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Companion Display for the Traveling Exhibit "Pride and Joy: Nebraska History" Opens

The exhibit, Taking Pride in Joyful Community, is open through November 4, 2025.

  • published: 2025/07/30
  • contact: Claire Du Laney - Archives and Special Collections
  • email: cdulaney@unomaha.edu

Taking Pride in Joyful Community highlights materials in UNO Criss Library’s Queer Omaha Archives, focusing on communities in and around the Omaha metro. This is a companion display to the new traveling exhibit, Pride and Joy: Nebraska History, which debuted at the 2025 Heartland Pride Festival and will begin traveling around the state of Nebraska in September. Click here to learn more about the traveling exhibit Pride and Joy: Nebraska History.

Taking Pride in Joyful Community illustrates the history of LGBTQIA2S+ individuals and communities with archival material, including photos, letters, ephemera, posters, and newsletters. Through this, archivists hope that viewers will explore the ways in which LGBTQIA2S+ history is an important part of Nebraska history and the history of the United States. LGBTQ+ individuals and communities existed long before the 1969 Stonewall Uprisings in New York City. They have historically participated and continue to participate in every facet of civic, cultural, political, and economic life, in rural, suburban, and urban settings.

We acknowledge that this history is more complex than can be expressed in a single presentation, exhibit, or other program. Nebraska’s LGBTQIA2S+ communities have and continue to experience joy and sorrow, engagement and political turmoil, resilience and discrimination. This will not be an exhaustive Nebraska LGBTQIA2S+ history. There are more stories to be told, and we invite you to share, reflect, and learn alongside us.

You can find these and other archival materials using the Nebraska Archives Online database of finding aids. If you need help accessing the database, watch this video tutorial.

Taking Pride in Joyful Community is on display in Archives and Special Collections, located on the first floor of Criss Library. During the summer, Criss Library is open to the public Monday - Thursday 7AM-9PM, Friday 7AM-5PM and Sunday 12PM-9PM and closed on Saturdays during the summer. Check here for summer hours and updates on opening and closing times. This exhibit was curated by Claire Du Laney, Outreach Archivist.

About Criss Library

The Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Library fulfills the UNO mission through dynamic services, highly qualified and adaptive personnel, unique and extensive collections, and accessible learning spaces and environments. With its location on UNO’s Dodge Campus, Criss Library provides UNO students, faculty and staff, and the Omaha community with the resources and materials needed to excel academically and professionally.