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Virginia Apuzzo papers

 Collection
Identifier: SSC-MS-00711

Scope and Contents

The Papers include correspondence, reports, news coverage, speeches and speech notes, financial records, and photographs and document particularly well the burgeoning AIDS crisis of the 1980s and the political response and also show how the Gay and Lesbian Movement grew over time and gained wider acceptance as personified by this one woman's rise in relative political power from the State House in Albany to the White House in DC.

Dates of Materials

  • Creation: 1940 - 2012

Creator

Language of Materials

English

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for use with following restrictions on access: State documents marked "confidential" and personal financial material closed until collection is processed (13S-26, box 15). Original AV and born-digital materials may not be used; research use copies must be made.

Conditions Governing Use

To the extent that she owns copyright, Virginia Apuzzo has assigned the copyright in her works to Smith College; however, copyright in other items in this collection may be held by their respective creators. For reproductions of materials that are governed by fair use as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission to cite or publish is required. For instances which may regard materials in the collection not created by Virginia Apuzzo, researchers are responsible for determining who may hold materials' copyrights and obtaining approval from them. Researchers do not need anything further from Smith College Special Collections to move forward with their use.

Biographical / Historical

Virginia (Ginny) Apuzzo (b.1941) was raised in the Bronx, graduated with a B.A. from SUNY New Paltz and an M.A. from Fordham University, and entered a convent at the age of 26. After leaving the convent, Apuzzo came out publicly as a lesbian, taught at Brooklyn College, and dove head first into movement politics. Working with the then-named National Gay Task Force, Apuzzo worked to have a gay and lesbian plank included in the 1976 Democratic Party platform. Subsequently, she became the Director of the Task Force, directing much of her attention to the AIDS crisis. Apuzzo's impressive political accomplishments led to two decades of political appointments, first with the Cuomo New York state administration and then the Clinton administration, where she was appointed Assistant to the President for Administration and Management, making her the highest ranking out lesbian in national government office to date. Apuzzo left this post in 1999 when she rejoined the Task Force as the first holder of the Virginia Apuzzo Chair for Leadership in Public Policy. In 2005, she was one of the founders of the Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center which opened in 2007 in Kingston, New York. Also in 2007, then Govenor Eliot Spitzer appointed Apuzzo to the NYS Commission on Public Integrity where she served through 2011. She lived for many years in Kingston, New York before moving to Florida in 2013.

Extent

16.25 linear feet (15 containers)

Additional Description

Abstract

Catholic nun; Lesbian activist; AIDS activist; National Gay and Lesbian Task Force director. Correspondence, reports, news coverage, speeches and speech notes, financial records, and photographs. The papers particularly well document the burgeoning AIDS crisis of the 1980s and the political response. The papers also show well how the Gay and Lesbian Movement grew over time and gained wider acceptance as personified by this one woman's rise in relative political power from the State House in Albany to the White House in DC.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

As a preservation measure, researchers must use digital copies of audiovisual materials in this collection. Please consult with Special Collections staff or email specialcollections@smith.edu to request the creation of and access to digital copies.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Donated by Virginai Apuzzo, 2013-2018.

Related Materials

Oral history interview is in the Voices of Feminism Oral History Project.

Processing Information

Accessioned by Kathleen Banks Nutter, 2013

Related Names

Subjects

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
Finding Aid to the Virginia Apuzzo papers
Status
Minimum Finding Aid (Completed)
Author
Scott Biddle
Date
2014
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Revision Statements

  • 07/26/2017: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)
  • 2017-07-26T17:48:21-04:00: This record was migrated from InMagic DB Textworks to ArchivesSpace.
  • 2020-04-08: Added boxes 1-15, updated dates

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History Repository

https://libraries.smith.edu/special-collections/about/sophia-smith-collection-womens-history
Contact:
Neilson Library
7 Neilson Drive
Northampton MA 01063

  • Smith College Special Collections
  • Neilson Library, 7 Neilson Drive
  • Northampton, Massachusetts, 01063
  • specialcollections@smith.edu
  • 413-585-2970

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Creative Commons License
Text and metadata are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.