Reed Erickson collection : Scrapbooks

User Collection Public

This collection includes nine scrapbooks compiled or commissioned and owned by Reed Erickson (1917-1992). Each scrapbook contains newspaper clippings collected between 1966 and 1983, which were used as a resource for the Erickson Educational Foundation (EEF) Newsletter.

Reed Erickson was a mechanical engineer, businessman, financier, philanthropist, and American transgender man, known for his involvement in and support of transgender, gay and lesbian, and “new age” research through the EEF.

Launched by Erickson in 1964, the EEF was a philanthropic organization based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Funded entirely by Erickson, the EEF served as an important resource for transgender individuals, their families and allies, and professionals who were engaged in service provision and research. The EEF offered counseling services, referrals to trusted service providers, publications (such as newsletters and brochures), and organized conferences for professionals, including the first three International Symposiums on Gender Identity.

To help develop content for the EEF Newsletter, Erickson hired clipping services to track and collect newspaper articles about transgender issues. These services subscribed to a numerous national and international newspapers and magazines Clients, such as Erickson, provided specific keywords of interest (e.g., “transsexual”). The clipping service would search for the requested keywords in the newspapers and magazines to which they subscribed, and when a keyword was found, the service would cut out the article and mail it to the client.

These scrapbooks include the accumulated articles collected by Reed Erickson’s clipping services. They now serve as a unique historical resource, providing insight into the kinds of articles the mainstream media published about transgender issues in the mid-to-late 20th century.

The nine scrapbooks are a part of the Reed Erickson fonds, donated to the University of Victoria Libraries in 2017; it is a subsequent accrual to a 2008 donation of 13.8 metres of textual records, ca. 623 photographs, 620 negatives, 38 slides, and 10 paintings. The Reed Erickson fonds is a foundational resource of UVic’s Transgender Archives.

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