Jim Kepner papers

The materials in the Jim Kepner Papers comprise the largest of the sixteen collections of records from the ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives, the world's largest repository of LGBTQ materials. These files document the lives of LGBTQ individuals from 1940 to 2012, the organizations they founded, the discrimination they faced, and the devastation of the AIDS crisis. Most of the items concern individuals or groups from California. Kepner (1923-1997) was a writer, historian, and activist who founded the Western Gay Archives (later renamed the National Gay Archives and then the International Gay & Lesbian Archives). Vigorously active in the gay liberation movement, Kepner began collecting gay and lesbian related material in the 1940s and writing about the gay and lesbian community in the 1950s. The bulk of this collection consists of Kepner's writings, including autobiographies; non-fiction books and essays ; science fiction publications; journals and notebooks; as well as fiction, poetry and erotica. Researchers will also find Kepner's extensive correspondence files; class material for courses he taught in gay and lesbian studies; and minutes and organizational material for the many organizations in which he participated throughout his life. This collection is vital for anyone researching the many facets of LGBTQ life in California and the United States in the second half of the twentieth century.