Scope and arrangement
The Jonathan Ned Katz papers, dating from 1867 to 2021 (bulk dates: 1950s to 2021), reflect his life and career as an historian, author, LGBTQ rights advocate, teacher, and textile designer. The collection most heavily documents Katz's research and writings on LGBTQ history and activism. It also encompasses his personal life, family, friends, and the LGBTQ liberation movement.
The papers include research files, notes, and drafts of Katz's published books; essays; articles; lectures; reviews; diaries; and other writings. They also hold personal and professional correspondence; topical files; clippings; photographs; scrapbooks; and textile designs. Also present are sound and video recordings, which include interviews and oral histories with key figures in the LGBTQ liberation movement, such as historian and activist Allan Bérubé, activists Barbara Gittings and Tony Segura, and others (see Series IX).
The collection also holds the papers of Katz's father, Bernard Katz, and mother, Phyllis Brownstone Katz. Their lives and careers are revealed through writings, letters, work files, advertising designs, family papers, photographs, and scrapbooks. These files include documentation of Bernard Katz's production of concerts of African-American music at Town Hall; and of the founding and early history of the Jane Street Community Garden.
Series X: Additions holds content similar to those in Series I-VIII. For further details, see the scope and content notes for each series.
The Jonathan Ned Katz papers are arranged in eleven series:
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1947-2003
This series has two subseries, I.A. General Correspondence and I.B. Family Correspondence. The former comprises the bulk of the series and documents primarily Katz's research on gay history.
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1982-2009
This series holds correspondence, notes, minutes, and memoranda, relating to Katz's professional interests and activities as gay activist and historian of gay history. Included are papers relative to a proposal to establish an Institute for the Study of Sex in Society to serve as a focal point for research on sexuality from a social, historical and public policy perspective.
Files related to exhibits that Katz organized or was involved with include "Gay and Lesbian History, 1998"; "100 Years of the Homosexual Rights Movement", Berlin and "The Pink and the Blue: Lesbian and Gay Life at Yale and in Connecticut, 1642-2004." The files hold research materials, photographs, correspondence and programs.
The grant files document Katz's requests for financial aid from philanthropic and other institutions to support the research and writing of his historical documentaries, including his book on gay and lesbian history; a proposed documentary play based upon the life and writings of Walt Whitman; a book on the political economy of sex; a study of the history and origins of the state sodomy laws; and a book-length version of his article "The Invention of Heterosexuality" (Socialist Review, February 1990).
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1982-1990
The writings consist of corrected typescript drafts, page proofs, and galleys of the following works: Coming Out! A Documentary Play about Gay Life and Liberation (Arno Press, 1975); Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (T. Y. Crowell, 1976); Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary (Harper and Row, 1983); and an incomplete typescript of Resistance at Christiana: The Fugitive Slave Rebellion, Christiana, Pennsylvania, 1851 (T. Y. Crowell, 1974). The files also include multiple drafts of The Invention of Heterosexuality (Dutton, 1995). Following the typescripts of each work are topical files of correspondence (with publishers and others); permissions; promotion and publicity materials; copies of published reviews; and other papers.
Also present are typescripts of Katz's other writings, including are also, such as essays, lectures, and reviews on various subjects including American painting, American film, fugitive slaves, Marxism, sodomy in colonial America, and transgender people.
Later additions include material concerning the book Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality (University of Chicago Press, 2001) and an unpublished book, Showing Our Faces, which was re-imagined as a calendar.
Research files contain photocopies of scholarly articles, along with correspondence pertaining to the article.
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1984-2003
This series contains papers relating to academic courses on sexuality and heterosexuality taught by Katz at the Eugene Lang College of the New School for Social Research and at New York University. Included are administrative papers, course outlines, evaluations of students' classroom performance, students' papers corrected and graded, and a few photocopies of texts of reading assignments. Included also is a press release announcing a course on gay American history to be given by Mr. Katz in fulfillment of a writer-in-residence grant awarded by the New York State Council on the Arts.
Katz and Lisa Duggan taught a 12-session course called "Lesbian and Gay American History", 1984; the material does not reflect where the course took place. The Yale class was taught in 2003.
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1934-1974
This series consists of interview transcripts and a topical file of Mr. Katz's notes and papers relating to his research on gay and lesbian history. The bulk of the files consists of photocopies of source materials from various repositories accumulated by Katz during the course of his research. Some files contain handwritten notes, drafts of articles, and correspondence with scholars, historians, librarians, and archivists. Included are photocopies of papers relating to Henry Gerber, Harry Hay, Jim Kepner. The topics are listed in the container list below.
The papers relating to Henry Gerber, who was a founder of the Chicago Society for Human Rights, consist of photocopies of Gerber's correspondence (1940-1957), mainly to Manuel Boyfrank; and of photocopies of his writings on homosexuality, some of which were published in Chanticleer magazine (1934).
The papers relating to Harry Hay consist of a typed typescript copy of an interview conducted by Katz on March 31, 1974; and documents (some original) with accompanying annotations by Hay relating to the Mattachine Society of California and to Hay's personal career as a gay activist.
The papers relating to Jim Kepner consist of photocopies of Kepner's letters to Wally Jordan (1943 to 1944).
The interview transcripts in this series are based on the sound recordings found in Series IX.
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1967-1998
This series consists of a topical file of papers relating to Katz's personal life and career. Included are personal diary and journal notes (1967-1968, 1973-75) and a log (1978) of his daily activities; papers relating to his job searches; financial papers including royalty statements; copies of personal notes and memoranda; proposals for books and articles, proposals for meetings of independent scholars and gay and lesbian researchers, and a proposal to aid the 3 Dollar Bill Theater; papers relating to his speaking engagements; high school yearbook and variety show papers; and college notes and papers kept at Antioch College, Hunter College and the New School. Included also are papers relative to the Gay Academic Union, the Gay Socialist Action project, a Gay Socialist Study Group, and a national Gay Archives Committee; and Katz's C.I.A. and F.B.I. files obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
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1960s-1990s
The printed matter includes flyers, newsletters, press releases, announcements, programs, and pamphlets arranged alphabetically by author, by corporate title, or by subject. There is a separate file of unsorted press and magazine clippings.
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1960-1990s
This series documents Katz's work as a freelance textile designer through design samples on cloth and paper, including a cloth flag used in the 1972 production of the play Coming Out!. Many of the designs date from Katz's employment at New Group, Inc. (1965-1970)
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1930s-2017
The sound recordings consist of interviews, lectures, radio programs, and conference recordings.
The interviews are in two sections: Katz's research interviews with gay artists and figures in the LGBTQ liberation movement; and interviews with Katz, usually on radio talk shows. Katz's interview subjects include independent scholar and activist Allan Bérubé; Barbara Gittings, organizer of the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis; activist Harry Hay; the writer Christopher Isherwood; gay rights pioneers Morris Kight and W. Dorr Legg; Tony Segura, a founder of the homophile movement; composer/music critic Virgil Thomson; activist and author Randy Wicker; and the Reverend Robert Carter II, a gay Black clergyman. Also present are interviews with Ruth Peter Worth (a Jewish lesbian who escaped from Nazi Germany), conducted by Esther Newton. Katz carried out most of these interviews in the mid-1970s. Most of the interviews with Katz date from 1976 to 1977, when he was promoting Gay American History.
The lectures (some of which are recordings of classes taught by Katz at the School for Marxist Studies) discuss gay history and date mainly from 1974 to 1977. They also include a lecture titled "Toward a Marxist Theoretical Analysis of Homosexuality."
Other sound recordings include a Gay Activists Alliance news conference regarding a near-riot over gay issues at a New York City Council meeting in 1973; a Katz-hosted radio program on gay history (for WBAI); the memorial service for Katz's mother, Phyllis; Remembering Stonewall, a radio program by Michael Scherker; and a recording by the composer Jane Staab of songs she co-wrote with Katz for a musical.
The video recordings include Katz's home film production of Tom Sawyer he made at age 13; family home movies in New York and other cities dating from the 1950s; a New York City May Day parade in the 1930s; and a performance at Music and Art High School, presumably from Katz's teen years.
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1867-2021
This series contains papers donated by Jonathan Katz in 2021. They include his historical research files on LGBTQ history; files regarding the Katz-edited OutHistory.org website; diaries, calendars, and datebooks; art by Katz and Jack Dowling; samples of gay imagery in popular culture and advertising; and ten sets of subject files.
The historical research files include subject files; Katz-annotated historical writings; photographs and imagery of LGBTQ people through history; Katz's notes and drafts for The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams (these files also contain a complete, Katz-annotated copy of Adams' book Lesbian Love); research on John Fisk, Thomas Boulton, and Frederick Park (also in the subject files, set 9); and images for Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality (more files regarding that book are in subject files set 3; and under Woodcock, Charles Burger, in set 9).
The OutHistory files document the site's origins and development. They include correspondence with the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (the site's original host and funder); web designers and editors; content drafts and samples; and records of planning meetings and funding discussions.
The ten subject files contain material similar to those held in other series. These include correspondence with other researchers responding to or commenting on their work; writings, including Katz's columns for The Advocate in set 6, other essays in set 8, and poetry in set 2; project and book proposals (throughout the subject files); lectures and talks (see set 4, and throughout the subject files); files on The Invention of Heterosexuality (also called Theory of Sexuality), including reviews, drafts in article form, and publishing information (sets 2, 4, 7, and 8); files regarding Gay American History (sets 4, 5, 7, and throughout the series); correspondence regarding Freedom of Information requests for Jonathan and Bernard Katz's FBI files (sets 1, 4, and 10); files regarding Allan Bérubé (set 5, and see also the interview in Series IX); letters (set 5); Katz's work regarding aging in the LGBTQ community and his work with Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Elders (SAGE, see sets 5 and 6); notes, script drafts, and correspondence regarding the documentary film Words (set 8); and Katz's personal files, including records of his dating life (set 7) and his memoirs in various forms (sets 1, 3, 6, 7, and 8).
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1896-1985
The Bernard Katz papers document his research interests, advertising career, and family through notes, writings, letters, photographs, scrapbooks, drawings, graphic designs, advertising designs, clippings, a datebook, an address book, and sound recordings.
Bernard Katz's writings comprise the bulk of the series. They consist of notes and essay manuscripts on such topics as jazz and other Black music; Black regiments in the Spanish Civil war; the works of William Shakespeare; the pre-American Revolution HMS Gaspee affair; and the social history of the American colonies. Katz also wrote autobiographical essays, short fiction, plays, and poetry.
Katz's drawings, graphic designs, and advertisements date from the 1930s to the 1960s. Some were done for Hearn's Department Store.
Katz's production of jazz and blues concerts at Town Hall are covered in files for the Mezz Mezzrow event, the Bessie Smith tribute ("Blues for Bessie"), and "A Night in New Orleans." The series also holds photographs of clarinetist Bob Wilber and bassists Pops Foster, and Charles Traeger.
Family papers, photographs, and scrapbooks date from the late 19th century onward and document both Katz's family and the family of his wife, Phyllis Brownstone Katz. Other contents include a chronology of Katz's activities; certificates and awards; letters from colleagues, family, and friends
The papers of Phyllis Brownstone Katz pertain mainly to her co-founding and leadership of the Jane Street Community Garden in the early-1970s. They also hold condolence letters on the death of Bernard Katz, and papers regarding her editorial work at Parents magazine.