The Ted Rolfs papers document his life, from his childhood in Wisconsin in the Nineteen-teens until his death in San Francisco in the early 1990s. Rolfs left Milwaukee in 1929 and hitchhiked to New York. He spent the next 10 years doing art and design and then began working on ships as a cook. He was a lifelong member of, and activist in, the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union. Rolfs spent a few years in Seattle and then settled in San Francisco in 1953, residing here until his death. Rolfs was interviewed by Allan Bérubé for his history of gay men and women in World War II, Coming Out Under Fire, and he appeared in the movie Before Stonewall. The collection consists of correspondence with family and friends, from 1929-1990; notebooks and datebooks; speeches; materials related to his activities with the Marine Cooks and Stewards; financial records; subject files; newsclippings; personalia; audiotaped recordings of family and friends; and photographs that span from the early 1900s to the late 1980s.

4.1 linear feet

Collection is open for research.