Awards. He was honored with the 2020 Allan Berube Prize from the American Historical Association. Since 2019, he has worked with the NYC Dept. of Education to develop LGBTQ+ inclusive educational materials and trainings.

Julie Golia is the Associate Director of Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books and the Charles J. Liebman Curator of Manuscripts at the New York Public LIbrary. She is the author of Newspaper Confessions: A History of Advice Columns in a Pre-Internet Age. 

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The Center for Research in the Humanities welcomes everyone to join the conversation between curators, librarians, and researchers, as they discuss new scholarship and projects, research methods, and the Library's rich collections and resources. Each of these conversations takes place in the Lenox and Astor Room, Room 216.

Assistive Listening and ASL
ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing accessibility@nypl.org.

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