Biographical Note
Dorothy Dean was a downtown social figure. Born into a bourgeois black family in 1932 in White Plains, New York, she attended Radcliffe College and in 1958 earned a masters degree in Fine Arts from Harvard College. While at Cambridge, she began associating almost entirely with gay white men, presumably in an effort to distance herself from the politics surrounding being both black and female in the fifties and sixties, politics with which she did not identify.
Moving to New York, Dean established herself as part of Andy Warhol's Factory and also worked as the door person at Max's Kansas City. She was loved for her strong, verbose personality, perhaps mostly for her playful phrasing and clever nicknames (Andy Warhol, to Dean, became "Drella," a combination of Dracula and Cinderella; James Baldwin was "Martin Luther Queen"). She rarely worked; she held brief editorial and proofreading positions at publications such as The New Yorker and Vogue. She appeared in several Factory films, including My Hustler, and Afternoon.
In 1980, Dean moved to Boulder, Colorado, where she worked at a bookstore and as an editor, and continued writing letters to her friends. She died of cancer in Boulder on February 13, 1987.
Sources:
Als, Hilton. The Women. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1998. pp. 67-117.
Watson, Steven. Factory made: Andy Warhol and the Sixties. New York: Pantheon Books, c2003.
Return to topScope and Content Note
The Joe Campbell Collection of Dorothy Dean Letters contains 46 letters written to Joe Campbell. Of the 46, 42 were written by Dorothy Dean; the other four were written by various friends of Campbell after Dean's death in 1987, regarding her funeral, obituaries, and a memorial reception held in New York. The letters written by Dean range from 1964 to 1986. The latest letter by Dean dates approximately eight months prior to her death.
A number of the letters contain newspaper clippings, dealing with a range of topics from downtown musicians such as Lou Reed to pivotal moments in the gay rights movement. One letter contains a manuscript of the first issue of Dean's film review, which she called the "All-Lavender Cinema Courier." Evincing her creative and erudite linguistic control, the prose and content of the letters vividly represent Dean's literary wit and personality.
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The collection consists of 46 folders, each containing one letter. |
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The letters are arranged in chronological order. |
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Related Material at Fales Library and Special Collections
The Fred W. McDarrah Gay Pride Photographs Collection
Return to topRestrictions
Access Restrictions
Open to researchers without restrictions. Appointments are necessary to consult archive and manuscript material.
Use Restrictions
Collection use is subject to all copyright laws. Permission to publish materials must be obtained in writing from the Director
of Fales Library and Special Collections. For more information, contact
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Access Points |
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Subject Names: |
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| Dean, Dorothy | ||
| Reed, Lou | ||
| Warhol, Andy 1928-1987 | ||
Subject Topics: |
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| African Americans -- Intellectual life. | ||
| African Americans -- Race identity. | ||
| Artists and community--United States. | ||
| Gay men. | ||
| Gender identity -- United States. | ||
Subject Places: |
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| New York (State)--New York | ||
Document Types: |
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| Correspondence. | ||
| Manuscripts. | ||
Other Names: |
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| Campbell, Joe | ||
Administrative Information
Provenance
Received by donation from Callie Angell, Andy Warhol Film Project, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2008.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date (if known); Joe Campbell Collection of Dorothy Dean Letters; MSS 222; box number; folder number;
Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University Libraries.