Archives August 2011

Serendipity in the Archives

As I was looking for something of interest this month, I happened upon a letter written by Harvey Milk to his friend Susan Davis in September 1960. At that time Hurricane Donna ravaged the Atlantic Coast of the U.S. from Florida to Maine. Harvey writes about the expected arrival of the hurricane. Since Hurricane Irene has been all over the news lately, Harvey's letter provides an unexpected connection to events 51 years ago.

Of course, not every moment is newsworthy. For each letter, diary entry, or photograph that evokes a historical moment, there are many more that touch on the daily happenings and occasional milestones in ordinary people's lives. These can be equally interesting to peruse, as they provide glimpses into bygone eras and places and into the concerns and hopes of the people living then.

With that in mind, I selected another letter from the Harvey Milk-Susan Davis Alch collection (GLC 19). In this letter, Harvey congratulates Sue on her recent wedding to George Alch and muses on marriage, his home life with Joe Campbell and the wonderful city of San Francisco (where Sue and George got married). These letters provide insight into Harvey's personal life, his thoughts and his sense of humor.

The two letters highlighted in this post are merely the tip of the iceberg. The library's archival collections are full of such captured moments--from the mundane, ordinary and quite personal to the life-altering, history-making and public. If you are interested in looking at original historical materials, such as the Harvey Milk-Susan Davis Alch letters, please visit the San Francisco History Center, 6th floor, Main Library.

Archives July 2011

Barbara Cameron Papers

Here's a late "July" archives post. Just recently I was re-examining some smaller archival collections to find good candidates to prepare for public use. Among these the Barbara Cameron Papers (2 cartons). This is a jewel box of a collection as each item invites further inspection and contemplation.

Barbara Cameron (May 22, 1954-February 12, 2002) was a Native American (Lakota Sioux) lesbian activist, poet and writer. She was raised by her grandparents on the Standing Rock Reservation (North and South Dakota), and moved to San Francisco in the 197os. In 1975 she co-founded Gay American Indians with Randy Burns. She counted among her friends the Native American poet and activist Chrystos, and there are a few pieces in the Papers that are written by Chrystos and dedicated to Cameron.

The Papers also include speeches, poems and other writings by Cameron. Her subjects include the challenges of being gay within the Native American community, being Native American within the LGBT community, racism, nature, violence and death, acceptance, activism, and alcoholism. Her Papers also include material on the different political groups with which she was affiliated, including the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club.

The Barbara Cameron Papers are not yet ready for public use but I expect them to be ready by the end of 2011. The Papers will be available through the San Francisco History Center, 6th floor, Main Library.

Speed Dating for LGBT Boomers--August 2nd

Tired of the online dating feeding frenzy? Meet actual people and perhaps that special someone at the library over a book! Sign up for same-gender speed dating for baby-boomers. Bring a favorite book and come prepared to schmooze about it and more.

Preregistration is required. Contact jjasper@sfpl.org to sign up. The group will be gender balanced as much as possible, and really groovy!

Tuesday, August 2nd, 5:45-7:45 (Latino/Hispanic Meeting Room), lower level, SF Main Library

Archives June 2011

Ed Lucas Diaries, August 1967-July 1988

Edward Karl Lucas was born in San Francisco on June 24, 1947. He attended Bellarmine College Preparatory School in San Jose, a very good Catholic Prep School. He was a Drama major and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in the late 1960s. He took classes at ACT (American Conservatory Theatre) in San Francisco in the early 1970s and was an extra for them as well. He had some speaking parts with Berkeley Rep. around the same time.

His friends describe him as very well-educated and very witty, an Edwardian gentleman and, at the same time, full of fun and imagination. Ed was an avid reader of novels and of the New Yorker. He was very bright, sensitive and sensible.

He lived in San Francisco and Berkeley. He worked at the Postermat on Columbus Ave. (at Green) in the early 1970s where he sold posters and related things to Carlos Santana and Janis Joplin, among others. He was a college recruiter at University of San Francisco after that, then did apartment rentals at Saxe Realty in San Francisco. He also moonlighted as a bartender at the Hayes Street Grill. He was a member of the Gay Mens' Chorus from its very first days and he continued with the Chorus for as long as his health permitted until around the beginning of 1988. Ed died of AIDS on June 30, 1989.

Ed's 13 diaries were donated by his friends Ernie Guomas and Jim Seger, January 2011. The diaries chronicle Ed's activities as a UC Berkeley student and in San Francisco in the 1970s and 1980s. He notes movies seen, parties he attended, and men he dated, among other things. His thoughtful observations are a nice counterpoint to the whirlwind of life at the time.

1. August 1967-September 1968
2. October 1968-December 1969
3. January 1970-December 1971
4. January 10, 1972-October 3, 1973
5. October 24, 1973-March 5, 1975
6. March 20, 1975-March 12, 1976
7. March 12, 1976-January 11, 1977
8. January 12, 1977-September 13, 1978
9. September 13, 1978-June 1980
10. July 17, 1980-September 26, 1982
11. September 1982-August 1985
12. August 14, 1985-December 31, 1987
13. January 1, 1988-July 4, 1988

The Lucas diaries complement the Vincent diaries (GLC 45) and Gary Fisher papers (GLC 51), two other gay men who lived in San Francisco and died of AIDS. The Ed Lucas Diaries detail an earlier time period than the other two.

The Ed Lucas Diaries (GLC 68) are available through the San Francisco History Center, 6th floor, Main Library.

Hormel Center's Frameline Video Archive Project

The Frameline San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival donated its entire movie archive to the Hormel Center of San Francisco Public Library. The gift includes not only the films shown in the Festival for the past 35 years, but many film submissions never screened. As you may imagine, preserving this collection is central to the Library's mission and of vital importance to the LGBT Community. Just this spring The Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center began to digitize this massive collection. The photograph above is from the futurist Japanese film Summer Vacation:1999 by Shusuke Kaneko. This boys' school charmer features a terrific all-girl cast. (And ssshhhhh! This movie will be shown for free in our Koret Auditorium, Thursday June 23 at noon).

Project Consultant and film historian Jenni Olson went through the collection and selected films she determined to be highest-priority for saving. We sent 14 films, some of them beginning to deteriorate and at risk of being lost forever, to the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) for digital preservation. To find out more about this Frameline Archive Project visit www.sfpl.org/frameline . Come hear Olson speak on Tuesday June 7 in the Koret Auditorium at 6:00pm. She has wonderful stories to tell about the films we are preserving. On stage you will also meet Frameline Festival Program Director Jennifer Morris and Hormel Center Program Manager Karen Sundheim.

And don't miss a rare opportunity to see some of these historical gems screened in their entirety! Every Thursday in June at noon we will show one or two of the finest in our collection. On Thursday June 9 we show Olivia (Pit of Loneliness), a 1951 French lesbian boarding school drama. On June 16 Director Reno Dakota will be here for the showing of his award-winning movie American Fabulous (1991). That's the cover of the video above left. And on June 30 we'll show both Boy! What a Girl!, the 1945 all-Black cast musical starring Tim Moore as the bald, cigar-smoking female impersonator Madame Deborah (see photo above right). We'll also show Out of the Shadows, a rarely screened documentary portrait of African-American Gay and Transgender men in Washington DC, narrated by the late poet Essex Hemphill.

We are hoping to continue to digitize this precious international movie collection over the next couple of years. It is an expensive project and its completion will depend on donations.

Archives May 2011: New Accession

Scott Wirth Operation Concern collection:

Each month, the Hormel Center accepts collections that document LGBT life in the San Francisco Bay area. Sometimes a collection consists of several boxes of papers, T-shirts, buttons, and the like. At other times a collection is just a few manila folders.

This month Dr. Scott Wirth, a psychologist, donated 3 folders of material that documents the early history of Operation Concern. Operation Concern (OC) was the first counseling service established by LGBT people for LGBT people and their families in the Bay area. OC later merged with 18th Street Services to form New Leaf, which closed its doors on October 15, 2010.

Dr. Wirth's donation does not include client files but rather grant reports, grant proposals, fliers, brochures, notes, minutes, and talks. These documents show how the organization sought funding, how it was viewed by peers in counseling circles and the LGBT community, and how the staff approached the critical issues of a new-found clientele.

In October 2010, New Leaf donated several boxes of material, including a small portion on Operation Concern. Dr. Wirth's small but important donation helps to complete the picture of LGBT individuals recognizing a need and organizing a thoughtful response that would serve as a model for counseling centers around the country.

Because the Operation Concern collection is a very recent acquisition and not yet organized, it is not currently available for research. All Hormel Center archives are handled through the San Francisco History Center, 6th floor, Main Library. For questions, please contact the San Francisco History Center reference desk at 415-557-4567.

If you have archival material that documents some aspect of the LGBT experience in the San Francisco Bay Area, we'd like to hear from you. Please contact Karen Sundheim, the Program Manager of the Hormal Center, Main Library at 415-557-4566.

Archives April 2011

Atlas Savings & Loan

What with Tax Day in April, this month is all about money. So it seems fitting that we just received a donation of two stock certificates issued by Atlas Savings & Loan. Atlas was the first financial institution established by and for gays and lesbians in the United States.

John Schmidt, its chairman, along with ten gay directors, including two women, formed Atlas in 1980 in San Francisco. The savings and loan opened for business in November 1981 and identified the gay and lesbian community as its primary market. In August 1982 Atlas opened a branch on 18th and Castro Streets and by January 1985 had three branches in San Francisco.

By June 1985 Atlas began to suffer as a result of bad construction loans, joint ventures and shared loans with two other savings and loans. In August 1985 Atlas was declared insolvent. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board took control of the savings and loan in July 1986 and its assets were sold to Empire Savings of New York.

In September 1986 the Federal Bureau of Investigation began conducting an inquiry into allegations of wrong-doing by former senior management as part of its investigation into three other failed savings and loan associations in Northern California. A group of former Atlas shareholders sued John Schmidt and its auditing firm, Price Waterhouse, in 1989 claiming that they were misled as to Atlas’ financial condition. In 1990 Empire of America Bank (formerly Empire Savings of New York) was placed in conservatorship.

The majority of the Atlas Savings & Loan Collection was donated by Lester Bruno in 1997 with subsequent additions by Jim Van Buskirk, Roy Johnson, the GLBT Historical Society of Northern California, and Donald Reed. The collection spans the years 1979-1990 and contains a small amount of business correspondence and records including bylaws, publicity, promotional materials, mailings to shareholders and stock certificates. There is good press coverage of Atlas through the years especially its opening in 1981 and its financial difficulties in 1985 and 1986. In addition there is a lot of memorabilia and giveaways with the Atlas logo.

The Atlas Savings & Loan Collection (GLC 48) is available for research through the San Francisco History Center, 6th floor, Main Library.

The images include: one of the stock certificates, a portion of the People magazine article on Atlas in February 22, 1982, a promotional piece with an item in Herb Caen's column, brochures, and a photo that appeared in the 1985 San Francisco Gay Pride Celebration guide.

Singing Leaves of Grass

San Franciscans had the pleasure of listening to attorney Daniel Redman bring forth Walt Whitman's pioneering expression of male companion love, as he sang the first chapter of Leaves of Grass before a mesmerized audience of nearly 80. The Library is celebrating 150 years since the publication of Whitman's Calamus Poems with an exhibition in the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center called "Paths Untrodden: Walt Whitman's Calamus Poems and the The Radical Faeries". The exhibition, which runs through May 19, 2011, was curated by local researcher and historian Joey Cain. There are photographs of Walt Whitman and his contempories.

Daniel Redman sang passionately in a melody influenced by his Jewish roots. Some who were listening were reminded of Bar Mitzvah's attended in youth, while another commented Whitman's words seemed to be brought forth as Irish seafaring song. When Redman was asked
about recording his music, he mused on the possibility of different chapters of the long poem being sung by Queer people from other cultural backgrounds. He described LGBT life as being a diasporic culture, wherever we are is our Jerusalem........LGBT true home is in the heart.