Thread by @RareUVA

This #Pride Month, we recognize the voices and contributions from our past starting with Julian (Hartridge) Green, the earliest known member of the LGBTQ+ community here at UVA. Green came from Paris as a first-year student in the College in 1919, after serving in World War I.

A prolific journal writer, Green began to note his attraction to men while at UVA. After two years as a student, and a year as an assistant professor of French, he returned to Paris in spring 1922.

Apart from 14 volumes of published journals, he also wrote 10 novels and a “frank” four volume autobiography.

Julian and his sister Anne, MSS 9188-f
"Diary," PQ2613 .R3 Z533 1964

Born in Paris to American parents, he was the first non-French national to become a member of the prestigious Académie Française (1971). Green was a friend of Nobel Prize-winning author Andre Gide who was a friend of Oscar Wilde, likely the most famous gay man of the 19th century

While Green admitted his attraction to men, he also struggled with his physical desire, at a time when being something other than heterosexual was criminal in many places outside France.

Letter, May 4, 1922, MSS 10105
"Each in His Darkness," PQ2613 .R3 C4713 1961

He turned to the Catholic Church for faith and often cited a dual nature. Besides his published works, Special Collections holds some of his letters (MSS 9188), letters of his family (MSS 10105) as well as later letters of college friends (MSS 8809-h).