About
Acknowledgments & Site History
This site has its roots in a 2018 website created as an assignment for students in the Queer Activism course of the University of Windsor’s Women’s and Gender Studies program. The exercise, designed by the course's first professor, Dr Renée Bondy and Leddy librarian, Scott Cowan, worked to position students as researchers, historians, archivists, and curators of local Queer history.
In 2021, the Windsor-Essex Rainbow Alliance (WERA), spearheaded by the enthusiasm and energy of community member Walter Cassidy and supported by the Rotary Club of Windsor 1918, was looking for ways to both preserve and share more widely the historical experiences and tangible evidence of local 2SLGBTQ+ community life. It reached out to the University of Windsor’s Leddy Library, and quickly saw the potential of a developing a Queer Life site, as part of Leddy Library's Archives & Special Collections mandate to preserve the history of Southwestern Ontario. The result was a WERA-University of Windsor partnership with twin goals: (1) to build the Queer Life site as a digital home for local queer history, and (2) to create a physical home for WERA’s collection of documents and images, in the form of an archival collection open to the public through the Leddy archives.
The University of Windsor’s Office of the President generously provided a grant that enabled Leddy archivist Dr Sarah Glassford and Leddy librarian Scott Cowan to hire University of Windsor Bachelor of Education student Sarah Thompson as a research assistant in 2021-2023. Thompson created a preliminary inventory of the WERA collection and began a thorough overhaul of the Queer Life website. In 2024 Leddy Librarians Dr Heidi Jacobs and Peter Zimmerman worked with Glassford to revisit the site framework and content, ultimately re-envisioning it as a portal rather than a static exhibit. Essays from Dr Bondy, Dr Nicholas Hrynyk (another Queer Activism course instructor), and Walter Cassidy have been added to offer some context and further information for this site. The masthead image was designed by Kristina Simic and PR material by Lydia Joy Palmer.
In the Fall 2024 semester, Mohawk College Library Tech intern Nia Lamelo gained archival experience helping Dr Glassford prepare WERA’s physical archival donation for public use. In the Winter 2025 semester Lamelo was joined by University of Windsor Outstanding Scholar Anmol Nagra in the task of drawing on the physical and digital collections to populate and curate Queer Life in Windsor-Essex portal in its final form.
Although the Queer Life site now curates its content very differently from the original 2018 student assignment version, it honours those roots and continues to be shaped in profound ways by the efforts and insights of those who self-identify as Queer, and a desire to draw upon Queer community knowledge and activism. The resulting portal offers a multi-vocal narrative highlighting people, places, and experiences that have often been left out of mainstream histories of Windsor/Essex, as well as histories of queerness in Canada.
As indicated by the subtitle of this project, this history is a “living” one – these stories will continue to be revised as they incorporate new discoveries and interpretations, and as new resources, new voices and experiences, and shifting terminologies emerge. The archival collection of documents and images at Leddy Library’s Archives & Special Collections that underpins this project will also continue to grow as new donations are received.
If you have stories, images, or items you would like to contribute to the local Queer History archival collection at Leddy Library’s Archives & Special Collections, please reach out to us at: archive@uwindsor.ca or 519-253-3000 ext. 3851.
Click here to download the poster for the Queer Life in Windsor-Essex project.
