Up until the early 2010s, if you searched “Babe Ruth” in the Baseball Hall of Fame, nothing would pop up. To find information on the greatest baseball player of all time, you would have to search “Ruth, George Herman.” 

That is the way online archival systems were set up and there was a clear problem with it. Kristen Gwinn-Becker was uniquely able to solve it. “I’m a super tech geek, history geek,” she says, “I love any opportunity to create this aha moment with people through history.” 

Gwinn-Becker is the founder and CEO of HistoryIT, a company that helps organizations create digital archives that are genuinely accessible. “I believe history is incredibly important, but I also think it’s in danger,” she says. “Less than 2% of our historical materials are digital and even less of that is truly accessible.”

Gwinn-Becker’s love for history is personal. As a lesbian, growing up, she sought out evidence of herself across time. “I was interested in stories, interested in people whose lives mirrored mine to help me understand who I was.” 

“[My identity] influences my love of history and my strong belief in history is important,” she says.

Despite always loving history, Gwinn-Becker found herself living and working in San Francisco during the early dot com boom and bust in the ‘90s. “It was an exciting time,” she recounts, “if you were intellectually curious, you could just jump right in.”

Being there was almost happenstance, Gwinn-Becker explained: “I was 20 years old and wanted to live in San Francisco.” Quickly, she fell in love with “all of the incredible new tools.” She was working with non-profits that encouraged her to take classes and apply the new skills. “I was really into software, web, and database development.” 

But history eventually pulled her back. “Tech was fun, but I didn’t want to be a developer,” she says. Something was missing. When the opportunity to get a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University presented itself, “I got to work on the Eleanor Roosevelt papers, who I was and remain quite passionate about.” 

Gwinn-Becker’s research on Eleanor Roosevelt planted the seeds of digital preservation. “Eleanor Roosevelt doesn’t have a single archive. FDR has lots but the first ladies don’t,” she says. Gwinn-Becker wondered what else was missing from the archive — and what would be missing from the archive if we didn’t start preserving it now.

Those questions eventually led Gwinn-Becker to found HistoryIT in 2011. Since then, the company has created digital archives for organizations ranging from museums and universities to sororities, fraternities, and community organizations.

This process is not easy. “Digital preservation is more than scanning,” says Gwinn-Becker. “Most commercial scanners’ intent is to create a digital copy, not an exact replica.” 

To digitally preserve something, Gwinn-Becker’s team must take a photo with overhead cameras. “There is an international standard,” she says, “you create an archival TIFF.” 

“It’s the biggest possible file we can create now. That’s how you future-proof.”

Despite the common belief that the internet is forever, JPEGs saved to social media or websites are a poor archive. “It’s more expensive for us to do projects in the 2000 to 2016 period than to do 19^th-century projects,” explains Gwinn-Becker, since finding adequate files for preservation can be tricky. “The images themselves are deteriorated because they’re compressed so much,” she says.

Her clients are finding that having a strong digital archive is useful outside of the noble goal of protecting history. “It’s a unique trove of content,” says Gwinn-Becker. One client saw a 790% increase in donations after incorporating the digital archive into fundraising efforts. “It’s important to have content quickly and easily,” says Gwinn-Becker, whose team also works with clients on digital strategy for their archive.

One of Gwinn-Becker’s favorite parts of her job is finding what she calls “hidden histories.”

“We [LGBTQ people] are represented everywhere. We’re represented in sports, in religious history, in every kind of movement, not only our movement. I’m passionate about bringing those stories out.” 

Sometimes queer stories are found in unexpected places, says Gwinn-Becker. “We work with sororities and fraternities. There are a hell of a lot of our stories there.”

Part of digital preservation is also making sure that history being created in the moment is not lost to future generations. HistoryIT works with NFL teams, for example. One of their clients is the Panthers, who hired Justine Lindsay, the first transgender cheerleader in the NFL. Gwinn-Becker was excited to be able to preserve information about Lindsay in the digital record. “It’s making history in the process of preserving it,” says Gwinn-Becker.

Preserving queer history, either through “hidden histories” or LGBTQ-specific archives, is vital says Gwinn-Becker. “Think about whose history gets marginalized, whose history gets moved to the sidelines, whose history gets just erased,” she prompts. “In a time of fake news, we need to point to evidence in the past. Queer people have existed since there were humans, but their stories are hidden,” Gwinn-Becker says.

Meanwhile, Gwinn-Becker accidentally finds herself as part of queer history too. Listed as one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 250 Female Founders of 2024, she is surrounded by names like Christina Aguilera, Selena Gomez, and Natalie Portman. 

One name stuck out. “Never in my life did I think I’d be on the same list – other than the obvious one – with Billie Jean King. That’s pretty exciting,” she said. 

But she can’t focus on the win for too long. “When I go to sleep at night, I think ‘there’s so much history, and we have to transfer it to the digital,’” she says, “We have a very small period in which to do that in a meaningful way.”

(This story is part of the Digital Equity Local Voices Fellowship lab through News is Out. The lab initiative is made possible with support from Comcast NBCUniversal.)

International News Editor Michael K. Lavers will be on assignment in Israel through Oct. 9.

Lavers will be in the country on Oct. 7, a year after Hamas launched its surprise attack against Israel, and will cover how the country’s LGBTQ community has coped with that horrible day and its ongoing aftermath. Lavers will also cover how the war in the Gaza Strip has impacted LGBTQ Palestinians — in both Gaza and the West Bank and among the Palestinian diaspora in the U.S.

Lavers arrived in Israel three days after Iran launched upwards of 200 ballistic missiles at the country.

An Israeli airstrike in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Sept. 27 killed Hassan Nasrallah, the long-time leader of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militant group.

Hezbollah since last October has launched rockets into northern Israel. The Israeli military earlier this week began a ground incursion into southern Lebanon. 

“The horrific events of Oct. 7 and their aftermath have impacted LGBTQ people in Israel, in the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, and elsewhere throughout the Middle East and around the world,” said Lavers. “It is critically important for the Washington Blade to document the situation on the ground, and to show how the horrific events of the last year have impacted LGBTQ communities throughout the region.”

“We are committed to objective coverage of the situation in the Middle East and to highlighting the plight of LGBTQ Palestinians and Israelis caught up in the war,” said Blade editor Kevin Naff. “The generous support of our readers enables this coverage so please consider making a donation at bladefoundation.org to ensure the Blade’s 55-year record of award-winning journalism continues.”

The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute will honor Peruvian Congresswoman Susel Paredes at its annual International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference that will take place in D.C. in December.

Paredes, a long-time activist who in 2021 became the first lesbian woman elected to the South American country’s Congress, will receive the 2024 LGBTQ+ Victory Institute Global Trailblazer Award.

Paredes and her wife, Gracia Aljovín, married in Miami in 2016. The two women sued the Peruvian government after the country’s Constitutional Court denied their request to register their marriage. 

“It is a true honor and a recognition that I deeply value,” said Paredes in a post to her X account after she learned the Victory Institute will honor her in D.C.

Victory Institute Executive Director Elliot Imse described Paredes as “a true champion through her activism and political engagement for decades.”

“Her historic election to the Congress of Peru is just one of many testaments to her status as a true trailblazer who is exceptionally deserving of this honor,” added Imse.