June, 2013 Volume 8 Number 2 NEWSLETTER FOR THE FRIENDS OF THE TRETTER COLLECTION MeetMeet Tretter’sTretter’s NewNew Curator:Curator: LisaLisa VecoliVecoli

Inside this Issue: • Wolfe’s Historic Statue Donation • Gay Scandinavia • GLBT 1001 Students at Tretter • ‘‘Lesbian Nuns’’ - Still Relevant 28 Years Later • NYU Student Finds Wealth of Help at Tretter • Events Recap Reveals Lively Schedule • “Primary Sourcery” Provides Gateway to Info • New Acquisitions You Can Help! The Tretter Collection relies on the support FROM THE CHAIR of organizations and individuals, like you! Please consider making a charitable donation to the Tretter Collection using the Along with so many in our persisting in such offenses, first enclosed self-addressed envelope as part of community, the members of the they render themselves unworthy your giving plan. Your support will help to Tretter Advisory Committee were of the mercy of God, and then they preserve GLBT history now and for future generations. thrilled when Minnesota became are subjected to the punishment the 12th state to legalize same-sex enjoined by the law. For we order Thank you. marriage. The folks at the archive the most illustrious prefect of the have been working hard to ensure Capital to arrest those who persist that this moment is documented in the aforesaid lawless and impious NEWSLETTER FOR THE FRIENDS OF and preserved for posterity. acts after they have been warned THE TRETTER COLLECTION Indeed, the archive’s collections on by us, and to inflict on them the https://www.lib.umn.edu/scrbm/tretter Advisory Committee marriage and LGBT law is extensive, extreme punishments, so that the city and the state may Community Representatives and the recent marriage Eric Colleary, Chair legislation is only the tip not come to harm by Matthew Antonio Bosch of the iceberg. reason of such wicked Jesse Field deeds. James Garlough Recently, the Tretter Greg Gronseth Advisory Committee The Justinian laws were Jada Hansen recommended the among the first in the Anne Hodson Prof. Regina Kunzel purchase of a doctoral world to condemn all sexual acts between Shawn Thorson dissertation published in Jean-Nickolaus Tretter, Founder Nuremberg, Germany in people of the same Phil Willkie 1597 titled Disputatio de gender, and these laws University Library Representatives publicis iudiciis. The 15 became the foundation Kris Kiesling Kathy McGill page treatise by Thomas of legal systems across the Western world. Lisa Vecoli, Curator Cleuselius is a defense Sodlis Emeriti, Ex-Officio of several codes under Cleuselius’ dissertation Jim Bones Justinian law including Eric Colleary provides arguments Shamey Cramer Ralph Hanson those against sodomy for keeping Justinian’s laws on the books in late-sixteenth Christoph Heydemann and why they should be kept in Angela Nichols contemporary society. century Germany. Anne Phibbs Adam Robbins In 533, Emperor Justinian extended The Tretter Collection is one of only five libraries in the world to have Linnea Stenson an ancient law condemning Stewart Van Cleve adultery to include acts of sodomy, this rare manuscript and it is the Newsletter Editor/Production which would be punishable by only known copy in the western George Hamm death. Justinian blamed such acts hemisphere. The text is in Latin and The University of Minnesota is an equal is already available to visitors of the opportunity educator and employer.This on natural disasters like famines, publication can be made available in earthquakes and pestilence. In 538, collection. alternative formats for people with disabilities. Justinian expanded on this law in Whether the Justinian Code or the Direct requests or address corrections to Lisa Novella (New Law) 77: Minnesota marriage legislation, this Vecoli, Special Collections, Andersen Library Room 111, Minneapolis, MN 55455, 612-624- Since certain men, seized by is part of our past - our heritage. 7526, ([email protected]). And the Tretter Collection continues diabolical incitement, practice The University’s mission, carried out on among themselves the most to be there to capture history in the multiple campuses and throughout the state, is disgraceful lusts, and act contrary making. Congratulations, Minnesota threefold: research and discovery, teaching and to nature…. We admonish men to - and be sure to visit us at the History learning, and public service. abstain from said unlawful acts, that Pavilion at Pride! © 2013 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. they may not lose their souls. But if, Eric Colleary after this admonition, any are found Tretter Advisory Board Chair Front Cover Photo by Marjean V. Hoeft

2 Tretter Letter June, 2013 II, was working in Nazi Germany while Thanks to the generous openly living in a Gay relationship and support of our donors...... From the sending care packages to Jews in the concentration camps. We gratefully acknowledge the following individuals for their support and give thanks field.... The collection of books includes to countless others whose generous spirits publications from the 50’s and 60’s, such have made our work possible. as early works of Lesbian fiction, books • Roger Arvid Anderson - CA about homosexuality and the novelized • Dr Nancy V Barcelo - NM “confession” of a Norwegian Gay man What’s happening in national & published in 1965. We also have a book • Thomas J Blackmar - Minneapolis, MN international circles..... by Karl-Erik Kejne, a Swedish pastor who • Dennis Breining - St Paul, MN unleashed an anti-gay witch hunt in • David J Eder & Jason Lue - CA the 40’s and 50’s. The historical books • Gerard Fergerson - Washington, DC continue with accounts of RFSL, the GLBT Scandinavia • Francis J Gagliardi - CT By Greg Gronseth national Swedish Gay rights organizations, both favorable and critical, as well as • Marcia & Leon Greenfield - books dealing with the more radical Minneapolis, MN A close connection has existed between Gay liberation movement and Lesbian • Rosanne E Gronseth (in honor of Minnesota and the Scandinavian countries feminists in the 70’s and 80’s. It continues Greg Gronseth) - Minneapolis, MN since the founding of the state and this is with books exploring the impact of AIDS • Dr Laura J Gurak - Arden Hills, MN reflected by the University of Minnesota’s in Denmark and Sweden. We have an • Randy J Hartten - Minneapolis, MN position as a center of Scandinavian autobiography of openly Gay, conservative • Harvey Hertz - Minneapolis, MN studies. In keeping with this, the Tretter Danish politician, Stig Elling and a • Kathrine Lehmann - St Paul, MN Collection in GLBT Studies has embarked biography of Majken Johansson, who’s on a project to build up its collection considered one of the most important • Nancy Manahan - Minneapolis, MN of materials dealing with the GLBT Swedish poets of the 20th century (both • John H Maves - CA communities in Scandinavia. So far, we she and her partner were officers in the • Prof Toni A H McNaron - have purchased over 70 books in Danish, Salvation Army). One of the more recent Minneapolis, MN Swedish, Norwegian (both Bokmål and historical events related is an incident • MN United for All Families - MN Nynorsk) and Finnish. where foreigners throwing stones at a • Len Olds & Hugh Rouse - CA Many of the books are general histories Gay Pride parade was used as a pretext for an anti-immigrant backlash in Denmark, • Quatrefoil Library (Talk Mystery to of the GLBT communities in each of the Me event support) - St Paul, MN countries as well as in particular localities. where it was characterized as an attack • Frank Ricchiazzi - CA There are also accounts of specific events on liberal Danish values. Finally, there spread over time. A few examples are the are books dealing with queer studies • Dr Linnea A Stenson - Minneapolis, MN history of Gay men who were burnt at the in Scandinavia and a book published in • Jeffrey Strand & Kim W Jeppesen - (in stake in 17th century Finland and the story honor of the 60th anniversary of RFSL’s memory of E L Shambach) of two men in Sweden who, after being founding, discussing possible future Minneapolis, MN together for ten years, were arrested in trends in the GLBT community. • David Termine & James Votaw - 1897 for “lying together” in the woods. The collection has acquired several Edina, MN The collection has acquired several books of interviews or autobiographies • Jill C Vecoli (in honor of Lisa Vecoli) - biographies, such as one of Sweden’s dealing with a range of communities Minneapolis, MN king Gustav V who, in the 1930’s, was within the larger GLBT communities in • Lisa Vecoli - Minneapolis, MN implicated in a homosexual relationship. present-day Scandinavia. One is a book • Dawn West & Pam Colby - There’s a biography of Erik Thorsell, who interviewing Swedish Transgender people. Minneapolis & Richfield, MN tried to establish the first Swedish Gay These include anthologies of coming out • Kim W Waldorf - Minneapolis, MN rights group in the 1930’s and was active stories and books about elderly Gays and • Peter Wilson - Minneapolis, MN in the homophile movement in the 50’s Lesbians, Gay youth and Christians,as well and 60’s. Another example is a biography as members of immigrant communities or • Bruce Wolfe - CA of Bernhard Hjort who went from being the Sami ethnic minority. an anti-Semitic fascist in the 30’s, to a five organizations in Denmark, Sweden, More recently, the Tretter Collection has resistance fighter during World War II and Norway and the Faroe Islands. As time started reaching out to GLBT organizations one of the staunchest defenders of the goes on, we hope to build up relations in Scandinavia to try to obtain ephemera early homophile movement in Norway with these organizations that will help us from GBLT Scandinavia, such as Gay Pride after the war. We also have a biography to preserve a diverse portrait of the lives posters and other memorabilia. This is of Allen Hagedorff, a young Danish man of Gays and Lesbians in Scandinavia over still in its beginning phase, but we’ve who, during the height of World War time as well as across segments of society. received favorable responses already from

Tretter Letter June, 2013 3 New Acquisitions

We cannot highlight all that we have added to the collection in the past months, but a few highlights: • Frank Ricchiazzi Papers – Frank Ricchiazzi helped found the Log Cabin Republican Club of Los Angeles in 1977 and the Log Cabin Club of Orange County in 1983. The extensive papers, a gift of Mr. Ricchiazzi, bring tremendous depth to our existing Log Cabin materials. Full finding aids for the Ricchiazzi papers and the Log Cabin Republican records are available on our website.

• The Tretter Collection has recently acquired the first printing from 1901 of the novel “Idylle Saphique” by Liane de Pougy. “Idylle Saphique” is an autobiographical novel based on the relationship between the author and the American poet Natalie Barney. A contemporary French scholar of gender studies has described it in these words: “With Sapphic Idyll, Liane de Pougy gives a visibility to lesbian loves in the framework of a sober and controlled French language.”

• Vriendschap – We recently purchased 17 issues of “Vriendschap,” the newsletter published by the Dutch homophile organization COC. Founded in 1946, COC may be the oldest GLBT organization in the world. The newsletters we acquired are from 1958-1962.

• GLBT Superheroes – We have added several ground breaking comics to the collection. Marvel Comic’s superhero, Northstar, wed his gay partner last summer in issue #51 of “Astonishing X-Men.” Last year in “Life with Archie #16,” war hero, Kevin Keller, married his boyfriend. In this spring’s issue of “Batgirl #19,” Alysia Yeoh reveals that she is a transgender woman. And, “Batwoman #17” adds the first Lesbian superhero marriage proposal.

• “People Today” from 1954 with a cover story exclusive “3rd Sex Comes Out of Hiding” about the founding of ONE. And “Magazine Digest” from 1948 with an article “Doctors Plead for The Homosexual and Lesbian.”

• Der Eigene - published from 1896 to 1932 under the editorship of Adolf Brand, Der Eigene is considered to be the first gay journal in the world. We are grateful to Roger Arvid Andersen for the donation of an issue in honor of Jean- Nickolaus Tretter’s retirement. New Acquisition Photos courtesy of the Tretter Collection

4 Tretter Letter June, 2013 Meet Our Curator - an interview with Lisa Vecoli By Matthew Antonio Bosch MAB: What have you gained from As a lifelong fan, having lesbian Matthew Antonio (MAB): You being a Tretter Board Member? literature be part of my “work” is have a history with archives, LV: Well, most obviously I gained a awesome. And I love the feedback don’t you? job. But that was never the intent I get from scholars and researchers about the strength of the collection Lisa (LV): I tell people on tours that the when I joined the Board in 2001. Jean knew about my book collection and how valuable it is to have a building is 14 years old but it has been strong, accessible archive. part of my life for 45 years. When I and he hoped I would leave it to the was 5, my family moved here so my collection. I am classic story of donor MAB: Why should people utilize father could lead the Immigration development – first I got involved, the Tretter Collection? History Research Center. He was the then I agreed to donate my collection LV: People should use the archive director for 37 years and for much and eventually my partner, Marjean, because popular culture is not a good of that time he was trying to get a and I put the archive in our wills. The record of GLBT history. The reality facility built to provide appropriate more I learned about the work of is that for most of western culture, archival storage for the collections at the collection, the more I supported GLBT people have tried to be invisible the University. I was with him at the the mission and saw the value of and hide their existence. Even in a ground breaking and the ribbon gay archive like the Tretter cutting for the Andersen Library. Collection, researchers often As a child, our family had one car have to be creative to find and we often picked him up at information about their topic. the end of the day. He was never MAB: How easy is it to ready and we usually spent a long use? If I email you with time waiting. My brother and I a research idea, is it that would play hide and seek in the easy for you to find stuff stacks while we waited. So when I on it? say I grew up in the stacks I mean LV: Using the archive is as it literally. I wish my father had easy as I can possibly make survived to see me working at the it. We are open to everyone, Tretter Collection. Every day I am from students and faculty to grateful for the work he did that community members and unexpectedly created a home for a the press at no charge. Our GLBT archive. materials do not circulate and MAB: What are 3 things (LGBT- contributing. are for use only on site. I am a one related or not) that you know a The best part of being on the Board person staff, so it is always a good lot about? has been relationships with amazing idea to contact me in advance. If I LV: I spent most of my career in people. I got to learn from Jean about am out of the office, there may not non-profits, politics and community the community and the commitment be anyone who can help you find organizing. So I know a lot about he had to collecting and preserving material. Robert’s Rules of Order. I love to travel, GLBT history. I made great friends Any kind of archival research is like a scuba dive and ride my Harley. from diverse parts of the community safari – you might not see anything. and learned about events and people And I know a lot about lesbian Or you might have a life changing that came before me. And I found literature. When I first came out experience. Jean built the collection something I am passionate about and as a lesbian I turned to books for over 40 years and learned the history now I have a job I love. information and affirmation. That and content of items as he acquired was over 30 years ago and positive MAB: Which groups have them. His knowledge of the collection messages were hard to find. I worked you been most excited to is remarkable. But the collection has for a while in lesbian books stores and collaborate/partner with? grown to the point that no one person started collecting lesbian fiction. Then will ever have that knowledge again. LV: I have enjoyed all of the The collection holds tens of thousands in 1992 I started collecting lesbian partnerships we have established pulps from the 1950’s and ‘60’s. of published items and hundreds over the past year. Working with you of thousands of pages of personal Today I have over 2,500 contemporary and the GLBTA Programs Office has lesbian novels and almost 1,000 papers and organizational records. been a lot of fun. I have really enjoyed I am working on computerizing as pulps. (And a very understanding the relationships we have built with partner!!) Quatrefoil Library and local authors. New Curator, continued on page 11 Tretter Letter June, 2013 5 “Lesbian Nuns,” Still

By Nancy Manahan Keefe Curb’s death on May 24, Is a book published in 1985 still Minneapolis, Minnesota 2012 that prompted Tracy Baim, relevant? The culture has changed publisher of Chicago’s Windy City dramatically. Not only do many When Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Times, to suggest getting the religious orders allow lesbians to Silence was published in 1985, book back into print and making it enter if they commit to the same I was 38 years old. I had no idea available electronically. Linda Hill vow of celibacy required of their that I was moving into the most of Bella Books enthusiastically took heterosexual sisters, but if Sister intense, exhausting, painful, and on the project in the fall of 2012. Ann and Sister Louise left the exhilarating period of my life. My co-editor Rosemary Keefe Curb and I anticipated that the only people interested in the book would be other lesbian ex-nuns, our friends and families, and perhaps readers on the Naiad Press mailing list. We were unprepared for being catapulted into the national and international limelight. On our first TV appearance, before the book was even in print, Sally Jessy Rafael held up a dummy copy: the cover was real, but inside, all 430 pages were blank. This historic dummy book is now in the Tretter Collection. Eventually Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence was published in seven languages in eleven countries. (All the foreign editions are also in the Tretter Collection.) Despite our lack of media savvy, Rosemary and I trusted that by simply being two of the first open lesbians in the media, we were helping to end LGBT silence and invisibility. The hundreds of letters we received in the years right after the book’s publication, and the letters we received over the next 25 years, indicate how important and meaningful our appearances and the book were. However, Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence has been out of print for two decades. It was Rosemary Photos courtesy of the Tretter Collection

6 Tretter Letter June, 2013 Relevant 28 Years Later convent today, they probably and shame can be reminded that Barbara Grier) analyzing the could be open about their they are not alone. unprecedented impact the book relationship with little fear of Additionally, the stories can had on the lesbian community losing their jobs, their housing, support people breaking out and mainstream culture. In two their friends, or their families. Ann of stifling relationships, mental new afterwords, Rosemary Keefe and Louise could even get married straitjackets, or oppressive Curb and I reveal how Lesbian to each other in many places. institutions of any kind. We all can Nuns; Breaking Silence came to Yet, all over the world, expressions be inspired by those who find the be and what happened to our of LGBT identity are still fraught internal resources and the external lives when, for the first time in with difficulties and dangers. support necessary to live more history, a lesbian book from a People indoctrinated by freely and honestly. small publisher went mainstream. Still myth-shattering, the stories homophobic beliefs struggle to be This explosive international best- remind us of the courage required true to themselves in small towns seller is back, with a new foreword to live—and love—in congruence everywhere, in countries where by historian Joanne Passet with our authentic selves. homosexuality is punishable by (author of Sex Variant Woman: death, and in cultures around The Life of Jeannette Foster and the globe that condemn same- a forthcoming biography of sex love. In many places, Ann and Louise would live in fear and hiding. The notion of their marrying each other would be ludicrous, unnatural, blasphemous, and illegal. And so I am thrilled to see Lesbian Nuns; Breaking Silence reaching a new international generation of readers. Anyone with access to eBooks can download these stories embodying resilient sexuality, resistance to a patriarchal religion, love of community, and dedication to a spiritual path. People who were raised in, or are still in, any faith tradition that causes them to suffer suicidal agonies of guilt Rosemary Keefe Curb and Nancy Manahan at the 20th anniversary of Lesbian Nuns release. Photo courtesy of Becky Bohan

Tretter Letter June, 2013 7 NYU Student Discovers the Wealth of Information and Assistance Through the Tretter Collection By Brian Ray passion for an inclusive vision of LGBTQ is for the successful writing of history. Not As a PhD Student in American Studies history. to mention this level of coziness was no at New York University, I had grown In my time at Andersen, I worked with small feat given the sub-zero temperatures increasingly frustrated last fall in New some phenomenal staff members. First outside the library walls that this East York while working in some of the most and foremost, I must say that Lisa Vecoli, Coaster had never experienced! extensive and respected LGBTQ collections curator of the Tretter Collection, should Susan Hoffman of the Archives and Special in the world. The absence of conservative be recognized as a top-notch archivist Collections division was also essential in my voices in the Gay and Lesbian movement and expert in her field. Despite having a research that week. Susan, in coordination in the United States, a centerpiece of my full house of elbow-to-elbow researchers with Lisa, moved my research in exiting dissertation on postindustrial labor in the new directions by giving me access to Americas, struck me as astonishing. I was several not-yet catalogued boxes recently overcome with excitement when I found donated by Gay conservative activist Frank out that the Log Cabin Republicans had Ricchiazzi. The unexpected boxes were so recently donated their papers and records rich and expansive that I did not have time to the Tretter Collection at the University of to finish exploring them—so I will definitely Minnesota Libraries! be back. I began communicating with the library The Tretter Collection is impressive in terms staff in the fall of 2012 regarding the Log of breadth and the sheer speed with which Cabin papers, and I was fortunate enough the staff and archivists at the Andersen to receive an Elmer L. Andersen Research Library have updated their collections in the Grant from UMN Libraries for the 2013 past few years that will certainly guarantee academic year. During my visit earlier this a growing national and international spring semester, I was on a tight schedule reputation among researchers and of merely a week, and the quality of activists concerned with LGBTQ history. guidance I received while working The With the increasing interest in grassroots Elmer L. Andersen Library division of conservatism in the field of history and Archives and Special Collections was truly the growing body of literature on political impressive. The Andersen staff has achieved economy in queer studies—two areas an enviable balance between friendliness within which the collection truly stands and efficiency. In my time working at the working with the Tretter Collection in out—the Elmer L. Andersen Library is well Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, the reading room the week I was there, situated for a boom in popularity among Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies— she exceeded any expectation I had scholars of U.S. conservatism. started by Minnesota native and leading regarding institutional gatekeepers of knowledge. She set aside time to meet Since my visit this winter, I have been national activist Jean Tretter in the 1970s, spreading the word about the archives and donated the University of Minnesota with me personally multiple times that week in private meetings, pulled and among my colleagues, and even been in Libraries only in 2000 after growing too touch with scholars from Europe interested large for his apartment—I never lost footing flagged items of interest that changed my direction of inquiry multiple times, and in the collection. Be warned, East and West or focus in the thousands of documents I Coast institutions, researchers are looking had to go through in one week. added a personal touch that left me feeling less overwhelmed amidst thousands of towards flyover country! Flawlessly, working with a collection only documents and moreover invigorated in its 13th year of operation, the Tretter staff and excited about my dissertation project. Curator’s Note: You might think we made him up, has perfectly balanced the professionalism, Lisa made the reading room feel like a but Brian Ray is an actual doctoral student at NYU, expertise, and indispensable orderliness home during my week in Minneapolis—it interested in connecting with others doing similar of much older coastal LGBTQ archives cannot be overstated how essential the research. He may be reached at [email protected]. with Midwestern friendliness and a shared comfort to experiment and ask questions

8 Tretter Letter June, 2013 You Shoulda’ Been Here!! Tretter Collection Adopts Materials It’s been a busy season of community outreach from Social Welfare By Lisa Vecoli History Archives The Tretter Collection has been all departments and the Walker Art The Tretter Collection was added over town the past several months. Center, the Tretter Collection to the University of Minnesota in We have been to events, hosted helped arrange the April showing 2001. As such, we are the youngest events and helped others with of “United In Anger: A History of of the archives at Andersen Library. events. A few of our activities since Act Up” along with discussions The University Archives are the that last newsletter: featuring director James Hubbard, oldest, started 85 years ago. Several • In November authors Ellen historian Jennifer Brier and Dr. collections such as the Children’s Hart and R.D. Zimmerman Keith Henry. Literature Research Collections, joined us at Andersen Library • In May the Tretter Collection Immigration History Research Center, for a conversation about their and Quatrefoil co-hosted a party Kautz Family YMCA Archives and the work, how they write and what for the re-release of “Lesbian Nuns: Social Welfare History Archive were their days are like. They were Breaking Silence” with co-editor started in the 1960’s. We are fortunate extraordinarily generous in sharing Nancy Manahan. First published that the curators of the Social Welfare their time and insights with us. We in 1985, the book was one of the History Archive (SWHA) noted the co-hosted this event with Friends few to cross from a lesbian press to development of materials directed to of the Library and Quatrefoil mainstream publishing. It became the GLBT community and began to Library. an international sensation and collect them decades ago. • In November we hosted a was translated into 6 languages. With the addition of a GLBT specific reception for Among Men/Man Long out of print, is being made archive, it made sense to shift materials To Man to mark the end of the available again this spring by Bella from Social Welfare to Tretter. Over the program and the transition of their Books. past year we have shifted over 2,000 material to the archive. • This spring we also had six items. These included extra copies of some materials that we already had – • Curator Lisa Vecoli joined the classes visited the collection, “The Advocate,” “Equal Time,” “GLC Schochet Endowment for their presented at the MN Independent Voice” and other local publications. Research Showcase in February, Scholar Forum and gave a It also included material we did not serving as a panel member. Lisa presentation to those attending yet have in the collection such as also served on the committee to “Ally” training at North Hennepin hundreds of issues of the Lesbian award the Schochet Academic Community College. Feminist Organizing Committee Awards and brought the Tretter All of this happened between Newsletter, “Les’beinformed” (the History Display to the awards newsletters! We encourage you newsletter of the Lesbian Resource dinner in March. to “like” us on Facebook or send Center), “Matrices” and a complete • Tretter co-hosted a “Women’s us your email so that we can keep set of the 26 volume print version of Author Event” with Quatrefoil in you posted on events! “Genders.” March. Authors Catherine Friend, Integrating these items into the Rachel Gold, Ellen Hart, Jessie archive was challenging. It required Chandler and Catherine Lundoff to tremendous patience and assistance read from their works and answer from the cataloging staff. And some questions. significant shifting of materials to • The Tretter Collection helped make room for the new additions. But sponsor the movie “Trans” as part the result is a stronger collection for of the National Public Health Week researchers and scholars, thanks to the Film Fest in April. early leadership in the Social Welfare • Working with several University History Archive and the generosity of the current staff.

Tretter Letter June, 2013 9 Bruce Wolfe Donates Harvey Milk Statue to Primary Sourcery Blog Tretter Collection Sculptor Bruce Wolfe has donated his bust of Harvey Milk to the Tretter Collection in honor of the retirement of our founder, Jean- Nickolaus Tretter. The work was one of three finalists in the 2006 competition for the Milk Memorial in San Francisco’s City Hall. The bust was originally modeled in clay and has During a meeting with a library diverse bunch and we all have colleague last year, instead of interesting stories to tell, so we started “primary source” they said a blog. Among the first stories were “sourcery.” The image of archivists the tale of purchasing an Arthur with magic wands and mystic potions Conan Doyle letter on eBay and how was irresistible. So even though it research at the Social Welfare History makes the spell checker see red, the Archives helped uncover falsified data title “Primary Sourcery” was born. in the fight to censor comics in the The question of what we would apply 1950’s. The first Tretter Collection post it to soon became clear. was a note of appreciation for the The Tretter Collection is part of advice columnists “Dear Ann” and Archives and Special Collections (ASC) “Dear Abby” that was posted soon within the University of Minnesota after Pauline Phillips (Abby) passed been cast in bronze and attached to a granite Libraries. ASC has over a dozen away. base. units, from Children’s Literature and Harvey Milk was elected to a seat on the Sherlock Holmes to Immigration To access our website, go to: http:// San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. History and Performing Arts. We are a blog.lib.umn.edu/primarysourcery/ He served almost 11 months before he and Mayor were assassinated. In 2008 the story was made into a motion Lisa Vecoli Receives 2013 GLBTA picture starring Sean Penn, for which he won Leadership Award an Academy Award as Best Actor. Bruce Wolfe is a native Californian with a national reputation for monumental sculpture in bronze. Examples of his public commissions include the Barbara Jordan memorial in Austin, Texas as well as the bust of Steve Silver in front of Fugazi Hall in San Francisco. Steve Silver died of complications from AIDS in 1995. Silver scripted the zany and popular “Beach Blanket Babylon,” which remains to this day America’s longest running musical revue. Along with the bust, we have also added a number of news articles and photos from the competition as well as a pictorial history of Harvey Milk donated by photographer This spring the GLBTA Programs Lavender Diploma and celebrated for Daniel Nicoletta, Milk’s assistant at his camera Office recognized several community their accomplishments. shop on Castro Street. The bust is based on a members with awards. Lisa Vecoli photograph of Milk by Nicoletta. received a GLBTA Leadership Award Photo: GLBTA Program Office staff Our thanks go to both Bruce Wolfe and for her work at the Tretter Collection member, Frankie Jader presents award to Daniel Nicoletta for their extraordinary and on campus with the Programs Tretter Curator, Lisa Vecoli. generosity and support. The bust can be seen Office. The award presentation was Photo © Copyright by Sophia Hantzes All held during Lavender Graduation, in the reading room of the Andersen Library. rights reserved. Photo courtesy of the Tretter Collection when GLBT graduates are awarded a 10 Tretter Letter June, 2013 New Curator, continued from page 5 ‘GLBT 1001’ Students Visit the much as I can to help researchers find material. Creativity, patience and a Tretter Collection sense of humor are helpful. By Regina Kunzel MAB: What are 3 hallmarks My students in GLBT 1001: Introduction to GLBT/Q Studies spent their first of LGBT history that someone couple of months together in the classroom learning about the vibrant could locate within the Tretter interdisciplinary field of GLBT/Q Studies. Beginning with history, they read Collection? about early-twentieth-century queer urban social and cultural worlds, about LV: The GLBT press is often an homophile organizing in the 1950s, and about the backlash and hostility of the invaluable record for research. We mid-twentieth century that resulted in the purge of gay men and lesbians from have an almost complete run of the employment in the federal government and the aggressive policing of queer “The Advocate” (‘67-today) that gets social life. They learned about the first moment of organized queer resistance a lot of use. And the classics – “ONE to police harassment by transgender women at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Magazine” (‘53-‘67 ), “Mattachine Francisco’s Tenderloin in August of 1966, and about the rebellion at New York Review” (’55-‘66) and “The Ladder” City’s Stonewall Inn three years later. (’56-‘70). In March, a visit to the Tretter Collection provided them with the wonderful We also have most of the local opportunity to ground what they had learned about the diverse and complex publications – “Equal Time,” histories of GLBT/queer people. Tretter Collection Curator Lisa Vecoli offered “Lavender,” “GLC Voice,” “TC Gaze,” students a fascinating introduction to the collection and to the richness “Focus Point” and even the shorter of its holdings, impressing upon them how vulnerable GLBT history is to lived publications in the early 1970’s. marginalization, trivialization, and destruction, and how important it is to have it preserved and accessible. Lisa generously brought in some samples from the archive to give students the opportunity to engage in hands-on encounters with primary historical documents. Students were asked to write a few words about something they encountered there that surprised them, intrigued them, or that they wanted to learn more about. Several students were excited to see evidence of early local gay organizing in leaflets produced by the University of Minnesota student group F.R.E.E. (Fight Repression of Erotic Expression). One student worked to puzzle through an early political disagreement between the Daughters of Bilitis and ONE about whether to endorse a Gay bill of rights in an issue of “The Ladder.” Another read Gay news coverage of a series of murders of Gay men in the Twin Cities in the early 1980s that he had known nothing about. Students And I should highlight one of the who looked through periodicals and newsletters from the 1980s were struck strengths of the collection. Part of by news coverage in 1983, very early in the AIDS epidemic, and speculated the remarkable vision Jean had was about the terror of living in a time when so little was known about the virus. to make the collection international. Reading a 1983 issue of “Equal Times.” “I can only imagine how terrifying It would have been easy to limit it would be to be living in this time period where AIDS is everywhere,” one his collecting to Minnesota or the student wrote. Another was struck by an advertisement for a book in “Gay United States. But we have material Community News” addressed to young gay people under 18, long before the from all over the world, in 58 recent focus on queer youth in the “It Gets Better” campaign. Several students different languages. When he started were drawn to files containing samples from the collection’s materials on collecting, there was no reason to transgender history, where they read early narratives of transsexual identity. believe anyone would want this Students were surprised by the global scale of the collection and by its strength material, but he had the foresight not in international holdings. One was drawn to an issue of the monthly periodical only to collect but to have a global published by the French homophile organization Arcadie, one of a full run of perspective. the journal that is held at the Tretter. MAB: What are 3 unexpected Students in GLBT 1001 were grateful for the opportunity to leave the classroom pieces that can be found within for the day and to experience the archives. More broadly, they were grateful the Tretter Collection? for the existence of the Tretter Collection at the University of Minnesota. “The LV: That is a little like asking me to mere size of the collection was mind blowing,” one student wrote. “I had no pick my favorite child. But at the risk idea that this existed on campus,” another wrote. “I’m going back.” of being a bad curator, the truth is I Regina Kunzel is Chair and Professor of the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality do have a few items I especially love. Studies, Professor of History, and the Paul R. Frenzel Land Grant Chair in Liberal Arts New Curator, continued on page 12 Tretter Letter June, 2013 11 Nonprofit Org U.S. Postage PAID

NEWSLETTER FOR THE FRIENDS OF THE Twin Cities, MN TRETTER COLLECTION Permit No. 90155 The Tretter Collection Special Collections and Rare Books University of Minnesota Libraries 111 Elmer L. Andersen Library 222 21st Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 https://www.lib.umn.edu/scrbm/tretter Misspelled? Two copies? Please send corrections to [email protected]

New Curator, continued from page 11 And finally, I have to mention the book that belonged to Magnus Pride 2013 is Coming! One of the areas I have gotten to do Hirschfeld. Magnus was a physician, some research in is Gay marriage, so gay man and scholar of human sexual Join us in the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter two of my items are related to that. behavior in Berlin before World War History Pavilion during Twin Cities When I went looking I expected that II. He built a library of material on Pride this year! Over Pride weekend, I wouldn’t find much on the issue sexuality that drew scholars from all June 29 and 30, we will be in the before the 1990’s. But a very early over the world. When the Nazis came Pavilion on the east side of Loring copy of ONE Magazine, Volume 1, to power, they burned his library. If Park. We offer a lovely respite from Issue 8, published in August of 1953 you have seen images or news reels the overstimulation of Pride. And we has a cover story on Gay marriage. of book burnings in WWII, they are are air conditioned!! Stop in and enjoy What I learned was that the Gay/ probably Hirschfeld’s library. We have our history display with panels on the Lesbian community started talking a book that was rescued from the fire. Harlem Renaissance, World War II, about Gay marriage as soon as we It has burned edges but is intact. For early GLBT organizations and more. had a way to do so. We also started me, it is a symbol of the fact that there disagreeing from the start. The transition from a founder is hard are people who would like to erase for an archive. We knew we were losing My second item, and maybe my our history and it reinforces my belief a lot of knowledge and history when favorite, is a newspaper clipping. It in the importance of the archive. Jean-Nickolaus Tretter retired in 2011. I is a poll on the attitudes of young MAB: Are you willing to give was delighted that one of our founding Advisory Board members, Lisa Vecoli, was adults published in the Minneapolis me your copy of the X-Men Gay willing to step in on a temporary basis. Tribune in 1972. They asked a number Wedding issue? of questions, one of which was about It took me about a week (maybe less) to come to the conclusion that Lisa was support for Gay marriage. And over LV: Absolutely not! (But I donated it to perfect for the job, and I encouraged her 40 years ago, the responses were the collection, so you can come over and see it anytime you want.) to apply for the permanent position; we 50-46% IN FAVOR of Gay marriage. It made it official in January. I am confident is also the only time I have seen a poll that the coming years are going to be with a gender gap showing men more Photos courtesy of the Tretter Collection dynamic and exciting ones for the Tretter in favor of Gay marriage than women Collection, for Lisa and for all of us. (55-46%). I find these results amazing --Kris Kiesling, Director of Archives and and it makes me want to know more. Special Collections