Together with creative figures like Truman Capote, W.H. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.Ĭurator Confidential: Safe/Haven: Gay Life in 1950s Cherry Groveĭuring weekends and summers in the pre-Stonewall era, gay men and women, including many New Yorkers, traveled to the secluded beach town of Cherry Grove on Fire Island where they found opportunities for sexual exploration and self-expression – behaviour that was both stigmatised and criminalised in the straight world. Many thankx to New-York Historical Society for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. But that does not mean that these photographs are any less valuable in documenting queer resistance to the status quo. Black, Hispanic, Latino and poor white gay trash need not apply. Having fun in their lives.Īcknowledgement must be made that this party life on Fire Island in the 1950s was only for the white, middle-upper classes. In the 1950s, in an era of “passing” – where queer people had to pass themselves off as something else, something they were not, in order to keep a job or secure a roof over their heads – it is refreshing to see these candid, vernacular, performative photographs of, admittedly, privileged white gays playing, camping it up and having fun with their liberation and identity construction.
I seem to be on a roll at the moment with a series of exhibitions that this archive loves to highlight: human beings who picture, capture, depict, image, or photograph the subversive, marginalised, disenfranchised, hidden ‘Other’ in society – as an act of resistance against living lives of conformity, against the prejudices of patriarchy and religion, and against the oppression of bigotry and discrimination. In the Grove, they could openly socialise and experience a joyful and rare freedom of sexual expression. Homosexuals faced physical assault, verbal attacks, family rejection, loss of employment, imprisonment, and even involuntary psychiatric hospitalisation. Auden, Weekend Guest at Hot House, weekend house parties, Working-class gay women, Young Man Posing for PolaroidĮxhibition dates: 14th May – 11th October, 2021Ĭurators: Brian Clark, Susan Kravitz, and Parker Sargent for the Cherry Grove Archives Collection and coordinated at New-York Historical by Rebecca Klassen, associate curator of material cultureĬherry Grove Archives Collection, Gift of Harold Seeleyĭuring the 1950s, Cherry Grove provided gay individuals a much-needed escape from the homophobia and the legal and social persecution that many experienced in the era of McCarthyism following World War II. Tags: AIDS crisis, AIDS crisis Cherry Grove, American documentary photography, American documentary photography of gay life, American gay life in the 1950s, APCG Ball, Carrington House, Carson McCullers, Cherry Grove, Cherry Grove Archives Collection, Cherry Grove Beach, Cherry Grove costume parties, Cherry Grove on Fire Island, Christopher Isherwood, cross-dressing, Diaper Party II, DJ Beast and Candy Stevens Ice Palace, Duffy's Hotel bar, Ed Burke in Ethel Merman's Mermaid Costume, End of Season APCG Ball Community House, Fire Island, Fire Island community, first gay beach towns in the United States, gay and lesbian community, gay community fundraisers, gay liberation, Gay Life in 1950s Cherry Grove, gay men and women in the pre-Stonewall era, gay sanctuary, gay-themed theatre productions, Hot House, Hot House Cherry Grove, Kay Guinness, lesbians and gay men on Fire Island, Marty Mann, McCarthyism following World War II, Men on the Beach, mid-20th-century gay life on Fire Island, New York Historical Society, One Hundred Club Party, Outside of Bea Greer's Home, Parasol Party, Patricia Fitzgerald and Kay Guinness, Patricia Fitzgerald Kay Guinness Mary Ronin and Bea Greer, Patricia Highsmith, pre-Stonewall era, privileged white gay life in the 1950s, Safe/Haven, Safe/Haven: Gay Life in 1950s Cherry Grove, same-sex relationships, The Cherry Grove Archives Collection, Truman Capote, Two Women Getting Sun, W.H. Categories: American, american photographers, beauty, black and white photography, documentary photography, exhibition, existence, gallery website, intimacy, light, memory, New York, photographic series, photography, portrait, psychological, quotation, reality, space, time and works on paper