Wide-Open Town (eBook)

A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965

Nan Alamilla Boyd (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2003
333 Seiten
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-93874-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Wide-Open Town traces the history of gay men and lesbians in San Francisco from the turn of the century, when queer bars emerged in San Francisco's tourist districts, to 1965, when a raid on a drag ball changed the course of queer history. Bringing to life the striking personalities and vibrant milieu that fueled this era, Nan Alamilla Boyd examines the culture that developed around the bar scene and homophile activism. She argues that the communities forged inside bars and taverns functioned politically and, ultimately, offered practical and ideological responses to the policing of San Francisco's queer and transgender communities. Using police and court records, oral histories, tourist literature, and manuscript collections from local and state archives, Nan Alamilla Boyd explains the phenomenal growth of San Francisco as a "e;wide-open town"e;-a town where anything goes. She also relates the early history of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement that took place in San Francisco prior to 1965. Wide-Open Town argues that police persecution forged debates about rights and justice that transformed San Francisco's queer communities into the identity-based groups we see today. In its vivid re-creation of bar and drag life, its absorbing portrait of central figures in the communities, and its provocative chronicling of this period in the country's most transgressive city, Wide-Open Town offers a fascinating and lively new chapter of American queer history.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments

Introduction: San Francisco Was a Wide-Open Town
Oral History: José Sarria
1. Transgender and Gay Male Cultures from
the 1890s through the 1960s
Oral History: Reba Hudson
2. Lesbian Space, Lesbian Territory: San Francisco’s North Beach District, 1933–1954
Oral History: Joe Baron
3. Policing Queers in the 1940s and 1950s: Harassment, Prosecution, and the Legal Defense of Gay Bars
Oral History: Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon
4. "A Queer Ladder of Social Mobility": San Francisco’s Homophile Movements, 1953–1960
Oral History: George Mendenhall
5. Queer Cooperation and Resistance: A Gay and Lesbian Movement Comes Together in the 1960s
Conclusion: Marketing a Queer San Francisco

Appendix A: Map of North Beach Queer Bars and Restaurants, 1933–1965
Appendix B: List of Interviewees
Notes
Index
Plates follow page

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.5.2003
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies
• Schlagworte: 20th century • America • American History • bar scene • California • Civil Rights • civil rights activists • court records • gay and lesbian • gay culture • historians • homophiles • Homosexuality • Ideological • LGBTQ • Nonfiction • oral histories • Political activism • queer bars • Queer Communities • queer history • Queer Studies • regional history • San Francisco • Social Identity • Social Justice • Social Science • tourist districts • transgender community • Transgressive • Turn of the Century • United States
• ISBN-10: 0-520-93874-7 / 0520938747
• ISBN-13: 978-0-520-93874-8 / 9780520938748