Jeffrey Paul Escoffier (October 9, 1942 – May 20, 2022) was an American author, activist, and media strategist. He was a research associate at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. He has taught at the University of California (Berkeley and Davis), Barnard College, The New School, and Rutgers University, Newark. He lived and worked in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York. Escoffier earned his undergraduate degree at St. John's College, Annapolis, before doing his graduate work at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. He was the director of health media and marketing for the

New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (also known as NYC Health) is the department of the government of New York City responsible for public health along with issuing birth certificates, dog licenses, and conducting restaura ...

from 1999 to 2015. Escoffier was an active participant in the

LGBT community The LGBTQ community (also known as the LGBT, LGBT+, LGBTQ+, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIA+, or queer community) comprises LGBTQ people, LGBTQ individuals united by LGBTQ culture, a common culture and LGBTQ movements, social movements. These Community, comm ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, San Francisco, and New York City.

Life and career

Jeffrey Paul Escoffier was born to Iris (Miller) Wendel and George on October 9, 1942, in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the List of United States ...

and raised in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

and

Staten Island Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...

. His mother was owner of an antique shop and father worked in

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

. Escoffier obtained bachelor’s degree from St. John’s College and earned master’s degree in international affairs from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. In 1970 he moved to

where he pursued his doctoral studies in economic history at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

. In 1972 he co-founded and served on the editorial board of ''The Gay Alternative'' (1972–1976), a gay and lesbian cultural magazine. In 1977 he moved to San Francisco, where he co-founded the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay History Project. In 1978 he joined the editorial board of ''

Socialist Review The ''Socialist Review'' was a monthly magazine of the British Socialist Workers Party. As well as being printed it was also published online. Original publication: 1950–1962 The ''Socialist Review'' was set up in 1950 as the main publication ...

'', a

democratic socialist Democratic socialism is a left-wing economic and political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self-mana ...

ic journal, and served as its executive editor from 1980 to 1988. In 1988 Escoffier co-founded ''OUT/LOOK: A National Lesbian and Gay Quarterly'', one of the first joint lesbian and gay cultural ventures. Starting in 1990, OUT/LOOK sponsored, under Escoffier's leadership, a series of conferences called OutWrite that brought together over 1,200 LGBT writers from across the U.S. These conferences brought together several notable writers such as Judy Grahn,

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

, Cherrie Moraga,

Gore Vidal Eugene Luther Gore Vidal ( ; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his acerbic epigrammatic wit. His novels and essays interrogated the Social norm, social and sexual ...

Edward Albee Edward Franklin Albee III ( ; March 12, 1928 – September 16, 2016) was an American playwright known for works such as ''The Zoo Story'' (1958), ''The Sandbox (play), The Sandbox'' (1959), ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'' (1962), ''A Delicat ...

, and

Essex Hemphill Essex Hemphill (April 16, 1957 – November 4, 1995) was an openly gay American poet and activist. He is known for his contributions to the Washington, D.C. art scene in the 1980s, and for openly discussing the topics pertinent to the African-Ame ...

. In the wake of the OutWrite conferences, he worked as a literary agent for lesbian and gay authors across the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...

. Escoffier served on the board of the

Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies (formerly known as ''Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies'' or ''CLAGS'') was founded in 1991 by professor Martin Duberman as the first university-based research center in the United States dedicated to the study ...

(CLAGS) at the

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

from 1992 to 1995 and then from 2010 to 2013. He was the director of the CLAGS Project on Families, Values, and Public School Curriculum. In 1995 he joined the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as the deputy director of the Office of Gay and Lesbian Health. In 2000 he became the director of Health Media and Marketing and held that position until his retirement in August 2015. There he supervised the department's media and public education campaigns on several topics, including

smoking cessation Smoking cessation, usually called quitting smoking or stopping smoking, is the process of discontinuing tobacco smoking. Tobacco smoke contains nicotine, which is Addiction, addictive and can cause Substance dependence, dependence. As a resu ...

HIV prevention HIV prevention refers to practices that aim to prevent the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). HIV prevention practices may be undertaken by individuals to protect their own health and the health of those in their community, or may ...

and testing, anti-

obesity Obesity is a medical condition, considered by multiple organizations to be a disease, in which excess Adipose tissue, body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it can potentially have negative effects on health. People are classifi ...

ebola Ebola, also known as Ebola virus disease (EVD) and Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), is a viral hemorrhagic fever in humans and other primates, caused by ebolaviruses. Symptoms typically start anywhere between two days and three weeks after in ...

influenza Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These sympto ...

, and

immunization Immunization, or immunisation, is the process by which an individual's immune system becomes fortified against an infectious agent (known as the antigen, immunogen). When this system is exposed to molecules that are foreign to the body, called ' ...

. Escoffier died in Brooklyn on May 20, 2022, aged 79, from complications of a fall.

Works

* ''John Maynard Keynes'' (New York: Chelsea House, 1995) * ''American Homo: Community and Perversity'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998) * ''Mark Morris' L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato'' (New York: Marlowe, 2001) * ''Sexual Revolution'' (New York: Thunder's Mouth, 2003) * ''Bigger Than Life: The History of Gay Porn Cinema from Beefcake to Hardcore'' (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2009) * ''Intimate States: Gender, Sexuality, and Governance in Modern US History'' (chapter co-written with Whitney Strub an
Jeffrey Patrick Colgan
(Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2021) * ''Sex, Society, and the Making of Pornography: The Pornographic Object of Knowledge'' (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2021)

References

External links

Brooklyn Institute for Social Research faculty page

Academia.edu profile page
*
Jeffrey Escoffier records of "The Gay Alternative"
held a
John J. Wilcox, Jr. LGBT ArchivesWilliam Way LGBT Community Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Escoffier, Jeffrey 1942 births 2022 deaths 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in New York (state) American civil servants Activists from Baltimore Columbia University alumni LGBTQ people from Maryland American LGBTQ writers New York (state) socialists American people in public health St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe) alumni