Allan Bérubé

Allan Bérubé
Born Allan Ronald Bérubé
December 3, 1946
Springfield, Massachusetts
Died December 11, 2007(2007-12-11) (aged 61)
Liberty, New York
Nationality American
Occupation Historian, activist, author
Notable work Coming Out Under Fire
Partner(s) John Nelson
Awards Lambda Book Award, MacArthur Fellowship

Allan Bérubé (December 3, 1946 December 11, 2007) was an American historian, activist, independent scholar, self-described "community-based" researcher and college drop-out, and award-winning author, best known for his research and writing about homosexual members of the American Armed Forces during World War II.[1] He also wrote essays about the intersection of class and race in gay culture, and about growing up in a poor, working-class family, his French-Canadian roots, and about his experience of anti-AIDS activism.

Among Bérubé's published works was the 1990 book Coming Out Under Fire, which examined the stories of gay men and women in the U.S. military between 1941 and 1945. The book used interviews with gay veterans, government documents, and other sources to discuss the social and political issues that faced over 9,000 servicemen and women during World War II. The book earned Bérubé the Lambda Literary Award for outstanding Gay Men's Nonfiction book of 1990[2] and was later adapted as a film in 1994, narrated by Salome Jens and Max Cole, with a screenplay by Bérubé and the film's director, Arthur Dong. The film received a Peabody Award for excellence in documentary media in 1995. Bérubé received a MacArthur Fellowship (often called the "genius grant") from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 1996. He received a Rockefeller grant from the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in 1994 to research a book on the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union, and he was working on this book at the time of his death.

Bérubé was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and lived with his family in Monson, Massachusetts, and later in a trailer park near the waterfront in Bayonne, New Jersey. He lived for a time in Boston and for many years in San Francisco. He moved to New York City, and finally settled in Liberty, New York, where he died in 2007.

Starting in 1979, Bérubé was interviewed about his work in publications including Time (magazine), The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Advocate, Christopher Street (magazine), Gay Community News (Boston), and the San Francisco Examiner. His many radio and television appearances included interviews by Studs Terkel, Sonia Freedman on CNN, and two by Terry Gross on National Public Radio's Fresh Air.

Bérubé was twice elected Trustee, Village of Liberty, Liberty, NY, 2003 and 2005. He also played a major role in saving the historic Munson Diner, which was moved to Liberty from Manhattan in 2005.

Personal and professional papers

The records of Bérubé's life and work are preserved by the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco, of which he was a founding member. Bérubé donated the research and administrative files of his World War II Project to the society in 1995, with an accretion in 2000 (collection no. 1995-16). That collection is processed and open to researchers; a finding aid is available on the Web at the Online Archive of California.

Bérubé also donated the records of the Forget-Me-Nots (collection no. 1989-10), an affinity group of which he was a member; the group performed civil disobedience at the United States Supreme Court during the 1987 Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, with each participant protesting in honor of an individual who had died of AIDS.

Following Bérubé's death, the executors of his estate donated his complete personal and professional papers to the Historical Society. The society has processed the papers, opened them to researchers and posted an online finding aid; the collection includes more than 75 linear feet (150-plus boxes) of records.[3] A number of other collections of personal papers and organizational records at the GLBT Historical Society also include correspondence from Bérubé and other material documenting his work; details are available by searching the society's online catalog of manuscript collections.

Selected works

Books

Essays

Film, TV

Media

Conference Presentations & Unpublished Essays

Awards

As author, historian, lecturer, teacher

For film Coming Out Under Fire

(Berube was co-screenwriter of documentary based on his book of the same title)

Liberty and Sullivan County, New York

Public service

Liberty and Sullivan County, New York

San Francisco

National

Employment and entrepreneurial activities

Archives/research

Teaching

Consulting

Education

Obituaries

Bibliography

S., K. "Outing History: Allan Berube, X'68, wrote Coming Out Under Fire to tell the history of gay men and lesbian women in World War II." University of Chicago Magazine, February 1997. available online

United States Senate.

Quotations from Allan Bérubé

"I do my work now in the borderlands between social classes, between the university and the community, between heterosexual and homosexual, between educated speech and down-to-earth talk, between Franco-American and Québécois, between my family and the gay community." From the essay "Intellectual Desire."

"None of us can do our best work until we believe that the life of the mind really does belong to us." From the essay "Intellectual Desire."

Further reading

Archival Resources

References

This biography and list of accomplishments is being compiled from documents and notes in Bérubé's files and from research in other cited sources.

  1. Woo, Elaine (2007-12-17). "Allan Bérubé; gay historian chronicled roles in WWII". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2007-12-21.
  2. "Lambda Literary Foundation, Award recipients 1988-1991". Archived from the original on January 11, 2007.
  3. "Out of the Boxes: Historical Society Opens Archives of Pioneering Historian Allan Bérubé". History Happens. March 2013. Retrieved 2013-02-28.
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