An Annual Gay Picnic at Stewart Park

by Olivia VF Chaudhury, MA student in Historic Preservation Planning

The photographs below were taken at the 1982 annual Gay Picnic at Stewart Park, hosted by Gay People at Cornell (GAYPAC). The first photograph shows several men socializing at the picnic, one with his arm around another. A woman is shown seated in the background. Another photograph, a close-up, focuses in on one man’s earring. Other photographs from the collection show these picnickers eating hot dogs and hamburgers, tossing frisbees and socializing. Of those photographed, 3-4 were women and over 15 were men. The majority were white, with one man of color in attendance. Stewart Park was a popular location for various Cornell student groups to host events. GAYPAC choosing this public location for their annual picnic indicates that visibility was an important value of the organization. Their claim to public space also established that gay students, specifically organized gay students, were equal to other students.

GAYPAC was an SFC (Student Finance Committee)-funded student group promoting gay liberation on campus. GAYPAC superseded the Student Homophile League, founded in 1968, and renamed Gay Liberation Front in the early 1970s. GAYPAC and its predecessors played a leading role in nearly all gay politics on campus, including busing people to the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979, appealing to Cornell libraries for more gay materials, and writing articles for the Cornell Daily Sun. Two of GAYPAC’s five officers were women, and men still outnumbered women at most events. As Cornell alumni Steven Boldt ’69 wrote in 1980, “women seem to contribute more to the group’s total available energy than would be expected from their number.”

Beginning in 1970, GAYPAC and its predecessors hosted a month of events hosted annually in late spring, initially in May (“May Gay”) and later in April (“Gaypril”). The original May Gay festival traditionally included a dinner on Friday evening, workshops on Saturday and a picnic on Sunday afternoon, and sometimes included performances, dances and lectures by visiting activists and scholars. GAYPAC events were open to the entire Cornell community and were advertised as being for the gay population. Announcements of the “Gay People at Cornell” picnic appeared in the Cornell Chronicle in calendar format in the Social Events section, listed among all other student social events. A rain date was always scheduled for the picnic in case of bad weather.

Sources

Cornell Chronicle (April 27, 1978, p. 12) “Saturday April 29” May Gay Festival Picnic (rain date April 30). Sponsored by Cornell Gay Liberation, Stewart Park.

Cornell Chronicle (April 17, 1980, p. 8) “Social Events” Sat. April 26, 2 p.m. Stewart Park. Gay People at Cornell Picnic

Cornell Chronicle (April 24, 1980, p. 8. “Calendar” “Social Events” Sat. April 26, 2 p.m. Stewart Park, Gay People at Cornell Picnic).

Steven Boldt, “An Impression of Gay People at Cornell,” (via Gale Archives of Sexuality and Gender), GAYPAC Newsletter, February 5, 1980. Subject Files: Organizations: Gay People at Cornell (Excludes Publications), The National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce Records, 1973-2000, Box 165, Folder 75. Cornell University Libraries.

Olivia VF Chaudhury was born in New York and raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In May 2022 she completed coursework for the M.A. Historic Preservation Planning in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University. She holds a B.Sc. Urban and Regional Studies, also from AAP. Olivia is currently finishing her Masters thesis focusing on Indigenous perspectives on the American Bicentennial of 1976 and the American Semiquincentennial of 2026.