Scope and Contents
While most of Grumley's writings explored alternative legends and lifestyles, he also composed short works of whimsy for both children and adults. In addition to preparing texts, he drew illustrations for several of his own projects, such as a proposed book on tarot, and created images to accompany other writers' words; also in the collection are more than one hundred of his stylized ink drawings. Equally important are Grumley's set of daily journals and engagement calendars which provide an intimate narrative of the activities, culture, and community of an American writer fully experiencing life in New York, Rome, and London in the 1970s and 1980s, in particular a life lived in the midst of the AIDS epidemic.
Dates
- 1910 - 1988
- Majority of material found within 1963 - 1988
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
Conditions Governing Use
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Arrangement
Extent
13 Linear Feet (18 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Catalog Record
A record for this collection is available in Orbis, the Yale University Library catalog
Persistent URL
Overview
Michael Grumley (1941-1988)
During the early 1980s Grumley worked part-time at Endicott Booksellers, a neighborhood store, otherwise devoting much of his energy to his research and writing projects. Four of his five published books dealt with disparate topics, but all explored alternative theories and lifestyles. The first, Atlantis: the Autobiography of a Search (Doubleday, 1970), was co-written with Robert Ferro, and presented a dual first-person narrative of their trip to the Bahamas in the Ferro family's yacht. His second, also for Doubleday, was There Are Giants in the Earth (1974), a study of legends surrounding Bigfoot (Sasquatch). Grumley provided the text to accompany Ed Gallucci's photographs for Hard Corps: Studies in Leather and Sadomasochism (Dutton, 1977). His After Midnight (Scribner, 1978) profiled a group of people employed on night shifts, including workers in a zoo, hospital, baby powder factory, and on a shrimp boat. Grumley wrote reviews and essays for periodicals such as Stagebill, Philadelphia Gay News, and New York Native, where his weekly column, "Uptown," was regularly featured between 1980 and 1984. Additionally, he contributed illustrations to a number of publications such as Black Men/White Men: a Gay Anthology (Gay Sunshine Press, 1983). His final work, Life Drawing: a novel (Grove Weidenfeld, 1991) was published posthumously.
Michael Grumley and Robert Ferro were affiliated with a literary group known as the Violet Quill, whose seven members, as men writing for men, are regarded as one of the strongest collective voices of the gay male experience in the post-Stonewall era. Authors Christopher Cox, Andrew Holleran, Felice Picano, Edmund White, George Whitmore, Ferro, and Grumley met several times in 1979, 1980, and 1981 to read aloud from their works in progress. Also on the agenda were discussions of how they could work together to promote recognition, acceptance, and publication of gay literature beyond the boundaries of their own community. Of the VQ writers, Michael Grumley and Robert Ferro were the first to die from AIDS-related complications, both in 1988 at age 46, Grumley on April 28 and Ferro on July 11; they were followed by Whitmore in 1989 and Cox in 1990.
Processing Information
- AIDS (Disease)
- American fiction -- 20th Century
- Appointment books -- United States -- New York -- 20th Century
- Atlantis (Legendary place)
- Authors, American -- 20th Century -- Archives
- Barbrook, Marguerite, 1903-
- Bimini Islands (Bahamas) -- Description and travel
- Cleaver, Diane
- Diaries -- United States -- New York -- 20th Century
- Dinsdale, Tim
- Drawings (visual works) -- 20th Century
- Ferro, Robert
- Gay men -- Fiction
- Gay men -- United States
- Gay men's writings, American
- Geographical myths
- Gibson, Morgan, 1929-
- Gordon, Robert, 1932-
- Gotfryd, Alex
- Grumley, Michael
- Holiday, F. W. (Frederick William), 1921-1979
- Illustrations -- United States -- 20th Century
- Iowa Writers' Workshop
- Italy -- Description and travel -- 20th Century
- LGBTQ resource
- Labor -- United States -- Case studies
- Labor movement -- United States -- Case studies
- Loch Ness monster
- New York World's Fair (1964-1965 New York, N.Y.)
- Primates -- Folklore
- Ross, Nancy Wilson, 1901-1986
- Sasquatch
- Turolla, Pino
- Violet Quill (Group of writers)
- Working class -- United States -- Case studies
- Yeti
Creator
- Title
- Guide to the Michael Grumley Papers
- Author
- by Sandra Markham
- Date
- 2009
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description note
- Finding aid written in English.
Part of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Repository
Location
121 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Opening Hours
Access Information
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