Guide to the Bobby Kork Photographs, [1940-1954]

Bobby Kork was a gay man and cross-dresser who performed as a hermaphrodite (which he probably was not) in the circuses of the 1940s and 1950s.

The first group of 17 personal photos, one album and two loose prints, are a mix of full-length drag portraits taken at home and candid photos taken of Bobby and his friends in a gay lounge. The second group, one album containing 126 photos, is from his personal collection and features gay men from the World War II period. These are all roughly wallet-size photos, hand-colored. The photos include about an equal percentage of portrait and physique images of men ranging in age from teens to 30s or 40s. The third group contains 27 original black and white photographs, all of young gay men in casual home settings, mostly indoors or out on the lawn. The photos in each of the albums are of the same young men, some clothed and some semi-nude. Dating on a few of the photos indicates 1953 and 1954.

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Item Information:

Identifier: rb68xb856
Collection: Discovery Resources
Institution: Human Sexuality Collection, Cornell University
Creator(s): Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library
Date Created: 2003
Dates Covered: 1940 to 1954
Genre: Finding Aids
Subject(s): Bobby Kork
Topic(s): Circus performers
Circus workers
Crossdressers
Gay men
Intersex people
Photography of men
Resource Type: Text
Language: English
Related URL: http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/htmldocs/RMM07652.html
Rights: Copyright undetermined
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