UMN houses largest LGBTQ+ archival collection in Upper Midwest

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Fri, 03 Mar 2023 20:06:16 +0000
News and Views, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection, LGBTQ+ UMN archives

The Tretter Collection contains more than 20 years of LGBTQ+ archival material, detailing queer life and history.

By Mary Ellen Ritter

If curator Aiden Bettine had to pick a favorite part of the University of Minnesota’s Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection, the largest compilation of LGBTQ+ archival material in the Upper Midwest, it would be material documenting the Gay/Lesbian Postal Employees’ Network.

Founded in the Twin Cities in 1992, the organization strongly advocated for domestic partner benefits and anti-discrimination policies – a movement that took national strides just a year later.

“This collection demonstrates the ways that Minnesota history impacted history throughout the country,” said Bettine, whose job is to manage the collection housed in the Elmer L. Andersen Library on the University’s West Bank campus.

The Tretter Collection documents the rich history of LGBTQ+ life and advocacy in the Upper Midwest and beyond. The robust and complex collection of books, periodicals, literature, records, artifacts and audiovisual materials occupies nearly 4,000 linear feet of material and has content in nearly 60 different languages.

“The Tretter Collection is for more than just researchers,” Bettine said. “It is an opportunity to sift through LGBTQ+ history.”

The collection is based on three pillars, Bettine said. The first is material history, which includes everything from t-shirts, buttons and enamel pins to posters, belt buckles and beer cans.

Periodicals and publications occupy the second pillar, documenting various LGBTQ+ publications.

The third pillar is archival collections of people who represent trans life through a series of daily experiences and extraordinary moments through various media.

The collection also includes textiles and the world’s largest Transgender Oral Histories Collection.

In 2000 Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, the collection’s founder and an LGBTQ+ activist, donated nearly 20 years’ worth of archival material to Andersen Library.

“Jean Nickolaus-Tretter left us an invaluable legacy,” said Lisa Vecoli, former collection curator who is now retired. “Without his dogged stubborn persistence, we would not have an archive today, and all voices here would have been lost and forgotten.”

Tretter is from Little Falls, Minnesota. He served in the Navy during the Vietnam War and attended the University from 1973-1976. He studied cultural anthropology but dropped out because he wasn’t allowed to focus his studies on the LGBTQ+ community.

Tretter also played a large role pioneering Twin Cities pride in the 1970s by organizing the first Twin Cities Stonewall Riots commemoration. In 1982, he was named the co-chair of the Minnesota Gay and Lesbian Olympic Committee and created St. Paul’s Landmark Center’s gay history exhibit one year later.

Anyone can access the archives. The collection has hosted middle schoolers working on History Day projects, undergrads, doctoral candidates and press.

Artifacts can’t be taken out of the library but may be viewed in the central archives and special collections room located in the Wallin Center on the ground floor of Andersen Library.

Visitors should prepare for their visit by requesting items they wish to view. All requests should be made at least a week in advance in an email to the Tretter Collection. Requests should list the artifact of interest and the date and time of viewing.

“It is an incredible resource for artists and performers to draw inspiration from and build work in response to queer history,” Bettine said. “For the University of Minnesota community, it is a great way for undergraduate and graduate students to do research and produce primary source-based assignments in a broad spectrum of disciplines. For the Twin Cities community, it is a resource to gather in and build a deeper understanding of local history.”