Proposal for a History of the Fire Island Pines

OutHistory.org, the educational, not-for-profit website on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer history, is now actively seeking funds to hire a scholar to research and write a documented, illustrated history of the Fire Island Pines.

The historical article will be published on OutHistory.og in 20011.

OutHistory.org is produced by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, an institute at the City University of New York.

The proposed article and future book will fill an important gap in knowledge. Cherry Grove and Provincetown are each subjects of scholarly studies, but there is little published research on the Pines.

The style of the proposed, illustrated, carefully researched, article will include accessible prose and stress dramatic events in Pines history.

This historical article will include information about:

• the changing relations between gay people and straight people, and men and women;

• the impact of AIDS on the Pines community;

• relations between summer home owners and year-round owners;

• major real estate, tourism, and business development;

• changing cultural relations between Cherry Grove and the Pines;

• the history of police surveillance of homosexual men in the Pines;

• and many other challenging subjects.

The research and writing of the article will be supervised by historian Jonathan Ned Katz, Co-Director of OutHistory.org and Lauren Gutterman, a graduate student in history at New York University, and the Coordinator of OutHistory.org.

The scholar selected to head this project will make every effort to assist and collaborate with Robert Bonanno, a researcher who has contacted OutHistory.org and who has started a Facebook page on the history of the Fire Island Pines, and is collecting documentation of that history.

To encourage this research OutHistory.org has started a Bibliography and a Timeline on the History of the Fire Island Pines at:

http://209.200.244.13/wiki/Bibliography:_History_of_the_Fire_Island_Pines

and

http://209.200.244.13/wiki/Timeline:_History_of_the_Fire_Island_Pines

DONATIONS

Donations are tax deductible to the full extent of the law. To initiate this research and hire a researcher, make transcriptions of interviews, copy and scan photographs, secure permissions, travel, etc. OutHistory is seeking $10,000, and an additional $10,000 to support the ongoing operation of OutHistory.org in 2011.

Donate online:

To donate on line to the funding of this history go to http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Donate_online

Be sure to write “For OutHistory Fire Island Pines Project” in the memo line.

Donate by mail:

To donate by mail, please make your check to “CLAGS” (Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies), and be sure to write “For OutHistory Fire Island Pines Project” in the memo line. Mail check to:

CLAGS, Room 7115

Graduate Center

City University of New York

365 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10016-4309.

To learn more about this project contact Katz at: jnk123mac.com.

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