Collection Scope and Content Note

The Bruce Voeller collection consists of correspondence, reprints and photocopies of reports, periodicals, and the practical and perfunctory unsolicited mailings of information by a large number of organizations, associations, and gay special interest groups, all of which concern themselves with gay and lesbian issues of health care, activism and politics, public awareness, celebration, and fundraising. These mailings display the varied statements of information and notification, invitations, and assertions of need and concern in gay and lesbian society, from the liberation and matters of entitlement and empowerment, to its recognition of and dealing with AIDS, both politically and medically. Several hundred American gay and lesbian organizations and groups are represented in the collection. Voeller's role in the transfer of the Mariposa Education and Research Foundation's Archives to Cornell University, and the establishment of David B. Goodstein's bequest is documented in the correspondence. Also included is the typescript of prose fiction by Voeller, "Murder at McGurk."

Also, files pertaining to the Responsive Gay Collective, the Gay Media Alliance, demonstrations in New York City, the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee, the 1979 Gay Pride Celebration in New York City, the Lesbian and Gay Neighbors of Lower Manhattan, and the Chelsea Gay Association.

Also, photographs of Voeller with other gay activists and sexuality researchers including Evelyn Hooker, staff of the National Gay Task Force, David McWhirter, Andrew Mattison, and Jean O'Leary; Voeller's research files on condoms and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases; Voeller's articles on topics of botany, sexually transmitted diseases, and gay fathers and gay rights; and Voeller's files from the gay rights movement and his work with the Mariposa Foundation, 1973-1990.

Files on botany include a small collection of dried plant specimens.