Prescott Townsend
Prescott Townsend (June 24, 1894 – May 23, 1973) was an American gay rights activist.
Early life and detention
He was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, the son of Kate Wendell and Edward Britton Townsend; his mother was both a descendant of Myles Standish and the great-granddaughter of the American founding father Roger Sherman.[1] He graduated from Harvard University in 1918.
Prescott was arrested on January 29, 1943 for participating in an "unnatural and lascivious act," and was sentenced to eighteen months in the Massachusetts House of Corrections on Deer Island. No one in his powerful, wealthy and socially prominent family applied any pressure to shorten his jail time. The Mid-Town Journal headline of January 29, 1943 reported, "Beacon Hill 'Twilight' Man Member of Queer Love Cult Seduced Young Man" and one month later he was officially stricken from both the New York and Boston Social Registers.[2]
Activism and career
Townsend is believed to have been the first individual to organize a public conversation about homosexuality in the United States, and the first acknowledged homosexual to officially address the Massachusetts legislature, where he urged the lawmakers "to legalize love."
He later became the founder of the Boston chapter of the Mattachine Society; a non-profit organization for educating the public in all aspects of homosexuality, for assisting the individual gay in coping with problems related to his homosexuality, for effecting changes in social attitudes towards gays and for securing the repeal of laws discriminating against gays in housing, employment and assembly.
He opened the first art theater on Beacon Hill, and was a founder of the Provincetown Playhouse, where the works of Eugene O'Neill were first performed.
He founded the Boston Demophile Society, a Mattachine-like organization.
In talks in Boston and Provincetown he promoted his "Snowflake Theory" of human personality and sexuality, stating that the human mind is like a snowflake in that no two are alike, and each has six opposing sides: I/You, He/She, Hit/Submit.
Death
Townsend had, for years, been suffering from failing health brought on by Parkinson's Disease, and on May 23, 1973 his body was found in the Beacon Hill apartment of John Murray who had been caring for him during the final years of his life. The police reported that "when we came in to take charge of the body, Mr. Townsend was found in a kneeling prayer position at his bedside." Of his entire family, only one sister, a nephew and a great-nephew attended his memorial service at the Arlington Street Church.
References
Sources
Source:Randy Wicker, Early Boston gay advocate Prescott Townsend dies at 78, The Advocate, May 24, 1973, Issue 114, page 11.
External links
- Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context
- The Mattachine Society, Inc.
- Prescott Townsend: Bohemian Blueblood - A Different Kind Of Pioneer by Charles Shively