Foster Gunnison, Jr. Papers
Gunnison, Foster, 1925-1994
Collector
mixed material
administrative records
broadsides (notices)
correspondence
financial records
manuscripts (document genre)
newsletters
photographs
speeches (documents)
1945
1994
55
reformatted digital
<a href="https://archivessearch.lib.uconn.edu/repositories/2/resources/413" show="New" actuate="OnRequest">Foster Gunnison, Jr. Papers finding aid</a>. The Foster Gunnison Papers are comprised of personal correspondence, organizational records, conference proceedings, student organization records, serial publications and periodicals, posters and fliers, buttons, newspaper clippings, and photographs. The homophile movement of the 1960s, gay and lesbian rights movements of the 1970s, smoker’s rights movement of the 1980s and 1990s, and several barbershop quartet organizations, as well as some of Gunnison's activities in relation to the movements and organizations, are represented in the collection. Bulk of the material dates from 1962 to 1993.
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, and 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 1960's.
Archives & Special Collections, University of Connecticut Library
Foster Gunnison, Jr. was born in 1925 in Bronxville, New York. In 1944 he entered Haverford College and soon after transferred to Columbia University, graduating in 1949.
Gunnison moved to Hartford, Connecticut, in 1955 to pursue a Masters degree in psychology at Trinity College. After completing a second Masters degree at Trinity, in philosophy, he visited the New York City offices of the Mattachine Society. The year was 1964 and as Gunnison explained to receptionist Craig Rodwell, who would later emerge as a radical figure in the Society and an organizing force throughout the city, he had "known for some time that he was not developing into a heterosexual." Gunnison, who was in his early 40s, was looking for opportunities to volunteer.
Gunnison's decision to join the Mattachine Society, the nation's oldest homophile organization, established in San Francisco in the early 1950s, took place in the context of a growing public dialog about and resistance to the theories of Drs. Bieber and Socarides that characterized homosexuality as a pathological disorder. Within the rapidly growing and increasingly active homophile movement, organizations such as Mattachine, ONE and Daughters of Bilitis were joined by new groups such as the Society for Individual Rights and the Council on Religion and the Homosexual. Groups shifted attention from the dialog about the origins of homosexuality to efforts aimed at opposing discriminatory practices and promoting social reforms. In the late 1960s, few years before the Stonewall riots of 1969, student leaders and campus groups emerged as facilitating forces for change, bolstering the organizations' membership and in many cases their radicalism. Yet amid calls for centralization and unity within the movement, the new ranks challenged the "old guard" -- their leadership, agendas, and decisions on behalf of these organizations -- and facilitated the development of splinter groups and localized movements.
In the mid 1960s, Gunnison involved himself in the Eastern Conference of Homophile Organizations ( ECHO), an early coalition of organizations seeking the creation of a national homophile organization, offering his services as secretary. In 1966, he was appointed Chair of the Credentials Committee for the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations. From 1965 to 1969, Gunnison collected the office and conference records of ECHO and NACHO, soon after expanding the scope of his collecting activities to include the records and periodicals of several gay, and some lesbian, organizations throughout the United States. During this period Gunnison founded his own organization, the Institute for Social Ethics ( ISE), which he described as a "libertarian-oriented research facility and think tank for controversial social issues." Under the guise of ISE, Gunnison authored the pamphlet An Introduction to the Homophile Movement (1967).
In the early 1970s, Gunnison's interests and the direction of the ISE shifted. An avid cigar smoker, Gunnison turned his attention to smoker's rights and support for pro-smoking organizations. In 1984 he founded the American Puffer Alliance which he described as the first independent smokers liberation organization in the United States. The aim of the organization was to advocate for individual rights and the right of personal comfort. In 1985 APA began its annual Smoke-In Day, a counterdemonstration to the American Cancer Society's Smoke-Out Day. From 1992 to 1993, Gunnison authored a series of articles for American Smokers Journal entitled "A Smokers Manifesto."
Gunnison continued his association with the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America and smokers rights organizations through the 1970s and until his death in 1994.
The collection was donated in 1996 by Foster Gunnison's sister.
Barbershop quartets
Gay liberation movement
Homosexuality
Legislation
Eastern Conference of Homophile Organizations (ECHO)
Institute of Social Ethics (ISE)
MSS 1996.0009
In Copyright
University of Connecticut Libraries
eng
These Materials are provided for educational and research purposes only.
http://hdl.handle.net/11134/20002:19960009