Finding sexuality and sexual science in the archives.
Dr Lesley Hall, Senior Archivist at the Wellcome Library, examines sources at the Wellcome Library on questions of sexuality from approximately 1800 to the present, with particular reference to the roles of medicine and the psychological sciences. She also considers related collections worldwide, with particular reference to the impact of European fascism on individuals and the archival record. Dr Lesley Hall has written extensively on gender and sexuality in the 19th and 20th centuries, including (with the late Roy Porter) The Facts of Life: the creation of sexual knowledge in Britain, 1650-1950 (Yale UP 1995), and Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880 (Palgrave, 2nd edition 2012).
This talk formed part of The National Archives' Diversity Week.