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Welcome
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Welcome
to this month's edition of History Happens, your source for the
latest news and events from the GLBT Historical Society!
As
Iowa Goes, So
Goes Vermont.
During this year of the fortieth anniversary of Stonewall, we salute the states of Iowa and Vermont for recognizing that all of us have the right be included as full members of society and allowed to lead our lives with the love, respect, and compassion that each of us deserves. Boston's Fag Rag, published in the first state to affirm consensual marriage between two adults, anticipated the future on the cover of its June 1971 issue. The GLBTHS periodicals collection has a complete run of Fag Rag, 1971 - 1984.
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Reconstructing the Polk with Joey Plaster
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Tuesday, May 19th,
 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
GLBT Historical Society Main Office
657 Mission Street, San Francisco Curator Joey Plaster's GLBT Historical Society exhibit, Polk Street: Lives in Transition, has sparked intense conversation about the stakes of dramatic neighborhood change for San Francisco's identity as a place of belonging for all GLBT people. Come hear Plaster describe his innovative process for piecing together a groundbreaking history of marginal and mainstream voices that has won him national recognition. Check out this remarkable exhibit before it closes! "Reconstructing the Polk" is the second event in Talking Back: Queer History Fully Exposed, the GLBT Historical Society's 2009 speaker series challenging us to appreciate the spectrum of our collective pasts and to actualize a more expansive future for all. |
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Student Week in Honor of Harvey Milk's Birthday
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 From Wednesday, May 20th, to Sunday, May 24th, we are offering free Castro exhibit admission to students with valid current ID. Student week is in conjunction with the Harvey Milk teach-in taking place at 499 Castro on Harvey Milk's birthday, Friday, May 22nd. The teach-in will be led by City College Professor and GLBTHS Board Member Ardel Thomas. If you are an educator interested in scheduling your class for the teach-in, please contact Operations Manager Aimee Forster at aimee@glbthistory.org or call 415-777-5455 ext 5#. |
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Exciting Events Coming in June!
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Into the Streets: Readings & Performances Inspired by Queer Street Protests, Hosted by Michelle Tea
 Thursday, June 11th
Friday, June 12th 7:00 p.m. SoMarts Cultural Center 934 Brannan Street The GLBT Historical Society has collaborated with Radar Productions and the National Queer Arts Festival present "Into the Streets! Nine Writers Reimagine Queer Protest From ACT-UP to Queer Nation" with Meliza Banales, Justin Chin, Annie Danger, Myriam Gurba, Keith Hennessey, Juba Kalamka, Ali Liebegott, Eileen Myles, and Michelle Tea. Lineage Exhibit Opening in the Main Gallery  Friday, June 19th 6 p.m. - 9 p.m. GLBT Historical Society Main Office
657 Mission Street, San Francisco Lineage, a project developed by E.G. Crichton as first artist-in-residence for the GLBT Historical Society, focuses on the collections of ordinary/extraordinary individuals who have died. E.G. is matching specific archives to living people who agree to develop a creative response. This project is building pair by pair, archive by archive, and will be exhibited as a traveling exhibition and a website. The reception will feature refreshments, performances and the first viewing of work created for Lineage. Come see photographic portraits of each pair by E.G., a music video about Jiro Onuma by Tina Takemoto, an aria composed by Luciano Chessa inspired by "Larry the Piano Man," a monologue about the "Talullah Bankhead of S.F." by Lauren Crux, a dinner party installation  inspired by Sally Binford, a film about Helen Harder--and much more. ee to develop a creative
response. This project is building pair by pair, archive by archive, and will
be exhibited as a traveling exhibition and a website. |
The GLBT Historical Society in Paris
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Harvey Milk and
Snake, Pride 1977, Photograph by Robert Pruzan, GLBTHS
For the first time, the GLBT Historical Society has
co-sponsored an exhibit in Europe, displaying
photographs from its collections at the Paris
opening of Milk at the Nouveau Latina in the Marais. Curated by Gerard
Koskovich, a founder of the GLBTHS, the exhibit also included
ephemera and political buttons from his personal collection. As souvenirs, the
theater gave away reproductions of the buttons to everyone who bought a ticket
to the film.
Read more (in French)
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"Crafting Queer" Panel Event Was a Success!
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More than 30 people showed up to "Crafting Queer" panel, held on April 17, 2009. The panel was moderated by Masha Rotfeld and organized with the help of the Women's Committee of the GLBT Historical Society.
Four panelists from two generations showed their work and covered considerable ground on how they construed their art production as craft. Miki, Sherrill, Sandy, and Katie found ways in which their scrapbooking, embroidery, crocheting, experimental video, and painting transgressed outdated paradigms of "craft" and became queer, do-it-yourself, and progressive.
The audience found the conversation compelling and jumped in almost from the get-go. Ideas were bounced around between the audience and the panelists and the lively atmosphere carried the panel an hour late, with everyone still in attendance.
Check out photos on the GLBT Historical Society's Flickr page.
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| On the Town with the GLBT Historical Society
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Passionate
Struggle: Dynamics of San Francisco's
GLBT History
 Passionate Struggle explores the elements and dynamic tensions between desire and determination that created San Francisco's very queer 20th century. Focused through four lenses--Places, Politics, Pleasures, and People--it vividly presents the City's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender history in all its diversity.
Among the many exhibits is sheet music, published in 1923, for The Gay Young Bride by Tom Martell, who billed himself as "America's Greatest Female Impersonator." Both male and female drag performance have been San Francisco traditions since the Gold Rush, with celebrated appearances by such greats as Felicita Vestvali, Ella Wesner, John Vernon, Julian Eltinge, Bothwell Browne, Walter Harte, Stormé DeLaverie, Charles Pearce, and countless others.
Wednesdays
through Saturdays: 12 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Sundays: 12 p.m. - 6 p.m.
499 Castro Street, San
Francisco
Admission
is $3. No charge for current members of the Historical Society.
Admission
is free the first Wednesday of every month.
Additional documents, photographs, and
ephemera of male and female impersonators - and the clubs where they performed--are in the collections of the GLBTHS.
For more information on Passionate Struggle
The Fabric of Our Lives: Lavender Scrolls, Lesbian
Quilting Project, Women's Textiles and Tees
The Fabric of
Our Lives
includes three separate but linked components. The Lavender Scrolls tell the
moving biographies, in words and photographs, of eight lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and trans-gender elders, ages 58 to 85. The Lesbian Quilting Project presents
13 quilted panels made up of lesbians' tee shirts and includes photographs of
the quilting process. Women's Textiles and Tees
features apparel selected from the Historical Society's extensive collection of tee-shirts.
Tuesdays
through Saturdays: 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.
657 Mission Street, San Francisco
Through
May 31, 2009
The
collections of the GLBTHS contain more than 35 years of tees that made
political, social, and waggish statements about our lives and times.
Polk
Street: Lives in Transition--Closing on May 27th.
Polk Street: Lives in Transition examines Polk Street's
history through the lens of current neighborhood change, focusing on the 1980s
to the present. Using personal histories, available on headphones, from twenty
stakeholders who are living through and shaping these changes, the exhibit
asks, What does it mean for San
Francisco's identity as a "safe haven"--and
for its queer sociability and politics--that Polk Street's economy and culture are
changing so dramatically?
Tuesdays
through Saturdays: 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.
657
Mission Street, San Francisco
For More Information on the Polk Exhibit
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| The GLBT Historical Society
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Research Hours:
Tuesdays - Fridays by appointment only.
Saturdays open to general public 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Museum Hours:
499 Castro Street
Wednesdays - Saturdays 12 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Sundays 12 p.m. - 6 p.m.
Admission is free the first Wednesday of every month.
657 Mission Street, Suite 300
Tuesdays - Saturdays 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.
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This Month in GLBT History
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May 1, 1970
At the Second Congress to Unite
Women in New York City,
lesbian feminists stage the Lavender Menace action to protest lesbophobia in
the women's movement, particularly in the National Organization for Women.
May
2, 1983
Poster in the
collection of the GLBTHS
Bobby
Reynolds, Gary Walsh, and Bobbi Campbell organize the first AIDS Candlelight March in San Francisco, at which PWAs
(Persons with AIDS) walk behind a banner proclaiming what will become their
motto and their cause: Fighting for Our Lives.
May 6, 1933
Nazis attack and destroy Magnus Hirschfeld's
Institute
of Sexual Research in
Berlin, then,
in a public ceremony, burn the center's priceless collection of more than
20,000 publications and 5,000 photographs.
May 7, 1915
The California State Assembly votes unanimously to outlaw
oral sex.
May
12, 1975
Thanks to the tireless efforts of
Assemblyman Willie Brown and State Senator George Moscone, California becomes the 11th state to
decriminalize same-sex acts. Governor Jerry Brown soon after signs the bill
into law.
May
17, 2004
Massachusetts becomes the first state in the U.S. to grant same-sex couples the legal
right to marry
May 21, 1979
Photograph by Ephraim Ramirez in the collection of the GLBTHS.
A San Francisco jury finds Dan White guilty of
manslaughter, not murder, in the premeditated shooting deaths of Supervisor
Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Several thousand demonstrators protest
the verdict in a march on City Hall that results in a night of rioting in the Civic Center
and the Castro.
May
25, 1976
The San Francisco Chronicle begins running Armistead
Maupin's Tales of the City, later
published in book form.
May 29, 1965
East Coast homophiles stage the
first demonstration in front of the White House to protest U.S. government
discrimination against gays and lesbians. The picketers include seven men and
three women.
Birthdays
in May
May 2, 1895: Lorenz Hart, lyricist
May 3, 1912: May Sarton, poet
May 7, 1840: Peter Tchaikovsky, composer
May 14, 1883: Julian Eltinge, actor, female impersonator
May 20, 1903: Countee Cullen, poet
May 22, 1879: Alla Naximova, actor, producer
May 22, 1930: Harvey Milk, activist, first openly gay politician in California
May 24, 1883: Elsa Maxwell, arbiter elegantiarum
May 28, 1912: Patrick White, Nobel Prize-winning novelist
May 30, 1926: Christine Jorgensen, sexual revolutionary
May 31, 1819: Walt Whitman, immortal
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