Museum 2.0: New Audio Tour Gives Visitors
Untold Stories, New Insights From Curators
The GLBT History Museum has launched a dynamic new tool to help visitors discover the history of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender life in San Francisco: Anyone with a cell phone or smartphone can listen to a digital audio tour. Museum-goers can hear exhibition curators provide new insights and tell deeper stories; also included are historic clips and recollections from community members.
"The audio tour takes you beyond what you learn from the texts and labels in the display cases," notes Don Romesburg, one of the curators of "Our Vast Queer Past," the museum's main gallery show. "The tour explores why we chose certain themes and what we find most compelling. Sometimes it's a closer look at one object, telling its backstory or highlighting details you might otherwise miss. Other times, we point out bigger issues a case raises.
"Even if you've already visited the museum, you should check out the audio tour," Romesburg adds. "It's like having the curators personally guide you through a whole new perspective. Even better, you can hang up and move to another part whenever you like."
Funding for the digital phone service that supports the tour for 2012 was provided by museum volunteer Daniel Morvant through a grant from his employer, Wells Fargo. Multimedia producer John Raines donated his recording and editing skills to give the tour a fully professional polish.
The audio tour is divided into some 25 separate one-minute sections, and visitors can listen to any or all of them by entering the appropriate section number into their cell phones or smartphones. The tour is free with the price of admission to the museum (customary phone charges apply).
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News Roundup: Celebrating Harvey Milk, New Postcards Available, Online Store Now Open
The arrival of spring is bringing a surge of energy and activity to The GLBT History Museum. Here are just a few of the latest developments:
Harvey Milk Day. May 22 is the annual "day of significance" declared by the State of California to celebrate the memory of Harvey Milk, who was the state's first openly gay elected official. The museum will offer free admission to all visitors on that day.
New Postcards. The museum store is now offering postcards reproducing images by each of the five photographers in the critically acclaimed new exhibition "Life and Death in Black and White: AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco, 1985-1990." The exhibition runs through July 1 in the Front Gallery of the museum.
Online Store. Looking for that perfect gift for the history buff in your life? Searching for the ideal mug to tastefully signal "Hey, I'm queer" at the office? Ready to buy a smart homo t-shirt for yourself -- or even an LGBT-friendly apron for that backyard barbecue? The GLBT History Museum's new online store offers it all. To start shopping, click here.
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Authors to Discuss, Sign New Books: Queer
Perspectives Via Biography, Memoir, Essays
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Queer Compulsions: Race, Nation and
Sexuality in the Affairs of Yone Noguchi
Wednesday, May 2 | 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
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 Amy Sueyoshi presents her new book, Queer Compulsions: Race, Nation and Sexuality in the Affairs of Yone Noguchi, tracing the astonishing life of Japanese writer Yone Noguchi (1875-1947), who carried on an affair with San Francisco novelist Charles Warren Stoddard at the same time that he was fathering a child with an American woman while promising marriage to another woman in Japan and two in the United States. Sueyoshi is an associate professor of race and resistance studies and sexuality studies at San Francisco State University and is co-curator of "Our Vast Queer Past," on display in the main gallery at The GLBT History Museum. A book signing will follow her presentation; copies of the book will be available for purchase. Admission: $5.00 (suggested donation).
Riding Fury Home: A Memoir Tuesday, May 8 | 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. x  Chana Wilson discusses and reads from Riding Fury Home, her new memoir of her lesbian mother, the persecution her mother faced in the 1950s and 1960s, and her own and her mother's coming out in the 1970s.
According to the publisher, Seal Press, "In 1958, when Chana Wilson was seven, her mother held a rifle to her own head and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed and she was taken away to a mental hospital. It would be many years before she [Chana] learned the secret of her mother's anguish: her love affair with another married woman, and the psychiatric treatment aimed at curing her of her lesbianism. Riding Fury Home spans 40 years of the intense, complex relationship between Chana and her mother-the trauma of their early years together, the transformation and joy they found when they both came out in the 1970s." Wilson is a psychotherapist and a former radio producer and television engineer. She lives with her wife in Oakland, California. Admission: $5.00 (suggested donation). Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader Thursday, June 7 | 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. x  Gayle S. Rubin discusses her collection of groundbreaking essays, Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader, recently released by Duke University Press. A pioneering theorist and activist, Rubin first rose to prominence in 1975 with the "The Traffic in Women," an essay that galvanized feminist thinking. In another landmark piece, "Thinking Sex," she examined how certain sexual behaviors are constructed as moral or natural and others as unnatural. That essay became one of queer theory's foundational texts. Along with such canonical work, Deviations features insightful writing on lesbian history, the feminist sex wars, the politics of sadomasochism, crusades against prostitution and pornography, and the historical development of sexual knowledge. Rubin's talk at the museum will focus in particular on her long involvement in queer public history in San Francisco and on the importance of LGBT archives. Rubin is associate professor of anthropology, women's studies and comparative literature at the University of Michigan and is a founding member of the GLBT Historical Society. |
EXHIBITIONS & PROGRAMS
GLBT History Museum
Location: 4127 18th St., San Francisco, CA 94114
Phone: 415-621-1107
Website: www.glbthistorymuseum.org
Admission: $5.00 general; $3.00 with California student ID. Free for members. Free for all visitors on the first Wednesday of each month (courtesy of the Bob Ross Foundation).
Hours:
Mondays: 11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Tuesdays: Closed
Wednesdays - Saturdays: 11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Sundays: Noon - 5:00 p.m.
NOTE: For the spring-summer season starting May 15, the museum also will be open Tuesdays, 11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
ARCHIVES & READING ROOM
GLBT Historical Society
Location: 657 Mission St., Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94105
Phone: 415-777-5455, ext. 3#
Website: www.glbthistory.org
Research Hours (by appointment)
Members: Wednesdays - Fridays: 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Nonmembers: Fridays: 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
First & Third Saturdays: 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
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MUSEUM EVENTS
May 2
7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Author Discussion Queer Compulsions:
Race, Nation and
Sexuality in the Affairs
of Yone Noguchi
May 8
7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Author Discussion Riding Fury Home:
A Memoir
Author Discussion
Deviations:
A Gayle Rubin Reader
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June 8 - 10 Queer Women of Color Film Festival Novellus Theater
Yerba Buena Center
700 Howard St.
San Francisco
Cosponsored by the
GLBT Historical Society,
the Queer Women of
Color Film Festival will feature a screening and discussion exploring California's ban on
marriage equality, Latin American documentaries and 39 new short films.
The organizers note that
the festival "rips the
veil off societal expectations, elopes with your heart and solemnly vows undying delight!"
For more information,
click here. |
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The GLBT History
Museum displays a
wealth of material
from San Francisco's
vast queer past.
Tuesday, May 22, is the anniversary of the birth
of Harvey Milk -- and is observed as Harvey
Milk Day in California.
To honor the occasion,
the screen in the Main Gallery will feature rare video clips of Milk from
the Daniel A. Smith/
Queer Blue Light Collection in the archives of the GLBT Historical Society.
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The GLBT Historical Society is home to one
of the world's largest
gay, lesbian, bisexual
and transgender
archival collections.
May 27 marks the 75th anniversary of the
opening of the Golden
Gate Bridge. The iconic landmark has always
been a favorite with shutterbugs -- including physique photographers who thought it was just
the thing to put behind a male nude. The archives offers numerous
examples, including this May 1971 issue of Vector, the monthly magazine of San Francisco's Society
For Individual Rights.
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Docent-led tours
of the GLBT HIstory Museum are available
by appointment for
groups of 10 or more people. For more information, contact
Aimee Forster, museum operations manager, at
aimee@glbthistory.org.
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For in-depth
information on the
GLBT Historical Society
and the GLBT History Museum, visit
our website.
For updates on the
museum and archives, follow us on Facebook.
For a look at what we're discovering in our
archival collections,
read our archives blog:
HIdden From History.
For an overview of
the goals and history of
the museum and
archives, see our entry
on Wikipedia.
For an array of GLBT videos from our archives and programs, see
our YouTube channel.
Copyright © 2012
GLBT Historical Society
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