Lavender Community Pride Award – Jean-Nickolaus Tretter

On December 9, 2022, our community lost a key figure in keeping our history alive. He is our historian, our archivist, and a link to our past with our present and future.

Jean-Nickolaus Tretter began collecting materials from our community since the 1980s. In 2000, he donated his collection to the University of Minnesota Libraries, where it is currently housed. The Tretter Collection sits deep into the bluffs above the Mississippi River, right below the Elmer L. Andersen Library on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. It may be hidden, but it is available to public on certain days of the week.

His collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies is home to 3,500 linear feet of material housing our community’s history in Minnesota. The Tretter Collection website cites that their collection includes “books, periodicals, grey literature, personal and organizational records, zines and pamphlets, artifacts and ephemera, and audiovisual materials.”

While centered on the history of the LGBTQ+ community in Minnesota, the collection has entries from across the nation and around the world. The Tretter Collection states that their materials stretches 58 languages. Moreover, the Collection also is a hub for LGBTQ+ ideas, that includes hosting panels, conversations within the community, and supporting events that reflect upon our past.

Tretter receives this award posthumously. It will be presented to the Tretter Collection.

In his memory, Lavender Magazine congratulates Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, his family and the staff at the Tretter Collection for his Community Award this year.