- physdesc
-
{"format"=>"structured", "physdesc_components"=>[{"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"11 linear feet", "unit"=>"linear feet"}, {"name"=>"extent", "value"=>"21 boxes; 1 oversized folder", "unit"=>"containers"}], "supress_display"=>true}
- unitid
-
{"value"=>"MssCol 2909", "type"=>"local_call"}
{"value"=>"2909", "type"=>"local_mss"}
- unitdate
-
{"value"=>"1941-1996", "type"=>"inclusive", "normal"=>"1941/1996"}
- date_inclusive_start
-
1941
- date_inclusive_end
-
1996
- keydate
-
1941
- unittitle
-
{"value"=>"Lester Q. Strong papers"}
- repository
-
{"value"=>"<span class=\"corpname\">The New York Public Library. <span class=\"subarea\">Manuscripts and Archives Division</span></span> <div class=\"address\"> <span class=\"addressline\">New York, New York</span></div>"}
- abstract
-
{"value"=>"The papers include correspondence, writings, and audiovisual materials which reflect Lester Strong's personal life and his career as writer and documenter of gay culture. Included is a collection of his family's World War II papers"}
- prefercite
-
{"value"=>"<p>Lester Q. Strong Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.</p>"}
- origination
-
{"value"=>"Strong, Lester Q", "type"=>"persname"}
- bioghist
-
{"value"=>"<p>Lester Q Strong is an author and editor noted for essays, criticism and oral histories focusing on gay culture and the arts. Lester Quintan Strong was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico on August 3, 1946, the first son of Dale Howard Strong (1914-1983), a World War II veteran and survivor of the Bataan Death March, and Lena Zuber Strong (1908-1996). He lived in New Mexico until 1968, graduating from St. John's College in Santa Fe, where he received a B.A. in Liberal Arts. Moving to New York City, he enrolled in the New School for Social Research and completed an M.A. in Philosophy in 1972.</p> <p>From 1969 until 1974, Mr. Strong was employed as a copy editor for two American Institute of Physics publications, Physical Review, and Journal of the Optical Society of America. As an editing supervisor for McGraw-Hill from 1974 to 1979, he was responsible for the editing, design and production of titles for publication. Since 1979, he has focused on freelance writing and editing.</p> <p>Mr. Strong spent several years writing literary criticism of Vardis Fisher's Testament of Man series, which he confessed had a strong influence on his early intellectual life. His essays, \"A Darkness Touched by Lights\" and \"The Myth of Eden,\" were combined into the book, The Past in the Present: Two Essays on History and Myth in Vardis Fisher's Testament of Man (Revisionist Press, Brooklyn, 1979). His article, \"Vardis Fisher Revisited\" (South Dakota Review, Autumn 1986), reflected a reinterpretation of that influence.</p> <p>Mr. Strong came out to his family in 1978, the time at which he began living with his lover, Ted Gerald Rauch. As of this writing, they have continued a strong and devoted relationship. Mr. Strong's first published article, \"Hometown Revisited: Gay Liberation Reaches the Provinces\" (Gay Community News, September, 1981) about gay Albuquerque, was based on interviews with members of the community. He became interested in the lives of older gay men and women through a local New York organization, Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE). From 1982 to 1987, he was involved with SAGE's Oral History Project, wrote guidelines for the project, conducted interviews with the older gay population, and proposed a book based on SAGE's taped interviews. This interview approach has continued throughout Mr. Strong's literary career.</p> <p>Not long after his father's death and the chance discovery of his original diary and handwritten manuscript, Mr. Strong began to research his father's World War II experiences. He gathered letters, taped interviews and other materials to document this aspect of his family's history. His investigations brought to light the wartime broadcast by Radio Tokyo of a message to his mother supposedly from his father.</p> <p>As a freelance writer, Mr. Strong has contributed essays, articles, reviews and interviews to gay and mainstream publications, including Metroline, Out! Magazine, St. John's Review and Southern Voice. The process of using interviews has helped him establish contacts in the gay arts community and in the publishing world and, in 1994, led to the development of his \"Gay Arts Beat\" columns. The columns highlight the involvement of gay people in the arts and how they are received by the art worlds in which they participate. Described by Mr. Strong as \"a series of articles that explore and celebrate the role lesbians and gay men play in the arts\", they have appeared in a number of gay publications across the country.</p> <p>Currently (2004) Strong is serving as a senior editor for Art & Understanding magazine.</p>"}
- scopecontent
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Lester Q. Strong Papers reflect Mr. Strong's personal life, his career as a writer documenting gay culture, and his documentation of his family's World War II experiences. The majority of the collection consists of project files relating to Strong's articles, including research materials, interview notes, drafts, final versions, relevant correspondence and copies of publications. Many of these project files contain transcripts and sound recordings of interviews he conducted. Prominent interviewees include Edward Albee, Anthony Burgess, Quentin Crisp, Harvey Fierstein, Edward Lucie-Smith, and John Rechy. The collection also contains his personal and professional correspondence as well as the Strong family's collected letters written during World War II, while Strong's father Dale was held as a prisoner of war by the Japanese in the Philippines. Dale's narrative of his experience \"My Reminiscence\" is also contained in the collection.</p>"}
{"value"=>"<p class='list-head'>The Lester Q. Strong papers are arranged in six series:</p>\n<ul class='arrangement series-descriptions'>\n<li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2909#c183402'>I. Correspondence</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1964-2001</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The bulk of the correspondence (1966-2001) is arranged alphabetically in two subseries: A. Personal; and B. Professional. The personal correspondence consists mainly of incoming cards, letters and picture postcards from friends, colleagues and family, containing personal anecdotes, critiques of published and unpublished works, discussions of gay issues. There are a few outgoing letters by Mr. Strong including his coming out letter (6-21-78) to his mother, Lena Strong, and copies of two letters (11-22-81 and 11-5-82) to Sebastian Lopez, an Argentinean refugee who later became a citizen of the Netherlands. The Flint file contains correspondence with Shirley and Richard Flint, authors and scholars of the Spanish colonial period in New Mexico.</p> <p>The professional correspondence (1980-2001) includes both incoming and outgoing letters. Among these are cover letters sent with manuscripts submitted for publication; rejection letters; and a few letters to editors discussing travel and other common interests. Filed at the end of the subseries is a folder of miscellaneous correspondence with editors arranged chronologically.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2909#c183458'>II. Writings</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1971-2001</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The files contain research materials, interview notes, occasional photographs, rough drafts, final publication versions, relevant correspondence and copies of the various publications where the writings appeared. Many of the files contain Mr. Strong's handwritten content descriptions.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2909#c183592'>III. University Papers</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1964-1973</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The bulk of the papers in this series, arranged chronologically, consists of Mr. Strong's notes, exams and papers from St. John's College, Santa Fe, New Mexico (1964-1968), and The New School for Social Research, New York City, New York (1968-1973). Included is a booklet profiling the first graduating class of St. John's College, of which Mr. Strong was a member, and Mr. Strong's seminar paper written for Hannah Arendt (Fall, 1971), with her handwritten comments. This paper was used as the basis for Mr. Strong's 1995 article, \"'I Have Become a Problem to Myself': Augustine's Theory of Will and the Notion of Human Inwardness\" [see Series 2 (Writings)].</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2909#c183606'>IV. Juvenilia</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1959-1964</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series is arranged chronologically and contains early writings by Mr. Strong during his high school and college years, and copies of school newspapers, yearbooks, and literary magazines in which his work appeared.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2909#c183611'>V. Family Papers</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1941-1965</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>This series documents the experiences of Mr. Strong's father, Dale Strong, during World War II, and consists of correspondence and handwritten and typed manuscripts of Dale's memoir, \"My Reminiscence.\"</p> <p>The correspondence (1941-1965) is arranged alphabetically and contains letters, telegrams, photographs, POW postal cards and War Department circulars from 1941-1953. Correspondents include Lena Strong, Dale Strong, the Red Cross, the War Department and Richard French, who was responsible for typing Dale's memoir. Most notable are letters, cards and a government telegram received by Lena concerning a November, 22, 1944 POW message, supposedly from Dale, broadcast on Radio Tokyo [see Series 6 (Audiovisual Materials)]; American and Japanese POW postcards [see also Series 2 (Writings)]; the War Department's official correspondence concerning prisoner of war status, family allotments, repatriations (including letters from Gen. George Kenney and President Truman) and claims for compensation; and Dale's diary started in April, 1944, and written on the backs of Lena's 1943 letters. The page order of this diary is arranged by the date of Lena's letters, resulting in the diary entries being out of date order.</p> <p>Dale Strong's eyewitness account of the war years, 1941-1945, include descriptions of air raids in the Philippine Islands and Tokyo; his experiences on the Bataan Death March, beginning at Marvales and ending at San Fernando La Pompanga; the regimen of the POW Camps O'Donnell and Clark Field; his transfer to Japan and life in the steel mill between Yokahama and Tokyo and the mining town, Ashio; liberation in September, 1945; and his arrival in San Francisco a month later. Included is a notebook which records various activities and army songs and poems. Dale's handwritten manuscript of \"My Reminiscences\", a typed, laminated version and an unpublished account of Dale's experiences as a prisoner of war at Clark Field in the Philippines, written for Reader's Digest by Richard French, are included.</p></div></li><li><div class='series-title'><a href='/mss/2909#c183626'>VI. Sound Recordings</a></div>\n<div class='series-date'>1944-2001</div>\n<div class='series-description'><p>The collection includes a sound recording of the POW message read over Radio Tokyo November 22, 1944, supposedly from Mr. Strong's father, Dale Strong, to his mother, Lena Strong and 41 audiocassettes of interviews conducted by Mr. Strong in connection with his writings.</p></div></li></ul>\n", "type"=>"arrangement"}
- arrangement
-
{"value"=>"<p>The Lester Q. Strong Papers are organized in the following series:</p> <ul> <li>I. Correspondence, 1964-2001</li> <li>II. Writings, 1971-2001</li> <li>III. University Papers, 1964-1973</li> <li>IV. Juvenilia, 1959-1964</li> <li>V. Family Papers, 1941-1965</li> <li>VI. Sound Recordings, 1944-2001</li></ul>", "supress_display"=>true}
- acqinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Gift of Lester Q. Strong, 1996</p>"}
- accessrestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>Some writings in Series II are subject to restrictions as indicated on related permission forms filed in Series VII.</p>"}
- userestrict
-
{"value"=>"<p>No reproduction of sound recordings without permission of interviewee.</p>"}
- langmaterial
-
{"value"=>"English"}
- processinfo
-
{"value"=>"<p>Compiled by Ellen Levine; revised by Donald Mennerich; machine readable finding aid created by FAKER.</p>"}
- extent_statement
-
11 linear feet (21 boxes; 1 oversized folder)
- date_start
-
1941
- date_end
-
1996