In the early 1980s, with the gay community in the terrifying grip of an unidentified new disease, New York City lawyer Harry Weintraub started collecting photographs.

Three decades later, Weintraub's collection exceeds 10,000 items dating to the 1860s. Many photographs are deeply personal, ranging from candid snapshots to formal 19th-century portraits and from Hollywood stars' studio portraits to 1950s physique photos.

The photographs and related documents have come to Cornell University Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections as the Harry H. Weintraub Collection of Gay-Related Photography and Historical Documentation. It includes 150 years of photographs, magazines, pornography and ephemera -- and even a few Cornell-specific items, including a photo of a man posed in the arms of the A.D. White statue on the Arts Quad.

The Weintraub Collection enhances the library's Human Sexuality Collection, which was established in 1988 and has grown to become one of the pre-eminent sexuality collections in the country.

Hooray for Gay:
Pre-Stonewall Images from the Collection of Harry Weintraub

As part of the events celebrating the 25th anniversary of Cornell University Library’s Human Sexuality Collection, we are bringing highlights of this important gift of photographs from Harry H. Weintraub to the Boo-Hooray Gallery in New York City, from March 30 through April 8, 2013. For more details, see the press release.

Boo-Hooray Gallery
265 Canal St, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10013