Collections

The Mark Sappington Collection was a gift of Mark Sappington in June 2012. Contained in the collection are various documents related to the organization International Front Runners, notably the Kansas City, Chicago, and Minneapolis/St. Paul chapters. These documents provide details of the membership and events from the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The collection primarily consists of material generated by the Gay People’s Union and Gay Community Services. These include newsletters, promotional materials, and documents related to the structure of the GPU. In addition there are items from the 1976 Republican Convention and from the University of Kansas gay and lesbian student group. Included with the collection contents are handwritten annotations by the donor which contextualize the material.

The Melinda Ryder Collection is comprised of promotional material related to the career of the long-time Kansas City female impersonator. It features posters, cards, flyers, and other ephemera documenting her career throughout the 2000s. It also includes a large number of greeting cards from a wide-range of well-wishers, and the “thank you” cards give an indication of Winter’s and Nelson’s charitable activities. The collection also includes a small number of photographs, print and digital, and digital video of local drag performances, and awards presented to Ryder over the years.

Small collection reflecting a 2008 land development survey of the Longfellow/Dutch Hill neighborhood, site of Womontown in the early 1990s.

The Mid America Freedom Band Collection was donated by the Kansas City-based organization in January 2015 and 2018. Dating 2003 onward, the collection primarily consists of programs from MAFB concerts as well as promotional posters and flyers. Also included is select organizational information such as handbooks and by-laws from certain years, donation mailers, MAFB performances on DVD and CD formats, and miscellaneous ephemera and memorabilia such as two MAFB banners used at Pride events and three MAFB scrapbooks.

The Miriam Hennosy Collection was a gift of Miriam Hennosy in March 2012. The collection contains newsletters, internal documents, correspondence, and posters regarding the Human Rights Project in Kansas City, MO, from the years 1994-1997, when Hennosy was a board member. There are also various documents pertaining to other pro-civil rights groups, such as GLAAD, NGLTF, HRC, and the Four Freedoms Democratic Club, as well as a number of flyers, publications, articles, posters, and political lawn signs supporting similar causes.

10-year fundraising project (2003-2013) for the AIDS Service Foundation, focused on the creation and sale of decorative ceramic tiles.

The Naiad Press Collection was donated to the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America by co-founder Donna McBride in 2017. Initial conversations regarding the collection started in the spring of 2011 with co-founder Barbara Grier, but she succumbed to lung cancer later that year. McBride contacted the archive six years later and agreed to donate the entire output of the press. In processing those books, the material that makes up the archival component of the collection was uncovered, and it is described in this finding aid. The primary components of the collection are the sales and promotional materials, specifically sales flyers and book catalogs. In addition, the non-book output of Naiad Press is included in the collection, including audiobooks, VHS tapes, and the sole DVD produced by Naiad.

The Nancie Thomas collection consists of newspapers, mailers, fliers, invitations, tickets, promotional ephemera and memorabilia, business and membership cards, T-shirts, and photographs related to the Kansas City LGBTQ+ community. Emphasis is on items related to Kansas City gay and lesbian bars and their sponsored events in the late 1970s and 1980s.