STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI RESEARCH CENTER-ST. LOUIS
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ST. LOUIS
Related collection:
s0445 GAY NEWS-TELEGRAPH, RECORDS, 1981-1986
Jim Thomas, editor of the Gay News Telegraph (renamed the Lesbian and Gay News Telegraph), donated the records of the Gay News Telegraph to the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri-St. Louis on June 23, 1986.
Jim Thomas majored in sociology and anthropology at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio where he served as chairperson of the Oberlin College Gay Union. After graduating in 1979, Thomas moved back to Alton and helped organize a civil rights march on Washington. Thomas came to St. Louis in 1980 and helped organize St. Louis' first Gay Pride Week. This experience led to the formation of the Gay News Telegraph. After witnessing a lack of communication among gay and lesbian organizations, Thomas founded Piasa Publishing to start a newspaper to report accurately the news, event, issues and services affecting the gay community.
GNT published its first eight page issue on October 6, 1981. Three months later it expanded to twenty pages and began coverage of national and global legislation affecting gays and lesbians. A core staff of three volunteers did production work on the newspaper from their apartments. In 1982, the GNT moved into an office on Gore Avenue in Maplewood. It moved again the following September to a new office at 10 South Euclid. GNT distributed six thousand copies of the first issue in bars, bookstore, small shops, and restaurants in the Central West End.
Another gay newspaper, No Bad News, had been published in St. Louis for a year and supported by advertising from gay-owned businesses. To help the gay community support both papers, Thomas expanded GNT's advertising base to other small businesses with gay customers.
GNT expanded its distribution into Kansas City, Missouri and Indianapolis, Indiana in 1983 and to Memphis, Tennessee and Little Rock, Arkansas the following year. It stopped distribution in Indianapolis in 1985.
Gay News Telegraph joined the Gay Press Association in 1981, but a lack of computers prevented the newspaper from receiving the Washington-based news service's wire copy. thomas compiled stories from the national press and gay newspapers in other cities, but acknowledged a lack of press releases from area small town.s GNT, however, survived in these communities because, according to Thomas, "its coverage is vastly better than the local newspaper's."
Along with its news and features sections, GNT published a directory of gay and lesbian organizations and a calendar of events. Each month Piasa Publishing Company printed between ten and fifteen thousand copies of the not-for-profit GNT. It distribute half of the print-run in St. Louis, primarily to small businesses in the Central west End and the Delmar Loop area.
SCOPE AND CONTENT
This addenda continues the second series of the original collection, sl 445. It consists of the copies of the Lesbian and Gay News Telegraph from 1987 to the present day.
FOLDER LIST
BOX 1
1. January-December 1987
2. January-May 1988
3. June-December 1988
4. March-December 1989
BOX 2
5. January-February 1990
6. March-August 1990
MICROFILM ROLLS
Roll 1. August 1991-December 1992
Roll 2. January 1993-March 24, 1994
Roll 3. March 25, 1994-December 22, 1994
BOX 3
7. December,1994-March,1995
8. March-May,1995
9. May-August,1995
10. August-October,1995
11. October-December,1995
12. December,1995-March,1996
13. March-May,1996
14. May-August,1996
15. August-October,1996
16. October,1996-January,1997
17. January-April,1997
18. April-June,1997
19. June-November,1997
20. November,1997-February,1998
21. February-April,1998
22. April-August,1998
BOX 4
23. August-December,1998
24. January-May,1999
25. May-August,1999
26. August-November,1999
27. November 1999-January,2000
STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI RESEARCH CENTER-ST. LOUIS
222 THOMAS JEFFERSON LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ST. LOUIS
ONE UNIVERSITY BOULEVARD
ST. LOUIS, MO 63121
(314) 516-5143