Program Type:
Lecture- Registration is required for this event.
- Registration is no longer available for this event.
- This event is for registrants age Over 18 and above.
Program Description
Event Details
During 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, behavior that was both stigmatized and criminalized in the straight world. Together with creative figures like Truman Capote, W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, and Patricia Highsmith, these visitors to the Grove took pleasure in the costumed parties, theatrical events, and liberated atmosphere that this gay sanctuary provided.
On view outdoors in New-York Historical’s rear courtyard, this exhibition explores the gay and lesbian community that flourished during the 1950s in Cherry Grove through some 70 enlarged photographs and additional ephemera from the unique holdings of the Cherry Grove Archives Collection. (Curated by 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 culture).
Hosted on Zoom. Free and open to all.
This program is brought to you by the New-York Historical Society in partnership with North Castle Public Library, John C. Hart Memorial Library, Greenburgh Public Library, and Warner Library.