Main content
Bill Way collection
Notifications
Held at: John J. Wilcox, Jr. LGBT Archives, William Way LGBT Community Center [Contact Us]1315 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the John J. Wilcox, Jr. LGBT Archives, William Way LGBT Community Center. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
"Bill Way [(1942-1988)] was a longtime city employee who, working with the [Philadelphia] Redevelopment Authority and the Office of Housing and Community Development, over saw the construction of affordable housing throughout the city, including Washington Square West, where he lived."
"He was also an advocate for the LGBT [(lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender)] community, and a strong proponent of creating change by bringing people together. Bill played a key role in the establishment of Penguin Place [which would later be re-organized as his namesake, the William Way LGBT Community Center]. Even as his life came to an abrupt end due to AIDS, he continued to spend many hours working on the first AIDS walk and Penguin Place."
Bibliography:
Quoted text from: William Way Community Center. "About the William Way Center." 2007. Accessed June 25, 2012. http://waygay.org/aboutus/default.asp.
At the heart of this collection are nine scrapbooks created by Bill Way, 1942-1987. They include photographs, clippings, ephemera, and correspondence, with extensive captions. The scrapbooks are personal in nature, but because Way was active in the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community and in city planning, his scrapbooks document the growth of the LGBT community/LGBT events and parade, and Philadelphia redevelopment in the 1970s and 1980s.
The collection also contains some materials about William Way donated by other sources, notably an oral history interview with Maury Lieberman.
An inventory of the scrapbooks and other items in the collection is provided below.
Scrapbooks gift of Eva Gelennter, 1988. Additional items added over time.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2011-2012 as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR), using data provided by the John J. Wilcox Jr. LGBT Archives of Philadelphia. The HCI-PSAR project was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was done in the HCI-PSAR project.
People
Organization
- Philadelphia (Pa.). Redevelopment Authority.
- William Way Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center (Philadelphia, Pa.).
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- John J. Wilcox, Jr. LGBT Archives, William Way LGBT Community Center
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Bob Skiba & George Fago, May 20, 2011
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created by staff of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) using data provided by the John J. Wilcox Jr. LGBT Archives of Philadelphia. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
-
Contact John J. Wilcox Jr. LGBT Archives of Philadelphia for information about accessing this collection.