Secret gay wedding photos from 1950s preserved in museum, search continues to find owners
In the 1950s, being gay wasn't allowed or accepted by the masses. Instead, many lived in secret, but prove that people found a way to love one another freely, even if behind closed doors.
The mystery, however, remains nearly 70 years later. Who are the people in the photos, and why didn't they get their photos back after dropping off the film at a drugstore in Philadelphia?
P.J. Palmer, a documentary filmmaker, came across the photos a few years back at an LGBTQ+ archive library in California. For Palmer, these pictures were worth a thousand words.
"It was really moving in a way, because it was like, oh, wait a minute, we have a history. We really do have a history," Palmer said.
He and his team were determined to find the men in the mysterious photos. Half of the collection was housed in the ONE Archives at the USC Libraries in Los Angeles, and the other half was donated to the in Philadelphia. CBS News Philadelphia visited the archive and got to see some of the originals.
According to the archivist in Philadelphia, the film was dropped off at a drugstore on the corner of Allegheny Avenue and Broad Street. Now, it's a corner store, but photographs from city archives show it was a drugstore in the 1950s. The wedding photos were never returned to the owner. Decades later, they resurfaced when they were donated to the archives. Palmer spent three years trying to identify the men.
He said, "I can't tell you how many times we jumped on Zoom and said, we found them, we got them."
Palmer's research included talks with South Philadelphia native Mel Heifetz. He'll be 90 later this year, and at the time of these photos, he was out as a gay 20-something in Philadelphia in the 1950s.
"I actually was, at that time, at two weddings and they were in apartments in Philadelphia, but I don't know these people here. If I did, I don't remember them," Heifetz told CBS News Philadelphia.
Heifetz spent much of his life as an LGBTQ+ philanthropist and activist, and he said that during the 1950s, he and other gay friends went to gay bars and restaurants.
"Philadelphia has always had a gay community in Center City," he said.
We might never know who the people in the photos are, but Palmer's not giving up.
"I don't know if they're with us, though, but if we could find the families, it would be lovely for them to know that these guys had a really good day."
If you think you might recognize someone or have more information about these photos, contact CBS News Philadelphia and we'll connect you with the team working on this project.
