Newly Discovered Harvey Milk Letters from 1950s at Auction

June 16, 2009 - PRLog -- Chicago: Leslie Hindman Auctioneers is pleased to announce the sale of two revealing letters written during the 1950s by Harvey Milk, who twenty years later went on to become a San Francisco icon and an early champion of gay rights. The two letters are from Milk to his good friend Patrick Mormon, whom he befriended while serving in the Navy.

Both letters, although written over fifty years ago, are very relevant to today’s social and political movements, addressing “gay marriage” as well as the military’s ban of gay servicemen and servicewomen. The letters will be a highlight in the Fine Books and Manuscripts auction on July 28, 2009.

Milk became the first openly gay man to hold public office in the state of California. He was rarely open about his homosexuality or political involvement until after the countercultural movements of the 1960s. Conversely, in his private communications, such as his letters to Mormon while in the Navy, the younger Milk is placed at the forefront of two of the most significant civil rights issues of today - the allowance of gays in the military and the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Milk joined the Navy during the Korean War and served aboard the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake as a diving officer. In 1955, he was discharged for undisclosed reasons. During his campaign in San Francisco in the 1970s, a rumor circulated that Milk had been dishonorably discharged from the Navy due to reports of his homosexuality. Milk denied this, but allowed the rumor to propagate for political purposes. The first of the two letters offered at auction sheds light on the history of Milk’s Navy discharge and the ethics of outing homosexuals in the 1950s for young gay men in the Navy. In a letter accompanied by an envelope postmarked December 15, 1954, Norfolk, VA, Milk writes:  

Pat –
Don’t say or do anything. I’ve been turned in by Johnny Teynel and Marty ‘Kid’ (illegible) and a third party - Harvey.

During the Korean War, there were five types of discharge from the Navy: honorable, general, undesirable, bad conduct and dishonorable. Gay servicemen found guilty of engaging in homosexual acts were issued a dishonorable discharge. However, gay service members were frequently issued undesirable discharges for allegations of homosexual tendencies without the proof of engagement in sexual acts. Therefore, unmasking an individual’s homosexuality lay mainly upon the verbal accusations of fellow servicemen. The reasons for Milk’s discharge are debatable, but scholars today have generally agreed they were unrelated to his homosexuality. Yet, the short, cautious tone of the letter to Pat Mormon, wherein Milk does not even disclose a return address, suggests that even if his fellow servicemen’s allegations did not lead to an undesirable discharge, the threat was at one point very real to Harvey.

In the second letter, postmarked USS Kittiwake, New York, NY, with a specific date unknown, Milk reveals to Mormon his intentions to be “married” to an unnamed lover and move to Dallas, Texas Milk writes:

I’m just starting 10 days leave (in 5 min) and I’m on my way to Dallas, Texas to see someone. If things work out as I want I may be a happily married man by the end of this year. ‘Gay marriage,’ that is. I think I wrote you about him – well we wrote each other and before long he wanted me to come to Texas – here I come. Will let you know how things work out . . .  

In the summer of 1956 at Riis Park Beach, Queens, New York, Milk met and fell in love with Joe Campbell. They moved to Dallas, Texas in 1957, where they enjoyed a fairly safe middle-class “marriage” for seven years. Milk’s “gay marriage” to Joe Campbell stands in sharp contrast to the anti-marriage sentiments of the 60s and 70s.  However, for a short while, “marriage” offered Milk and Campbell a sense of structure and stability that a closeted life would not allow.

The autographed letters will be offered at auction at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers during the Fine Books and Manuscripts auction on Tuesday, July 28, 2009 and will be on public exhibition Sunday, July 26th and Monday, July 27th.  

Leslie Hindman Auctioneers’ thirty years of experience and expertise has earned the auction house an international reputation for achieving record prices. The firm specializes in post-war and contemporary art; Old Master; 19th and 20th century American and European paintings, prints, drawings, and sculpture; furniture and decorative arts; fine jewelry and timepieces; vintage couture and accessories; and fine books and manuscripts. We are currently accepting consignments for upcoming auctions.  For a confidential complimentary appraisal, please contact our offices at 312.280.1212 or visit our website at http://www.lesliehindman.com.

For more information, please contact Mary S. Williams at 312.334.4236 or by email at marywilliams@lesliehindman.com.