Gunnison, Foster, 1925-1994

Foster Gunnison, Jr. was born in 1925 in Bronxville, New York. In 1944 he entered Haverford College and soon after transferred to Columbia University, graduating in 1949. Gunnison moved to Hartford, Connecticut in 1955 where he completed a Masters degree in psychology and in philosophy at Trinity College. Gunnision then moved to New York City and decided to join the Mattachine Society, the nation's oldest homophile organization, established in San Francisco in the early 1950s. In the mid 1960s, Gunnison involved himself in the Eastern Conference of Homophile Organizations (ECHO), an early coalition of organizations seeking the creation of a national homophile organization. In the early 1970s, Gunnison's interests and the direction of the ISE shifted. An avid cigar smoker, Gunnison turned his attention to smoker's rights and support for pro-smoking organizations. In 1984 he founded the American Puffer Alliance which he described as the first independent smokers liberation organization in the United States. Gunnison continued his association with the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America and smokers rights organizations through the 1970s and until his death in 1994.