Congressman Barney Frank and his Contributions to the LGBT Community

 

By Carmen Zhao

 

I was first introduced to the OUR summer research project by my supervisor Chan Du. In 2011 Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank donated his archives collection that documented his U.S. congressional career from 1980-2012. They are currently located in the library’s Archives and Special Collections at UMass Dartmouth and are sorted in many boxes. During the summer, I was able to spend many hours in this room sorting through Frank’s archives to help with my research. The collection is categorized into 6 series, legislative files, district files, election and legislative records, correspondence, press and public relations, and artifacts and awards. This collection is currently in the process of being digitized. During the end of summer I was assigned a supervisor in the library, Ms. Judy Farrar. With Farrar’s help I learned how to navigate the archives and special collections. At the same time, I helped with scanning old photographs associated with Barney Frank, while investigating photographic materials for my own research. After I digitized the photos I had to try to identify the dates when these photos were shot; I was also charged with the task of identifying the photographers who took them. Subsequently, I helped write labels that would go along with these photos. When working on these descriptions it was important for me to recognize some of the people’s faces in the photos who had posed with Barney. Using Barney’s archives I was able to look through the boxes and go through newspapers and articles to try to identify and match any of the unfamiliar faces from the photographs to the names that appeared in newspaper clippings.

Portrait of Carmen Zhao

 

Barney Frank was a popular congressman, but to keep his political career “safe” he kept a secret about his identity for many years. When I first started this research project I knew little about the many sides of Barney Frank’s character. I first started by watching his documentary ‘Let’s Get Frank.’ Then I read about him in books, one an autobiography and another by Stuart E. Weisberg. These materials were helpful to me as they allowed me to get a more complete picture of Frank’s life and career. While looking through the photo albums I got to see digital images from Frank’s campaigns and public appearances. While conducting the photo research I was able to put some faces to the names that were mentioned in the books. I wrote my research paper about Barney Frank’s political career as a gay man. Frank’s biggest struggle seemed to be separating his personal life with his public life. I found how keeping his sexuality a secret effected some of the choices he made and how he was able to gain people’s trust back once he came out. I studied if he had come out earlier, he could’ve effected the outcome of his 1980 congressional run or the Democratic Primary when fighting conservative candidate, Arthur Clark. Barney defeated him in the general election in a close race. The same thing happened when Frank took on former Congresswomen Margaret Heckler in 1982, the disclosure of his sexual preferences may have lost him in these elections. It was interesting to see how these career choices and the timing of them effected the outcomes of Frank’s career. Delving into the archives was helpful because I was able to find press clippings from the years mentioned in the book related to his political fallouts that supported my paper.

 

Snapshot from Carmen’s contribution to the collection. More can be found HERE

 

UMass Dartmouth Archives and Special Collections where Carmen

conducted her research through an OUR Summer Award. 

 

I found reactions from different newsletters like the Attleboro Sun, Taunton Daily Gazette, Dover-Sherborn Suburban Press, Sun Chronicle, and Arizona Republic which published  stories when Barney voluntarily came out. These pieces expressed a variety of thoughts and opinions on the situation.  It was very informative to know that Frank was not alone in this struggle. There were many people who were closeted politicians as Barney mentions some of his gay colleagues in his writings. However, the important point to highlight here is that while still silent about his sexual orientation, Barney was an advocate for LGBT. In the archives legislative files are divided into sessions of Congress and special issues. There I found his dealings with LGBT issues and I was able to find more information on these issues that occupied a good portion of Frank’s career. I plan to expand my research paper based on my work at the archives and hopefully publish it in the near future. The extended paper will focus on Frank’s early struggles that soon forced him to make the decision to come out despite the possible negative effect on his career. For this research opportunity, I am grateful to the OUR as well as to my advisor Associate Dean Chan Du and supervisor Judith Farrar.