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Guide to the Tim Mayhew Collection on Gay Rights
1964-1999

Biographical Note

In the years following World War II, Seattle developed a reputation for being tolerant of homosexuality (by standards of the day). Nevertheless, most gay men and women in Seattle remained closeted and lived with the fear of harassment and discrimination. The Dorian Society, organized in 1967, was Seattle's first documented gay organization. It was part of a national "homophile" movement that emerged in the 1950s and continued to develop through the 1960s. The group sought to promote acceptance of gays in the larger society and to serve as a social organization for gays.

In the period following the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion in New York City, gay liberation organizations sprang up in cities across the country, including Seattle. Students at the University of Washington organized the Gay Student Association and the more radical Gay Liberation Front. The first Gay Community Center in Seattle was founded in 1971. Other organizations born in the 1970s include the Gay Women’s Alliance; the Gay Women’s Resource Center (now the Lesbian Resource Center); Seattle Gay Alliance; Union of Sexual Minorities; Stonewall Recovery Center; Lesbian Mother’s National Defense Fund; the Metropolitan Community Church; Parents, Families, Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG); and the Seattle Municipal Elections Committee.

In 1978, Initiative 13 attempted to repeal the Seattle ordinances protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination in housing and employment. It came on the heels of a national spate of successful anti-gay measures. The campaign galvanized the political voices of Seattle's gay community, and the measure was soundly defeated.

Tim Mayhew has been involved in gay activism in Seattle since the early 1970s. He was a member of the Seattle Gay Alliance in the early 1970s and served as the chair of its Education Committee, ca. 1972-1975. He was the SGA's lobbyist in Olympia, ca. 1973, and helped found Seattle's first Gay Community Center in 1971. Mayhew was also involved with the Gay Liberation Front. In the late 1970s he served as Seattle editor of the Northwest Gay Review, a gay newspaper based in Portland, and he was a member of the ACLU of Washington and served on its Sexual Minorities Committee, ca. 1977-1980. Mayhew lobbied in Olympia again, ca. 1981, on behalf of the Dorian Group, and in 1993 he helped found the Harvey Muggy Lesbian/Gay Democratic Organization.

Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, Mayhew saw himself as a “gay community archivist.” He collected materials related to gay activism in Seattle from groups he was involved in and from many other organizations.

Scope and Content

The Tim Mayhew Collection on Gay Rights documents a broad range of gay organizations in Seattle from the 1960s through the 1980s. The material includes organizational papers such as by-laws, minutes, and correspondence, as well as fliers, newsletters, brochures, programs, and other ephemera.

Mayhew collected much of the material himself in the course of actively participating in the various organizations represented, but he also collected material from groups he was not directly involved in. Some material was given to him by people who wanted to add to his informal archive or sent to him in his capacity as Seattle editor of the Northwest Gay Review. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to determine the original source of the material or the extent of Mayhew's own involvement with a given organization.

Mayhew focused his collecting on political and civil rights organizations. There is some material on Seattle's gay social organizations, businesses, and cultural activities (in the Directories and Ephemera series), but in general these areas are not covered very extensively. Most of the material pre-dates AIDS awareness; thus, AIDS organizations are not represented particularly well. There is some material on lesbian organizations, but the collection is heavily weighted toward male groups.

The collection is arranged primarily by organization. The Subject Series contains fliers, mailings, and newsletters from many local and national gay organizations, arranged alphabetically by organization or topic. Both national and local organizations are represented. Subgroups represent local organizations that are covered in greater depth, with minutes, agendas, correspondence, and other materials. There is also a smaller amount of material organized into general categories such as Directories of gay organizations and businesses, Ephemera related to various topics, Broadcast Editorials from local radio and television stations, Clippings, and Newsletters. Box 18 contains oversized materials from various series and subgroups.

The largest subgroup in the collection documents the Dorian Society, with major correspondence from Herb Lee, Mike Allen, and Ken Gilbert. Founded in 1969, the society was renamed the Seattle Gay Alliance in 1971, remaining under this name until it was dissolved in 1975. The group sought to educate gays and straights about homosexuality, to promote acceptance of gays in the larger society, and to serve as a social organization for gays. Its activities included public speaking, publishing a newsletter, organizing social events, and lobbying the state legislature. In 1969 the society opened Dorian House, home to one of the nation's first gay counseling services, and in 1971 it helped found Seattle's first Gay Community Center. Both Dorian House, later renamed the Seattle Counseling Service for Sexual Minorities, and the Gay Community Center went on to become independent organizations and are represented by subgroups in the collection.

The Dorian Group started as an informal meeting of gay businessmen who gathered for lunch in Seattle's Pioneer Square. Politicians, national gay figures, and local officials were invited to these meetings. The group incorporated in 1975 and revived the name of the earlier organization, the Dorian Society. The Dorian Group continued to work for gay rights through the early 1980s. Its emphasis on reform rather than revolution represented a new kind of gay activism that emerged across the country in the mid-1970s.

Several political and civil rights organizations are represented in the collection. The Seattle Municipal Elections Committee for Gays (SEAMEC) was founded in 1977 to evaluate candidates for public office and endorse those candidates who supported gay rights. Mayhew served on the Candidate Evaluation Committee, ca. 1977-1981. Citizens to Retain Fair Employment, the Seattle Committee Against Thirteen, and Women Against Thirteen were among the groups organized to fight Initiative 13 (which unsuccessfully attempted to delete the words "sexual orientation" from Seattle anti-discrimination ordinances for housing and employment). The Washington Sexual Minorities Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union worked to identify violations of gay persons' civil rights for the ACLU to pursue. The collection includes material on issues such as marriage law, sex and sodomy laws, gay prisoners rights, police harassment, and immigration law.

The collection also includes material from several gay religious organizations. The Metropolitan Community Church, founded in Los Angeles in the 1960s, formed a congregation in Seattle in 1972. Evangelicals Concerned, a group for gay Evangelical Christians, formed in 1976 and became the Grace Gospel Chapel in 1977.

Accession 4440-2 consists of handbills, fliers, and other ephemera related to gay activities and gay organizations, particularly in Seattle. The materials, which are unprocessed, span the years 1978 to 1998, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1995 to 1998.

Restrictions on Access

The collection is open to all users. A small number of files and items are restricted until 2010.

Restrictions on Use

The creator's literary rights are in the public domain.

Preferred Citation

Cite as: Tim Mayhew Collection on Gay Rights.

Processing Info

Processing of Accession 4440-001 was completed in May of 1994. Accessions 4440-002 and 4440-003 is unprocessed.

A small number of photographs were relocated to the Tim Mayhew Photograph Collection in the division in 2004.

Separated Material

A large number of newspapers were part of this donation. They included small runs of several Northwest gay publications and a smattering of gay publications from around the country. Publications that Mayhew had a role in creating and those that were part of the records of the issuing organzation were retained for this collection. Other Northwest publications were offered to the University of Washington Libraries Microform and Newspaper collection; after microfilming, some of these were added to the Libraries' collections, and some are available in the Pacific Northwest Collection in this division. Other materials, particularly single issues of non-Northwest publications, were transferred to other libraries that lacked those issues. These institutions include the International Gay Archives at the New York Public Library and the ONE Institute-International Gay and Lesbian Archives in Los Angeles.

Bibliography

Atkins, Gary, Gay Seattle: Stories of Exile and Belonging (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002).

Other Finding Aids

Information about the Tim Mayhew Photograph Collection is available in the repository.

Related Material

The Northwest Lesbian and Gay History Museum Project collects oral histories, photographs, documents, ephemera, and objects documenting the history of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people in the Pacific Northwest.

The Washington State Historical Society holds the records of the Northwest AIDS Foundation and the papers of gay activist Charlie Brydon and state Representative Cal Anderson, Washington's first openly gay legislator.

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