THROUGH
THE
large,
paneled
oak
doors
and
the
buttressed
corridors,
past
the
medieval
tapestries
and
regal
paintings
of
Yale’s
forefathers,
Jonathan
D.
Katz
escorts
visitors
to
a
cloistered
exhibit
room
in
the
corner
of
Sterling
Memorial
Library.
The
first
hint
of
a
significant
difference
between
other
freestanding
library
exhibits
at
Yale
and
this
one
is
the
array
of
Pride
T-shirts
lined
up
beneath
the
portrait
of
Benjamin
Franklin
bearing
down
on
eight
enclosed,
lighted
cabinets.
The
second
is
a
collection
of
late
19th
century
photographs
of
Yale
men
dressed
in
drag,
peering
out
at
onlookers
from
one
of
the
cabinets.
Visitors
might
wonder
whether
John
William
Sterling,
a
lawyer
for
the
Rockefeller
family,
would
have
approved
of
housing
a
gay
culture
exhibit
—
“The
Pink
and
the
Blue:
Lesbian
and
Gay
Life
at
Yale:
1642-2004”
—
in
the
library
he
endowed
upon
his
death
in
1918.
Then
Katz
points
to
another
case,
which
contains
an
early
photograph
of
Sterling,
next
to
a
placard
describing
his
50-year
relationship
with
his
longtime
partner,
James
Orville
Bloss.
“We
discovered
in
researching
this
project
that
Sterling
was
gay,”
says
Katz,
the
executive
coordinator
of
the
Yale’s
Larry
Kramer
Initiative
for
Lesbian
and
Gay
Studies.
“When
he
died,
he
left
a
provision
in
his
will
that
said
Bloss
could
only
be
buried
in
his
mausoleum
if
he
remained
single
for
the
remainder
of
his
life.
That
signaled
a
devotion
beyond
friendship.”
The
post-mortem
outing
of
one
of
its
most
well
known
benefactors
is
proof
of
just
how
far
Yale,
known
among
the
Ivies
—
Harvard,
Yale,
Princeton,
Cornell,
Columbia,
Brown,
University
of
Pennsylvania
and
Dartmouth
—
as
the
gay-friendliest,
has
come
on
gay
issues
in
its
303-year
history.
It
didn’t
always
prove
easy
to
overcome
the
social
juggernaut
of
Ivy
tradition,
as
“The
Pink
and
the
Blue”
illustrates
with
secret
diaries
and
scrapbooks,
forbidden
love
letters
and
furtive
photographs.
Katz
says
he
designed
the
exhibit,
which
runs
until
May
14,to
reveal
Yale’s
struggles
with
gay
culture
as
well
as
its
early
embrace
of
it
during
the
’70s.
It
represents
the
first
time
an
American
university
has
not
only
unearthed
its
gay
past,
but
also
endowed
a
substantial
exhibition
to
reveal
it.
IN
THE
PORTENTIOUS
aisles
of
the
Yale
archives,
students
of
a
gay
history
class
taught
by
famed
historian
and
Kramer
Initiative
visiting
professor,
Jonathan
Ned
Katz
(he
is
unrelated
to
the
exhibit’s
coordinator),
began
pulling
out
dusty
relics
of
Connecticut’s
gay
history
last
spring
for
research
projects.
The
overwhelming
number
of
Yale-specific
artifacts
ultimately
resulted
in
“The
Pink
and
the
Blue”
—
pink
as
the
universal
gay
insignia,
and
blue
as
Yale’s
school
color
—
and
the
final
exhibit
points
out
that
it
is
nearly
impossible
to
acknowledge
Connecticut’s
gay
past
without
mentioning
Yale.
As
one
of
America’s
first
colonies,
the
Puritan
forefathers
of
Connecticut
enacted
one
of
the
country’s
original
anti-sodomy
laws
in
1642,
mandating
execution
for
“any
man
caught
lying
with
another
man.”
Four
years
later,
the
citizens
of
New
Haven,
where
Yale
was
founded
as
a
divinity
school,
executed
their
first
offender,
a
man
by
the
name
of
William
Plaine,
the
exhibit
states.
Yale
remained
in
its
infancy
during
the
18th
century,
and
a
large
portion
of
its
gay
history
went
unrecorded.
But
a
journal
obtained
from
transfer
student
Albert
Dodd
revealed
the
intense
love
some
men
felt
for
other
men
at
Yale
as
early
as
1837.
From
that
point,
Katz
says
a
groundswell
of
surreptitious
homosexual
activity
took
place,
often
hidden
by
the
theatrical
garb
of
performance
groups
still
active
today,
such
as
the
renowned
a
cappella
group,
the
Whiffenpoofs.
When
Cole
Porter
arrived
at
Yale
in
1909,
wearing
a
checked
suit
and
salmon
tie,
he
became
one
of
the
few
people
for
whom
Yale
provided
what
Katz
called,
“
a
taste
of
unfettered
possibility.”
The
young
composer
immediately
became
friends
with
other
students
whom
Porter’s
biographers
described
as
homosexual,
wealthy
and
devoted
to
theater
and
wit.
BUT
FOR
LARRY
Kramer,
the
writer
and
AIDS
activist
responsible
for
the
$1
million
grant
that
led
to
the
Larry
Kramer
Initiative
and
this
exhibit,
the
oppressive
nature
of
Yale
in
the
’50s
led
to
some
very
dark
days.
“When
I
went
to
Yale,
I
thought
I
was
the
only
gay
person
in
the
world.
I
tried
to
kill
myself
because
I
was
so
lonely,”
Kramer
later
wrote
of
a
suicide
attempt
in
which
he
swallowed
200
aspirin.
Despite
his
painful
memories,
when
Yale
approached
Kramer,
who
founded
ACT-UP,
he
said
he
would
donate
money
to
the
school
only
if
it
was
used
to
establish
something
gay-related.
At
first,
Yale
officials
said
no
to
Kramer’s
vision,
but
media
publicity
and
some
artful
compromise
resulted
in
a
five-year
program
that
involves
bringing
in
visiting
faculty
members,
hosting
conferences
and
coordinating
academic
endeavors
related
to
gay
studies.
“We
started
this
as
a
litmus
test
of
Yale’s
commitment
to
its
own
statements,”
says
Katz,
who
came
to
Yale
via
his
former
organization,
Queer
Nation,
and
as
a
tenured
art
history
professor
at
the
State
University
of
New
York-Stony
Brook.
“But
we
keep
getting
the
consistent
message
from
the
administration
that
it
wants
this
to
happen,
not
tepidly,
but
as
the
advent
of
a
leading
program.”
Kramer
has
expressed
more
interest
in
a
curriculum
light
on
theory
and
heavy
on
history,
believing
that
will
better
serve
gays’
social
acceptance.
With
60
exhibits,
including
historian
Carl
Van
Vechten’s
queer
scrapbooks
and
photographs
that
indicate
prominent
Connecticut
physician
Alan
Hart
was
transgendered,
“The
Pink
and
the
Blue”
has
enough
history
for
a
book.
Katz
hopes
to
publish
one
on
this
subject
within
the
next
few
years.
“I
see
this
as
an
extension
of
my
street
activism,”
he
says.
“A
successful
program
at
Yale
could
help
promote
lesbian
and
gay
studies
nationally.”
