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| Charles "Charley" A. Shively |
Charles "Charley" A. Shively was born on 8-Dec-1937 in Stonelick Township, Clermont County, OH and died 6-Oct-2017 in Cambridge, MA. He was the son of Mearl Carlton Shively (born 19-Dec-1915 Clermont County, OH and died 28-Jan-1970 in Fairfield, Butler County, OH) and Florence Lillian Potrafke (born 25-Aug-1916 in Brown County, OH and died 6-Sep-1996 in Butler County, OH). Mearl Carlton Shively was the son of Avery Mearl Shively (1895-1977) and Della Davis. Avery Mearl Shively was the son of James Henry Shively (1861-1905) and Mary Franklin Brown (1861-1936). James Henry Shively was the son Jacob Shiveley(Shively)(1806-1866) and Elinor Ann Hornback (1820-1881). Jacob Shiveley was the son of Daniel Shively (1778-1868) and Mary Boyer (1782-1836). Daniel Shively was the son of Christian Shively (1751-1842) and Catherine Sophia Smith (1752-1821). Christian Shively was the son of Christian Shively (1718-1773) and Esther Neff (1719-1803). Christian Shively was the son of Christian Shively (1683-1752) and Barbara Spitteler(1689-1759). Christian Shively was the son of Durs Schaublin (1650-1690) and Margreth Straumann (1653-1683) who have a well documented Swiss lineage. (Photo at left was extracted from Find-A-Grave wanting to give credit to the submitter).
Extracted from Bay Windows, Boston, Massachusetts, Friday, October 20, 2017 is the following:
Charles Shively 1937-2017
Charley Shively, one of the pivotal figures in the Gay Liberation Movement, died Friday, October 6th at the Cambridge Rehabilitation and Nursing Home, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He had been a resident since June 2011, suffering from Alzheimer's. He would have been 80 on December 8th 2017.
At the 1977 Boston Gay Pride march, Shively became infamous for his burning of the Bible as well as his insurance policy, Harvard diploma and teaching contract -- as a protest against oppressive institutions. This act of incendiary and effective political theater - it nearly caused a riot - later obscured his work as an organizer, scholar, poet and publisher.
Born in poverty in Gobbler's Knob, Ohio in 1937, Shively excelled in high school and entered Harvard College in 1955. After being granted a Masters in History at the University of Wisconsin in 1959, he entered the Ph.D. program in History at Harvard. During this time he worked at Boston State College where he was active in New University Congress, anti-war working groups in the American Historical Association, and other anti-Vietnam war activities. His graduation from Harvard in June of 1969 coincided with the Stonewall Riots; that summer Shively began what was to be his life's work: Gay Liberation. His vision of Gay Liberation was deeply, and uniquely, inflected by his study of, and belief, in anarchism. After helping form Gay Men's Liberation in Boston he worked on the first issue of Lavender Vision, a 1970 co-gendered Gay Liberation newspaper, and a year later helped form the Fag Rag collective, which published the first national post-Stonewall gay political journal.
In Fag Rag Shively published a series of twelve essays that became foundational to post-Stonewall gay male political theorizing. Written in a conversational tone with a mixture of personal confession, everyday anecdote, Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse, Mikhail Bakunin, Kate Millett and Shulamith Firestone, these influential pieces became canonical. During the next decade the ever-changing "Fag Rag" collective was held together by Shively's presence and persistence. He was also responsible for founding Fag Rag Books, the Good Gay Poets collective and Press (which published noted poets such as John Wieners and Ruth Weiss) and Boston Gay Review, a journal of cultural criticism.
Along with his political essays Shively's academic work included the six volume edited Collected Works of Lysander Spooner (1971) - a nineteenth century social anarchist - and A History of the Conception of Death in America, 1650-1860, his doctoral dissertation (1987). His groundbreaking research on Walt Whitman resulted in two books - Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman's Working Class Camerados (1987) and Drum Beats: Walt Whitman's Civil War Boy Lovers (1989) - which he viewed as an expression of political commitment as well as academic research. A lifelong poet - he first published poems in high school - Shively wrote at least one poem a day. His Nuestra Senora de los Dolores: the San Francisco Experience was published in 1975. He was active in the Boston poetry scene, particuarly Stone Soup Poets. Shively understood himself primarily as a poet - his poems were spare, imagist, almost religious - a word he would have rejected - and mystical in their intensity. He leaves three finished poetry manuscripts.
During the 1970s and 1980s he was involved in numerous LGBT organizations, was founding member of Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, and along with Fag Rag, wrote frequently for Gay Community News, Gay Sunshine, The Guide, and poetry journals. Almost always dressed in overalls, and speaking in his slow, southern Ohio drawl - an inflection he often used for ironic effect as he made his arguments - he was a ubiquitous figure at political meetings and rallies. During this time, he taught full time, traveled to Kenya, Ecuador and Vietnam on three Fulbrights, and was hired as a tenured professor at University of Massachusetts-Boston in the American Studies Program, after Boston State closed in 1982.
Shively's partner beginning in 1964, Gordon Copeland, died in 1994, the year Shively was diagnosed with HIV. He retired from University of Massachusetts in 2001 and began exhibiting signs of Alzheimer's a few years later. During this time he traveled to Paris to do research on homosexuality and the French Revolution.
Charles Shively's legacy in his writings, and also in the example of his insistent refusal - always with humor - to follow the rules, and often not even to acknowledge them.
The picture at the left and the following information was found in the Dayton Daily News, Dayton, Ohio, Sunday, June 19, 1955, Page 4, Column 6:
Five From Area Win Harvard Scholarships
Charles Shively son of Mr. and Mrs. Mearl C. Shively, 2117 Tuley rd., Hamilton, is holder of one of Harvards regular freshman scholarships. He attended Fairfield tp. high school.
The following was extracted from the Daily News Journal, Hamilton, Ohio, Monday, June 6, 1960, Page 6, Column 8:
A newspaper obituaries for Mearl Carlton Shively, father of Charles A. Shively follows. This article was found in The Daily News, Thursday, January 29, 1970, Page 35, Column 2:
Masters Degree
Charles A. Shively, 2117 Tuley Rd., son of Mr. and Mrs. Mearl Shively, received a master's degree in history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisc., during annual commencement services.
A 1955 graduate of Fairfield High School, Mr. Shively received his bachelor's degree in 1959 from Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude. He plans to re-enroll at Harvard this fall to study for his doctorate in history.
Mearl Shively Rites Friday
Funeral services for Mearl Carlton Shively, 54, 1333 East Ave., who died Wednesday at 7 a.m. while leaving work at the Hamilton Plant of the Fisher Body Division, will he held Friday at 2 p.m. in the Zettler Funeral Home, 2646 Pleasant Ave. The Rev. R. B. Baker, pastor of the Stahlheber Road Baptist Church, will officiate.
Burial will be in Greenwood Cemetery. Friends may call a the funeral home Thursday from 6 until 9 p.m.
Mr. Shively was born in Bethel, Ohio, Dec. 19., 1915, a son of Avery Mearl and Della Davis Shively and received his education in the public schools of that area.
He married Florence Lillian Potrafke Jan. 9, 1937, in Cincinatti. They came to Hamilton in 1948.
Name Family
A welder, Mr. Shively had been employed at the Fisher Body Plant since 1947.
He was a member of Hamilton Lodge 36, Loyal Order of Moose and belonged to Local 233, United Auto Workers.
Mr. Shively leaves his wife; his father, A. M. Shively, Batavia; three sons, Dr. Charles A. Shively, Boston, Mass., Stephen and Mearl C. Shively Jr., both of Hamilton; two daughters, Mrs. Russell (Ilene) Baker and Mrs. Don (Jean) Harbaum, both of Hamilton; three grandchildren; a brother, David Shively, Cincinnati; other relatives and many friends.
He was preceded in death by his mother and a brother, Roy Shively.
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