The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), pioneering writer, chronicler of life in Paris, and lesbian, stood at the center of arts and literary salons, social circles, and aesthetic movements, aided by her domestic partner, Alice Toklas (1877-1967). The Stein Papers consist of manuscripts, letters, photographs, printed materials, personal papers, and art and objects that document the life and work of Stein and Toklas, principally up until 1946, the year of Stein’s death. A selection of images from their papers can be found in the Beinecke digital library.

Mabel Dodge Luhan (1879-1962) was a major cultural figure in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. She is best known as a bohemian advocate of “free love” and a matron of the arts who brought together artists, writers, and radicals in her Greenwich Village salon and later opened an artists’ colony in New Mexico. In her autobiography Intimate Memories (1933), she discusses her bisexual experiences. The collection spans the years 1859-1961 and consists of letters, manuscripts, photographs, and personal papers, with the bulk of the material dating from 1913-1951.

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (1886-1961), Imagist poet, and Bryher (1894-1983), novelist, formed a life-long partnership and interacted with a range of significant authors of the twentieth century, from Sylvia Beach to Havelock Ellis. The H.D. Papers span the years 1887-1977, and the Bryher Papers 1812-1978. Both collections include correspondence, manuscripts, and photographs documenting their lives and careers. A selection of images from their papers can be found in the Beinecke digital library: http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/hd.html

Monroe Wheeler (1899–1988) was best known as an innovative curator at the Museum of Modern Art, where he was director of exhibitions and publications from 1938 to 1967. Glenway Wescott (1901-1987), poet and novelist, was Wheeler’s domestic partner from 1920 on. In 1926 Wheeler met George Platt Lynes (1907-1955), who became a third partner in the existing relationship. The Monroe Wheeler Papers consist of correspondence, manuscripts, personal papers, photographs, graphic items, clippings, and objects. The collection spans the years 1890-1995.

Kathryn Cavarly Hulme (1900-1981), journalist, novelist, and travel writer, achieved critical acclaim with her bestselling novel A Nun’s Story (1956) based on the experiences of her partner Marie-Louise Habets, a Belgian nurse and former nun. The two women lived together on the island of Kauai from 1960 until Hulme’s death. The papers document her life and career, with the bulk of material dating from 1945-1981.

Countee Cullen (1903-1946) was one of the leading poets of the Harlem Renaissance. He was twice married; his first wife, Yolande DuBois, the daughter of W.E.B. DuBois, left him due to his sexual desire for other men, a subtle theme in his poetry. The collection contains correspondence and writings.

Jared French (1905-1988), a painter who specialized in the medium of egg tempera, was part of a circle of friends including Paul Cadmus and George Tooker, a group of artists sometimes referred to as “magic realists.” The French papers contain correspondence, photographs, and other materials documenting the life and career of French and his friends and collaborators. The papers include over 500 photographs from the PaJaMa collective.

Sam Steward (1909-1993) was an American writer, university professor, tattoo artist, and pornographer, who spent most of his life in Chicago and, later, Oakland.  His diaries, journals, photographs, and “stud list” provide an extensive record of his sex life and insight into mid-century American sexual culture, particularly among sailors and other working-class men.  His papers include his extensive erotica oeuvre and correspondence with his friends Gertrude Stein, Alfred Kinsey, and George Platt Lynes, among others.

Donald Windham (1920-2010), an American novelist (Two People, 1965) and memoirist (Lost Friendships, 1987), was a close friend and confidant of Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Pavel Tchelitchew, Paul Cadmus, Glenway Wescott, George Platt Lynes, and other major gay writers, painters, and artists.  His life partner of 45 years, the actor and publisher Sandy Campbell (1922-1988), published several of Windham’s books though the Stamperia Valdonega.  Their journals, datebooks, and extensive correspondence provide remarkable insight into gay social and literary circles.

James Baldwin (1924-1987) was an American novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and civil rights activist, whose writing dealt primarily with racial and sexual issues in the mid-twentieth-century United States. The Baldwin Papers contain material documenting a short period of Baldwin’s young adult life between 1941-1945, when Baldwin was just beginning his literary career. The papers include various drafts of Baldwin’s “Crying Holy,” which culminated in his first novel Go Tell it on the Mountain, published in 1953. A selection of images can be found in the Beinecke digital library: http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/digitallibrary/baldwin.html

James Ingram Merrill (1926–1995) was a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, essayist, novelist and playwright. His memoir, A Different Person (1993), is a candid portrait of gay life in the early 1950s. The collection consists of writings, correspondence, photographs, slides, audiocassettes, artwork, printed material, and other papers documenting aspects of his work as a poet and writer.

Edmund White (b. 1940), a celebrated novelist, essayist, and cultural critic, has written biographies of Jean Genet, Marcel Proust, and Arthur Rimbaud, several volumes of memoirs, and numerous novels, including A Boy’s Own Story (1982) and Hotel de Dream (2007). The collection includes personal and professional correspondence, manuscripts, research files, biographical material, financial papers, photographs, slides, audiovisual material, and ephemera.

Over 15,000 books, magazines, photographs, postcards, and items of ephemera document the ways in which gender has been defined, redefined, and bent over the past 200+ years. Gathered by collector Laura Bailey, the material documents forms of transgressive gender presentation from cowgirls to transsexuals and almost everything in-between. Acquired in 2010, this collection is in the process of preparation for public access. Please contact the curator to learn more.

Through the Second World War. Typically distributed through barber shops and cigar stores, and among teenagers at schools, Tijuana bibles frequently depicted celebrities, public officials, and popular comic book characters in sexually compromising situations. The Beinecke holds over 200 of these comics under the auspices of the Richard Merkin collection and its General collection. [To locate the bibles, search using the term “Tijuana bible” on Orbis and Beinecke Uncataloged Acquisitions database.]