Larry Romans papers, 1920-2016 (bulk 1991-1996)
(Document/manuscript/pamphlet/archival material)

Organization: Three series: I. Lesbian and Gay Coalition for Justice; II. Personal; III. Clippings and Periodicals;,Arrangement: generally chronological

Materials housed in Special Collections Division of the Main Library, Nashville Public Library.

In library use only. Available by appointment.

Abstract: The Larry Romans Papers reveal a wealth of information about the 1990s in relation to LGBTQ culture, activism, acceptance, and politics, on a national scale and, especially, in Nashville, Tenn. They allude to the hardships faced in political organization and mobilization, and they starkly illustrate how different that process has become in the early 21st century.

Scope and content: Administrative records of the Nashville, Tenn. organization, the Lesbian and Gay Coalition for Justice and periodicals, news clippings, personal papers and ephemera documenting the activities and interests of Larry Romans of Nashville, Tennessee. While the collection's materials span from as early as 1920 to as late as 2016, the vast majority of materials are from 1991 to 1996. Almost half of the material is national in its geographic scope while the rest is specific to Nashville and Tennessee. Given Romans' long career as a librarian, one would expect a number of materials related to his work with the American Library Association and at Vanderbilt University. Those are not present in this collection. While there are some materials that could be related to Romans' library work, there is no explicit indication that that was in fact their purpose in the collection.

Series I. Lesbian and Gay Coalition for Justice (1993-1995) - contains administrative records and correspondence pertaining to the Lesbian and Gay Coalition for Justice of Nashville, Tenn., including drafts of founding documents of the organization. The records include plans for advertising campaigns and special events in support of issues such as National Coming Out Day, AIDS awareness and housing and employment discrimination as well as documenting the groups' efforts to lobby local and state officials on issues of interest to the LGBTQ community. Also included is correspondence among board members revealing inner conflicts of the organization. Based on this collection alone, it is unknown when the organization lost momentum or why the materials largely end in 1995.

Series II. Personal (1920-2016) - contains materials pertaining to Romans' trip to the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation, playbills and tickets to events both in Nashville and elsewhere, catalogs for LGBTQ merchandizers, and brochures and pamphlets from LGBTQ welcoming churches in Nashville. There are also advertising cards from the 1920s that appear to have been collected by Romans during his time in New Orleans.

Series III. Periodicals (1988-2011) - contains clippings and full publications, many of which are no longer in business. Included are some premiere issues of Query and Xenogeny from 1989 and 1994. The clippings are primarily from national publications and address topics such as gays in the military and AIDS awareness. The full publications are mainly LGBTQ periodicals, both local and national. Also among these materials are numerous book and media reviews, indexes and bibliographies of LGBTQ materials that may have been saved by Romans in relation to his work with the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table of the American Library Association. Included are six issues of Lambda Rising News, a publication of the Washington, D.C. LGBT bookstore, Lambda Rising.

Cite as:Larry Romans Papers, Special Collections Division, Nashville Public Library

This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). Nashville Public Library does not have intellectual property rights to these materials.

Vanderbilt University;,Gift;,2016.,Acc. 2017.002

Associated Materials: The Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University houses the Larry Romans Collection.

Lawrence Michael (Larry) Romans was born in Bangor, Maine, in 1947. He graduated from Forest Hill High School in West Palm Beach, Fla. in 1964 at age 16, having been offered the opportunity to skip his senior year. He then went to Stetson University in DeLand, Fla., and graduated at age 19 in 1967. Upon graduation, Romans received a fellowship in Political Science from Vanderbilt University and moved to Nashville, Tenn. Just three years later in 1970, Romans met and committed himself to his partner, Mike Morgan. Romans continued his studies at Tulane University in New Orleans and earned an M.A. in Political Science in 1978. He returned to Nashville and received an M.L.S. from Peabody College/Vanderbilt University in 1983. That same year, Romans secured a position as the Head of Government Information and Media Services and as a specialist in Political Science and Communication Studies at Vanderbilt's Jean and Alexander Heard Library, where he would continue to work until 2014.

Romans was active in the Tennessee Library Association (TLA) and the American Library Association (ALA) and in 1992, he began serving on the ALA's governing Council. Throughout his library career, he consistently served on executive boards and round tables, such as the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Round Table and the Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) of the American Library Association (ALA). He was a member of the ALA's Executive Board from 2007-2010 and he received many prestigious awards for his work., such as the 1995 ALA/GODORT/ProQuest Documents to the People Award, the 2008 ALA/GODORT James Bennett Childs Award and the 2011 and 2013 Tennessee Library Association Honor Award. Romans not only received awards, he also endowed them. Romans and his husband, Mike Morgan, helped endow the Stonewall Book Awards, and the Stonewall Book Awards Children's and Young Adult Literature Award was named for them. After his death, the ALA established the Larry Romans Mentorship Award to honor Romans' contributions to the profession.

Romans was also active in other areas. Mobilized by the political atmosphere of the 1990s and ever a strong advocate, Romans and his partner went to the 1993 March on Washington; soon after, he was instrumental in the creation of a Nashville LGBT advocacy organization called the Lesbian and Gay Coalition for Justice. Three years later in 1996, Romans became the President of the Greater Nashville Unitarian Universalist Congregation, a position he held until 1998. He would serve in the position again from 2010-2012. Romans continued his efforts in his profession and his advocacy, but in 2006, cancer forced him to undergo a liver transplant. Five years after the procedure in January, 2011, Romans learned that the cancer in his liver had spread. In March of that year, he married his lifelong partner, Mike Morgan, in Boston, Mass. At that time, they could not legally marry in Tennessee. Romans passed away on January 28, 2016 in Nashville, Tenn.

In English.

Donated by Vanderbilt University

process;,2017;,Kyle Welch, intern

No further accruals are expected.