Manuscripts Collection
Leo Treadway, a mental health counselor, religious layworker, and gay rights activist, has been involved with most of the social, political, philanthropic, religious and educational organizations serving the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) community of Minneapolis and St. Paul since the mid-1970s.
After serving briefly in the army during the early 1960s, Treadway earned a B.A. degree in Psychology (1968) and a M.Ed degree in Counseling and Student Personnel Administration (1970) from the University of Delaware. In the early 1970s, he pursued a Ph.D in Counseling and Counseler Education from Purdue University and worked at the Crisis Center in Lafayette, Indiana, and as the executive director of the Open Door Crisis Center in Indiana, Pennsylvania. Treadway moved to the Twin Cities in 1975 and found work in the mental health field and as a consultant to various health, educational, religious, and youth groups.
Among the task forces and councils on which Leo Treadway has served are the Governor's Task Force on Gay and Lesbian Minnesotans, the Governor's Task Force on Prejudice and Violence, the Minnesota Task Force for Gay and Lesbian Youth, and the Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council. Treadway was an adult leader in the Lesbian and Gay Youth Together organization, participated in the North Star Project (needs assessment of the GLBT community), worked as a consultant to the Minneapolis and St. Paul Public Schools on issues affecting gay teens, and worked for passage of gay rights ordinances in St. Paul (1970s-1990s). Treadway also has served on the boards of directors of two foundations: the Headwaters Fund and the Philanthrofund Foundation.
Treadway, a deeply religious and spirtual man, has been involved with several religious organizations working with and on behalf of the GLBT community. These include the Lesbian and Gay Interfaith Council, Lutherans Concerned/North America, the Minnesota Council of Churches, and as the ministry associate of Wingspan, the ministry to and with gay persons of the St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church of St. Paul (1982-1992).
As a health and counseling professional, Treadway also has been active in several AIDS organizations such as the Minnesota Alliance Against AIDS, the Names Project (quilt memorial), and the Youth and AIDS Project centered at the University of Minnesota. Treadway also has given presentations at numerous workshops and conventions, and has written on topics of concern to the GLBT community. As a result, these papers, along with the other background materials collected by Treadway, form an integral part of his collection.
The records in the collection consist of correspondence, agendas, bylaws, minutes, financial reports, notes, newsletters, brochures, miscellaneous printed matter, and newspaper clippings which document the activities of these organizations and Treadway's role in them over a 20-year period. Taken together, they present a partial historical overview of the gay community's attempt to create and implement what Treadway called, "a vision of our own culture," and of its struggle to survive and grow within the institutions of the broader culture. While some items in the collection date between 1964 and 2001, the bulk of the collection covers the twenty years from 1976 through 1996.
Organizations with a more prominent presence due to Treadway's personal involvement as a board or committee member have been given more extenstive treatment. Although the collection has been divided into five sections, there is an overlap of activities and a complete examination of a topic may require the researcher to review more than one section.
These documents are organized into the following sections:
An
A collection of
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the
Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics,
persons or places should
Human Sexuality Resources: Speaking File (Reserve 52) will not be made available to patrons under the age of 18 years.
Access to reserve materials requires the curator's permission.
Accession numbers: 15,211; 15,243; 15, 735; 16,236
Processed by: Frank P. Hennessy, May 1998; Richard W. Arpi, February 2004; Shelby Edwards, March 2011
Processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with a Basic Project
grant awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission
Catalog ID number: 001734196
Set 1 (1966-2001) and Set 2 (1985-2006) consist of similar materials including newsletters; publications and printed materials; subject files; files related to various organizations, committees, projects, and funds; speeches; conference files and reference articles and bibliographies. Newsletters and printed materials can be found in Set 1, Set 2, and the Publications and Printed Materials.
An essay written by Treadway which presents a cultural and historical overview for much of the material found in the collection.
Formerly the Human Ecology Action League.
GLCAC was created in 1986 in response to the closing of the Lesbian and Gay Community Services of Minneapolis, the Twin Cities' most comprehensive mental health/community service agency for gay men and lesbians. During its first year of operation the Council was a collaborative effort with Y.E.S. and Family and Children's Service. In 1988 the Council became independent and assumed responsibility for its overall goals and objectives. Leo Treadway was one of the Council's first members.
Governor Rudy Perpich appointed this task force in April 1990 in order to determine whether evidence of discrimination against gay men and lesbians in Minnesota existed and, if necessary, to make recommendations to better the quality of life for those Minnesotans. Leo Treadway served as vice chair of the task force. The task force held a series of 22 invitational briefings to orient members to issues related to homosexuality and to hear recommendations from the presenters. The task force also held public meetings throughout the state, which included meetings with community leaders and leaders of the gay/lesbian community in addition to public and private testimony. The bulk of the records in this section consist of notes related to the testimony gathered at the hearings. The files related to the hearings in Minneapolis/St. Paul include an audio tape of the hearing held at the state capitol on April 25, 1990.
Due to a significant rise in the number of violent hate crimes during the 1980s, an ad hoc committee was created in January 1987 which examined various ways to best address the problem and ensure passage of relevant legislation. Based on a recommendation from the ad hoc committee, Minnesota governor Rudy Perpich appointed a Task Force on Prejudice and Violence in October 1987. Leo Treadway was among those appointed. The Task Force was charged with "investigating and documenting the incidence of violence and threats of violence in Minnesota, based on a person's race, color, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, national origin, or disability."
The records in this section relate to the process described above and the Task Force activities. The primary activity of the Task Force was the review of data related to incidents of hate crimes collected at meetings held throughout the state in 1988, in written testimony and reports, and through the bias crimes reporting act up through March 1989. The Task Force's findings led to the passage of the bias crimes documentation bill in 1988 and a hate crimes penalty bill in 1989.
The Fund was founded in 1983 with the purpose of making grants and providing technical assistance to social change organizations. Treadway was a member of the Fund's board of directors, served as a chair of its grants committee (1985-1988), and assisted the Fund in making grants to the gay and lesbian community.
The records document the board's decisions and activities, the fund raising efforts of its development committee, and the Fund's grant making activity (1984-1991). The bulk of the records consist of grant proposals and evaluations submitted to the Fund during its two grant cycles each year (Spring and Fall) and for special opportunity grants awarded for grantee needs and opportunities that occurred outside the normal grant cycles.
The organization became the Chemical Injury Resource Association of Minnesota (CIRA) in 1996.
Includes records related to a course Treadway taught which was designed "to teach crisis intervention concepts and counseling skills used in helping individuals in crisis situations including batterings, sexual assaults, suicide attempts, drug overdose, psychiatric emergencies and family crisis."
An organization of men and women, both gay and straight, whose common concern was the civil rights of gay men and lesbians. Founded in 1974, the committee's name was changed in 1980 to the Minnesota Committee for Gay and Lesbian Rights (MCGLR).
The committee's several task forces addressed a number of issues including political action related to human rights, anti-violence, and consenting adult legislation at the local, state and national levels; relationships between the mayors' offices, city councils, and police departments; particularly in Minneapolis and St. Paul; assault education, prevention, and research; and legal defense.
Leo Treadway joined the committee in 1976, was a board member (1978-1980), a member and chair of its religious task force (1977-1980), chair of the "No More Assault Project" task force (1979), and a member of the speaker's bureau and legal task forces.
In 1984 Minneapolis city council member Brian Coyle asked a core group of activists in the gay and lesbian community, including Leo Treadway, to conduct a needs assessment survey in the Twin Cities. By January 1985 the project had a 25-member board and work began on reviewing previous national and local surveys of a similar nature and establishing a working structure for the project. In June 1985 the project took the name "Northstar Project."
Over the course of the next year a survey instrument was developed and a distribution plan targeting portions of the gay and lesbian communities generally overlooked in such surveys was completed. In 1987 the Gay and Lesbian Community Action Council assumed leadership of the project and the distribution of surveys took place between October and December. Analysis of data collected from returned surveys and drafting of a final report were completed over the next two years. The final report, entitled "Northstar: Out and Counted," was released in November 1990. A second survey was done in 1995. The records in this section document the history of the project as outlined above.
Out Front Minnesota was formerly known as the Gay Lesbian Community Action Council.
The Philanthrofund Foundation is a non-profit community fund located in the Twin Cities devoted to serving the needs of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities of Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. It was established in 1987 by a group of four men who raised $2,000 among themselves for an endowment fund. Through the years the fund has grown through the contributions of thousands of individuals rather than from the funds of a major benefactor. Each year grant applications are due in September and awarded in December. The first five grants were awarded in 1988 and totaled $2,100. In 1996 the foundation was able to hire its first executive director and 20 grants totaling $18,000 were awarded. The records indicate that Leo Treadway served on the foundation's board of directors and grants committee during 1995-2000.
An amendment to the St. Paul Human Rights Law, which prohibited discrimination based on "affectional or sexual preference," was passed by the St. Paul City Council in 1974. The amendment was repealed through a 1978 referendum initiated by a citizens group called Citizens Alert for Morality. An attempt to reinstate the amendment in 1988 was defeated in a second referendum. The amendment was reinstated by the city council in 1990, and survived another referendum in 1991. The records of this section chronicle the activities of citizen groups created to defend the ordinance and the development of an alliance between the gay community and mainline religious leaders who advocated the continuation of the human rights protection.
Leo Treadway served as a member of the steering committee of St. Paul Citizens for Human Rights (1978) and co-chaired its religious task force. He was also a member of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force of the St. Paul Human Rights Commission (1982-1985) and served as chair of the Phoenix Alliance's "Out for Our Rights" petition drive (1988-1989).
Includes fliers for Neal Thao, Wally Swan, Roy Garza, and Al Oertwig.
Prepared by Citizens for Human Rights, Mankato, Minnesota.
Includes several articles discussing topics related to gay sex. The articles contain (in part) explicit descriptions and photographs of gay sexual activity.
Organized into topical subjects and geographical areas by Treadway. Includes articles, correspondence, teaching materials, photographs, resource lists, catalogues, projects, and initiatives.
Includes photographs from the 1994-1996, 1998, and 2002 Pride Parades.
Arranged alphabetically. Includes newsletters, fliers, briefs, and mailings describing local events, programs, issues, and initiatives.
Includes offshoots of MAP, such as the
Includes miscellaneous events, mostly artistic endeavours, for, by, and including the GLBT population of the Twin Cities and greater metropolitan areas.
Includes
Includes outreach initiatives, project planning, meeting minutes,
surveys, Board periodicals, and copies of
Includes the
This newsletter is entitled
Some issues missing.
Newsletters and correspondence of various religious organizations that believe gays and lesbians can change their lifestyle and become "liberated" through belief in Jesus Christ.
In July 1976 four Twin Cities religious groups ministering to the gay community joined forces to form the Gay Interfaith Coalition. In 1980, in an attempt to differentiate itself from the MCGLR Religious Task Force, the Coalition was renamed the Ecumenical Coordinating Council and in 1981 it became known as the Twin Cities Lesbian and Gay Interfaith Council. In 1983 the name was finalized as the Lesbian and Gay Interfaith Council of Minnesota.
Some of the Council's more prominent activities included the publication of a "Community Calendar" which was inserted in the member groups' newsletters (1976), work with the MCGLR Religious Task Force on the St. Paul human rights referendum (1978), participation in the No More Assault Task Force (1979), a campaign against dangerous images of gay men and lesbians in the movies (1980), a program of worship activities, and outreach efforts which included the formation of the Joint Outreach Project (1983).
Over the years the Council grew to include several more denominational groups. Activities of several of the Council's member groups are documented elsewhere in this collection. Leo Treadway, one of the Council's founding members, wrote a more exhaustive history of the organization from which the information provided above was taken. The history is filed at the start of this series.
Lutherans Concerned was founded in Minneapolis in 1974 as "a society of gay and non-gay Christians who are working to foster within our church a climate of understanding, justice and reconciliation among all women and men, regardless of their affectional preference."
A national organization was incorporated in 1982 as Lutherans Concerned/North America. Leo Treadway served as the national organization's co-chair (1980-1981), chair of its Ecumenical Relations Task Force, and as a board member of the local Twin Cities chapter (1975-1980).
The records document LC/NA's relationships with the various Lutheran denominations, the activities of its task forces, its national assemblies (1980-2000), and the activities of its local chapters. The last group of records in this section relate specifically to the activities of the Twin Cities chapter of Lutherans Concerned (1975-2000).
St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church, located at 100 North Oxford Street in St. Paul, is a merger of several Lutheran congregations, the earliest of which was established in 1883. The first day of services at St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church occured on January 2, 1977, one day after St. Paul Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church of the Reformation (itself a merger of Memorial Lutheran Church and St. James Lutheran Church in 1911) legally merged. While these churches were established by and served Swedish speaking congregations, over the years the neighborhood became more diverse and rather than moving to the suburbs, these churches adopted a more inclusive ministry that brought people from all races, backgrounds and walks of life into the church. Leo Treadway joined St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church in the 1970s and became a ministry associate of Wingspan, the church's ministry with and on behalf of gay and lesbian people. The following papers document Treadway's involvement with St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church and Wingspan for a ten-year period, 1982-1992.
Scattered.
In late 1985 a series of meetings were held to address the threat to the civil rights of Minnesota's lesbian and gay communities by the growing fear of AIDS. Leo Treadway was one of the original members of an ad hoc task force formed as a result of these meetings. At a community meeting held in January 1986 Treadway and six other individuals were chosen to develop positions and strategies in response to the politicization of the AIDS issues. This group, originally called The Action Faction, later assumed the name of Minnesota Alliance Against AIDS.
A few of the topics documented in the Alliance's records include the organization's opposition to "contact tracing" that involved the use of government third parties as a means of AIDS prevention, opposition to the closing of Twin Cities' bathhouses and related recreational enterprises in response to the AIDS crisis, insurance issues related to AIDS, and the controversy surrounding the dissemination of safe sex educational materials.
Early in 1988 Minnesota's commissioner of health, Sister Mary Madonna
Ashton, reconstituted a task force on AIDS which had originally been
appointed in 1985. The new task force and the Minnesota Department of
Health were charged with examining social science literature on
behavioral change and making recommendations for AIDS prevention and
risk reduction activities that were culturally appropriate and based on
sound behavioral change principles. Leo Treadway was one of the eleven
new members appointed to the task force. In February 1989 the task force
presented its recommendations in the report
This section documents the planning and execution of the display of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis (July 15-17, 1988). Leo Treadway was co-chair of the local NAMES Project. The project was started a year earlier as a nationwide campaign to memorialize the tens of thousands who had died from AIDS. Composed of thousands of fabric panels, the quilt was the largest community arts project in the nation and its display in Minneapolis was one of the largest during its 20 city tour during 1988.
One of the more significant documents in this series is a manual that documents the collection of Minnesota panels made for the presentation at the Minneapolis display. The manual contains a photograph of each individual panel, accompanied by a description of the individual to whom the panel was dedicated written by the panel's maker. The manual in this collection is one of six which were completed by Leo Treadway and a few friends. Due to insufficient copies of the photographs, each copy of the manual differs slightly from the other five.
Mainly articles from the
Roller skater pictured.
Hockey player pictured.
Bicyclist pictured.
Rock climber pictured.
No year listed.
Green Minnesota map with hot-line numbers listed.
9 items listed on poster.
The first dramatic movie about AIDS.