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Collection Data
- Description
- Craig Rodwell (1940-1993) was an American gay rights activist. He was active in the Mattachine Society in New York City and in 1967 founded the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, the first bookstore devoted to serious writing by gay authors. A participant in the Stonewall riots in 1969, Rodwell figured prominently in the gay liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Collection consists of correspondence, photographs, printed matter, artifacts, and other items documenting Rodwell's work as an activist and proprietor of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop. Correspondence is mainly incoming letters from friends and colleagues, and writings, ca. early 1970s, are on gay-related topics. Rodwell's files contain clippings, flyers, correspondence and other materials all pertaining to aspects of gay and lesbian politics and culture. Other papers include printed matter, Martin Duberman's interview with Rodwell, and materials from Rodwell's childhood and youth. Also, photographs and slides; artifacts such as political buttons, banner, T-shirts, and puzzle; and two sound recordings. (Sixteen commercial sound recordings were transferred to the International Gay Information Center Archives.).
- Names
- Rodwell, Craig L. (Creator)
- Rodwell, Craig L. (Author)
- Barker, Elver A. (Contributor)
- Brown, Rita Mae (Contributor)
- Duberman, Martin B. (Contributor)
- Gittings, Barbara, 1932-2007 (Contributor)
- Gunnison, Foster, 1925-1994 (Contributor)
- Leitsch, Dick (Contributor)
- Rechy, John (Contributor)
- Tobin, Kay (Contributor)
- Wicker, Randy (Contributor)
- Dates / Origin
- Date Created: 1940 - 1993
- Library locations
- Manuscripts and Archives Division
- Shelf locator: MssCol 2606
- Topics
- AIDS (Disease)
- Christian Science
- Gay activists
- Gay men
- Homosexuality
- Lesbians
- Stonewall Riots, New York, N.Y., 1969
- Booksellers
- Rodwell, Craig L.
- Milk, Harvey
- Daughters of Bilitis
- Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations
- Gay People in Christian Science
- Mattachine Society
- North American Conference of Homophile Organizations
- Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop
- Society for Individual Rights
- Genres
- Banners
- Buttons (Information artifacts)
- Photographs
- Posters
- Scrapbooks
- Live sound recordings
- T-shirts
- Clippings
- Fliers (Ephemera)
- Ephemera
- Correspondence
- Notes
- Biographical/historical: The gay rights activist Craig Rodwell was born in 1940. In the late 1950s, he moved to New York City, where he was active in the Mattachine Society and other homophile organizations. In 1967, he founded the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, the first bookstore devoted to serious writing by gay authors. A participant in the Stonewall riots in 1969, Rodwell figured prominently in the gay liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. He died of cancer in 1993.
Craig Rodwell was born in 1940 in Chicago, Illinois. When he was less than a year old, his parents separated and later divorced; unable to find adequate day-care for Craig while she worked as a secretary, his mother Marion enrolled him in the Chicago Junior School, a boys' boarding school affiliated with the Christian Science Church, in 1947. Describing his years there in an interview with the historian Martin Duberman, Rodwell characterized them as significant in giving him a lifelong affinity for the teachings of Christian Science, in particular the precept that "truth is the highest good; " and for providing him with early opportunities to experiment with same-sex relationships, which enabled him to think of himself as gay from a young age without the guilt and confusion that many other young people experienced.
After graduation from the Junior School in 1954, Rodwell moved home to attend Sullivan High School in Chicago. One of his lovers during those years was an older man from whom Rodwell first learned about the Mattachine Society. Intrigued by the idea of an organization that advocated civil rights for homosexuals, Rodwell resolved to join it when he reached the required age of 21.
Rodwell briefly studied ballet in Boston before moving to New York in 1958, where he took ballet classes, worked at odd jobs, and volunteered at the Mattachine Society, although he became disappointed at the group's lack of activism. In 1961, he had a brief relationship with Harvey Milk, the future gay rights activist and San Francisco city supervisor. Milk's termination of their affair led Rodwell to attempt suicide, which resulted in his being hospitalized for several weeks. (Correspondence concerning this period in Rodwell's life is in Box 1.)
In early 1964, Rodwell sought to infuse Mattachine with new energy by creating Mattachine Young Adults, which increased Mattachine's membership and eventually brought some of Rodwell's more militant friends into its leadership. He was also an early member of East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) and the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO), and from 1964 to 1969 was a participant in the Annual Reminder demonstrations in Philadelphia, in which neatly-dressed lesbians and gay men picketed in front of Independence Hall on the Fourth of July to inform passers-by that some Americans still lacked basic human rights.
The idea of creating a bookstore devoted to serious writing (i. e., not pornography) by gay authors came to Rodwell in the mid-1960s. In late 1967, he opened the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, which quickly became an informal community center in Greenwich Village, as well as the headquarters for an organization Rodwell started, the Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN). During the Stonewall riots of June 1969, Rodwell produced and distributed leaflets under HYMN's aegis, calling for an end to the Mafia and police presence in gay bars. (See Box 5.)
In the aftermath of Stonewall, and with the emergence of the gay liberation movement in the 1970s, Rodwell's activism increased further. He was a founder of the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee, which staged annual demonstrations, later known as the Gay Pride Marches, on the anniversary of the riots, and was among the creators of Gay People in Christian Science (GPICS) in 1978.
In 1992, a year after testing negative for HIV, Rodwell was diagnosed as having stomach cancer. He died in June 1993.
- Content: Clippings, handbills, correspondence, photographs, artifacts, and other items documenting Rodwell's work as an activist and the proprietor of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop.
Craig Rodwell's papers consist primarily of newspaper and magazine clippings, political handbills, correspondence, photographs, and such artifacts as political buttons and T-shirts. The majority of material dates from the 1960s and 1970s, and documents Rodwell's activism for gay rights before and after the Stonewall demonstrations of 1969. Aside from scattered letters from friends, there is little of a personal nature.
- Physical Description
- Extent: 7 linear feet (21 boxes)
- Photographic prints
- Slides
- Type of Resource
- Text
- Still image
- Sound recording
- Identifiers
- NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b12103186
- MSS Unit ID: 2606
- Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): b2296d10-a5d6-013d-182a-0242ac110002
