Flyer from Gay Pride Week, San Francisco, California, 1975
The Foster Gunnison Jr. Papers is one of the most significant collections of homophile and early gay liberation materials in the United States. From 1963 to 1975, Foster Gunnison Jr. collected the records of the Eastern Conference of Homophile Organizations (ECHO), an early coalition of organizations seeking the creation of a national homophile organization. Gunnison also collected the records of gay and lesbian organizations throughout the United States. He founded his own organization, the Institute for Social Ethics (ISE), “a libertarian-oriented research facility and think tank for controversial social issues,” in the early 1960s. In 1967 Gunnison authored the pamphlet, An Introduction to the Homophile Movement, which outlined the history, aims and objectives of the movement and profiles of organizations active in the movement.
The collection contains correspondence, fliers, and information from many of the most important gay and lesbian organizations of the time, including the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee, the Gay Activists Alliance, the Kalos Society, the Mattachine Society, ONE, and the Student Homophile League.
The finding aid for the collection is available at:https://archivessearch.lib.uconn.edu/repositories/2/resources/413
I’m co-chair of LAGAR and am trying to prepare a session proposal for SAA in 2011 in which one paper will be an account of an advisor to President Johnson who was arrested on a “morals charge” in a restroom at a YMCA and lost his entire career.
Does the Dodd Center hold any papers which would document a similar story of a political person who was “outed” and lost or nearly lost his/her career. The issue does not need to be sexual orientation, but could be on labor activism, being accused of being a communist, or similar situation. If the Dodd Center does have such material, could one of the staff present a paper on the situation at SAA in 2011 (Chicago)?
Thanks for thinking about this.