Guide to the Robert Roth Papers,
1973-1990

Robert Roth was born in Englewood, New Jersey in 1950. He graduated from the Horace Mann School in 1967, Cornell University in 1971, and the Fordham Law School in 1975. While at Cornell, he was one of the co-founders of the Student Homophile League (later the Gay Liberation Front), which at the time was only the second gay rights organization among U.S. universities. As a lawyer, he specialized in landlord-tenant cases, winning the landmark Chin vs. London Management case in 1982, which ruled that unmarried tenants shared survivors' rights to an apartment. Another courtroom victory established First Amendment rights for the Swedish gay magazine "Revolt," which had been seized by U.S. Customs. In New York City, where he lived, Roth was involved with several legal and human rights organizations, particularly the Bar Association for Human Rights of Greater New York.

a principal project of Robert Roth was the compilation and cataloguing of international gay publications, and the accumulation of information and documents pertaining to the international gay rights movement. In addition to collecting numerous periodicals from many countries and all parts of the world, he corresponded with gay people in developing countries where there was no gay freedom movement, providing contacts and materials to those who might otherwise have had little awareness of or access to the international gay liberation movement. He used his several travels abroad to collect further printed material and publications to broaden his international collection. Many of the publications are very rare, and provide insight into the emerging issues of gay rights throughout the world in the 1970s and 1980s. One component of his international collection is lists and bibliographies of international gay organizations, and publications. He also corresponded with several leaders in the movement, especially John D. Stamford of "Spartacus," John Hubert and "Paz y Liberacion," and Claude Courouve of "Aleph."

Roth privately published a newsletter (1977-1979), which discussed the international gay rights movement, and was instrumental in promoting and distributing other publications concerned with the issue, particularly "Paz y Liberacion." Under the pseudonym "Calaph Timmerman," Roth published in 1988 an article "Home Remedies for the Holocaust - A Few Simple Techniques for Staying Alive," which was widely distributed. another major undertaking was a microform project with the National Gay Archives and Library, for which he composed an extensive bibliography of gay periodicals and publications.

Roth died of AIDS related causes and Hodgkins Disease in July of 1990. Prior to his death he had been in contact with Brenda J. Marston of the Human Sexuality Collection, and had made arrangements for the gift of his personal papers and international collection.

The Collection has been divided into six series, which basically reflect the organizational pattern employed by Roth, in which the primary level of access in the folder title. His original folder headings have been in all cases retained. A short personal group (Series I) includes a small amount of personal correspondence, his "Calaph Timmerman" correspondence, and his initial dealings with the Cornell University Department of Manuscripts and Archives Human Sexuality Collection. Series II consists of Roth's subject files, which include files on individuals, corporations, service organizations, gay and human rights organizations, articles from magazines and newspapers, and material on the Fordham Law School alumni group, and the Cornell University Gay and Lesbian Alumni Association, and many other topics. These are presently organized as he kept them, non-alphabetically. As with the International files (Series III) groupings were made conceptually, or according to his personal understanding of the material. In addition to the many periodicals and publications, Series III includes correspondence with and letters from people around the world. Series IV consists of a legal file, concerned chiefly with landlord-tenant cases. Roth kept a separate AIDS file (Series V), of health publications and scientific findings. Series VI is a diverse collection of miscellaneous writings and printed material, which were perhaps intended to be interfiled in other parts of his collection.

In addition to the publications and correspondence, the collection includes two videos, erotic and pornographic material and catalogs which are distributed in different series, legal briefs and publications, photographs, and a selection of perfunctory solicitation mailings dealing mainly with gay and human rights organizations.

An index to the periodicals follows the box and folder listings, but does not always include the substantial number of titles within specific nation folders in Series III. The "France" and "Japan" folders particularly contain many publications.

Some American publications were removed from the collection and distributed into other parts of the Human Sexuality Collection. A list of these is available, as is a bibliography Roth compiled for the National Gay Archives and Library Microform Project, though it is not to be inferred that all these titles remained in the collection when it was acquired by the Human Sexuality Collection.

Related collections include the Cornell University Gay Liberation Records (Student Homophile League), #37-6-1589, and the Mariposa Foundation Collection, #7300, to which Roth had previously donated international material.