Special Collection #0001:
The William F. Damon Papers
1965?-1984, 2 linear feet

These papers and photographs document the life of William Forster Damon (1943-1985?), including his involvement in the gay communities of Philadelphia; Provincetown, MA and Key West, FL.  Most items relate primarily to Damon's personal history.  Because Damon lived and worked in two well-known gay resorts, these materials offer many glimpses of a larger gay world.  Also, since he spent approximately the first twenty years and the last six years of his life in Philadelphia, the papers offer a window on the changes Philadelphia experiences between the late 1960s and the 1980s.

Bill Damon was born in Philadelphia in 1943.  In the late 1960s, he was a staff writer and contributing editor for Drum, a gay magazine published by Philadelphia's Janus Society.  He served as the East Coast director of the Committee to Fight Exclusion of Homosexuals from the Draft (1968-1970) and as a member of the Homosexual Law Reform Society and the Delaware Valley Council on Religion and the Homosexual.  During this time, he also attended the East Coast Homophile Conference in Washington.  After Drum ceased publication, Damon worked briefly for its successor magazine, Fast PACE (1969).  In the 1970s, he owned, managed or worked in several inns in Provincetown and wrote for gay newspapers, including the Philadelphia Gay News.  He was Massachusetts state director of Gays for Schapp (1976) and was a consultant on Elaine Noble's Senate campaign (1977).  While living in Key West, Damon worked against Anita Bryant's antigay crusade and was active in civic organizations and electoral politics (1977).  He moved back to Philadelphia in 1979.  In the early 1980s, he played key roles in political campaigns for Edward Kennedy and C. DeLores Tucker.  During these years, he was a member of the Walt Whitman Democratic Club.  He did work for the Eromin Center and Au Courant gay newsmagazine.

Shortly before his death, Damon arranged for donation of these papers to the Library/Archives.  Access is unrestricted.