Newberry Library Digital Collections Related to The Girls in 3-B
By Allison Yates with Quinn Sluzenski
Since 2022, Read & Run Chicago guide Quinn Sluzenski has led Read & Run Chicago’s annual tour of the classic lesbian pulp novel The Girls in 3-B by Valerie Taylor in collaboration with community partners Gerber/Hart Library and Archives.
On this tour, she guides runners through the Gold Coast/Near North area and stops at real-life queer hangouts from Chicago history and discusses characters from The Girls in 3-B. Through Valerie Taylor’s 1950s-era story of three small-town Midwestern Girls—Annice, Pat, and Barby— we discuss themes like work, love, independence. This year, our tour was on Tuesday, June 25 at 6pm out of Vuori Gold Coast.
Read & Run Chicago running tour guides research for their programs. This may include reading other books, interviewing experts, and accessing relevant archives from places like the Chicago History Museum, Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, or the Chicago Public Library. In preparing this running tour, Quinn accessed several digital archives from The Newberry Library in order accurately detail life in 1950s Chicago as described in The Girls in 3-B.
This Gold Coast space is an independent research library, specializing in the humanities. It’s been free and open to the public since 1887—and lucky for Chicagoans, it’s easily accessible for anyone to use the archives in their own research! The Newberry has a wide variety of rare digital collections for whatever you’re interested in—whether it’s Japanese-American History or rare maps—accessible via this link, and if you’re hoping to research in person sifting through the records, we created this handy guide for you to reference before you go.
And fun fact: The Newberry Library has been a frequent presence in many Read & Run Chicago events and book picks—including Jessica Mlinaric’s Chicago Scavenger and Naomi Hirahara’s Clark and Division. Readers from near and far will also likely recall the Newberry from The Time Traveler’s Wife.
Archives help paint the picture of life during the period you’re researching. They provide clues to what people thought, what they did for fun, what they bought, and more. Adding primary sources like archives to your tour—or powerpoint party!—helps bring the book to life so readers can connect even further with the story.
Here are the digital collections from The Newberry Library that Quinn used related to The Girls in 3-B!
This Collection of Letters that Valerie Taylor wrote to Jack Conroy
Valerie Taylor used many names over the course of her life and career. Under the name Velma Tate, she had a years-long correspondence with Jack Conroy, a fellow leftist Chicago writer. The letters sparkle with her trademark wit and discuss her family, career, and her partner in life and in activism, the lawyer Pearl Hart.
This Map Of Marshall Field & Co
This Photograph:
Shopping for dresses at Marshall Field & Co., Chicago, May 1948.
Letters, Essays, and Other Texts
A letter from April 1966 detailing the issues between gay community spaces and the police, with mention of Mattachine Midwest.
The Slim Brundage papers are full of syllabi for the College of Complexes, such as this one. You can peruse many more here–the digital collection currently includes syllabi from the early 70s.
A Dil Pickle Club flyer advertising Magnus Hirschfeld, one of the first advocates for gay rights in Europe and the US.
Flyers, cards, and information from the Dill Pickle Archives at the Newberry Library.
There are many more treasures in early 20th century leftist politics to explore in the Dil Pickle Club collection.
Quinn working at the Newberry Library.
If you want to learn more about the Newberry’s collection, Quinn also wrote this blog post about some of the radical archives you can find.